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The son of migrant workers, Adán Hernández was born in Childress, Texas on October 15, 1951. Hernández, who has been actively painting the past two decades, has had his work exhibited in museums in the United States and Mexico. In 1991, his work caught the attention of film director Taylor Hackford (La Bamba, Devil's Advocate), who signed him up to create more than 30 original paintings, drawings, and a mural, and to star in a cameo role for the 1993 epic barrio cult-classic, Blood In…Blood Out. 

Hernández's work merges neo-expressionism with "Chicano noir". The aesthetics in his art evoke emotions of alienation, uncertainty, desperation, and loss, which dominate the Chicano experience. In describing his work, Hernández says, ''the high drama and highly charged content in my work reflects the day-to-day epic struggle of life in the barrio. Here, the challenge to overcome overwhelming adversity, which we celebrate in films, is a common occurrence. 

Chicano Artist Adan Hernandez has a dream, he wants to make life better for as many people as possible that need help, starting in his own barrio. He dreams of bringing prosperity to his community by opening a gallery, providing a welcoming space to hold art gatherings and for people to come view the accomplishments of Chicano artists; to be inspired by them, encouraging the Chicano Fine Arts Movement to both barrio youths and to the world.

Adan’s art has already moved many, it was a crucial component to the 1993 released film – Blood In Blood Out – that follows the intertwining lives of three Chicano relatives from 1972 to 1984. Adan created the works for actor Jesse Borrego’s artist character, Cruz Candelaria. The iconic film has become important to the Mexican-American world, it was the first feature film to showcase Chicano art. Two of Adan’s works are a part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection. He also volunteers at schools talking to kids about growing up in the barrio and its culture, art and empowering them to create their own.

Adan Hernandez / Artistry / Art in America / Works

You can help Adan to achieve this very worthwhile dream by donating to his fund.me campaign. If you donate $50 or more you can get a signed print of an artwork from Blood In Blood Out (one of my all-time favourite movies might I add!). The gallery – El Otro Ojo – Arte Atomico – will also be a home for the film’s art including the iconic mural in the films climatic closing scene. 

The Chicano Civil Rights Movement, Blood In Blood Out (he didn’t like it when he first saw it!), inspiration from Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, of the support from his friend and a collector of his art actor Cheech Marin [half of comedy duo Cheech & Chong], plus the racism they faced from art galleries across the U.S. to put on a travelling exhibition of Chicano artists and so much more.

Adan Hernandez is one of the seminal figures in San Antonio's Chicano art movement, which began to get attention in the 1970s. His parents were migrant cotton pickers. The family eventually settled in San Antonio, where Hernandez became interested in drawing. It wasn't until he saw a painting show by Jesse Treviño in 1980 that it occurred to him that he could be a serious artist, and his big break came when film director Taylor Hackford chose 30 of Hernandez's paintings for his 1993 crime-drama Blood In, Blood Out.

In addition to his large body of work that occupies both public and private collections (including Cheech Marin's definitive Chicano art collection), Hernandez also published the novel Los Vryosos: A Tale from the Varrio and is currently working on an ambitious project to bring a Chicano art museum to San Antonio.

What was your first art experience? Was there a moment when you knew you wanted to be an artist?

I didn't know I could be or make a living as an artist until I was 30 years old. I would come home from work and paint the walls with trivial art, and I was evicted a few times for doing this. I didn't realize my potential until Jesse Treviño had an art show downtown. That's when my girlfriend (and later my wife) Debi Fischer convinced me to quit my job and focus on being a serious artist. If not for her, I never would have been an artist.

How would you describe your work to someone who's never seen it?

I would say my artwork is sacred to me and mi gente because it comes from a people who have suffered brutal hardships. That this art has been pummeled to the ground in hopes that it would just go away by a racist regime, which is our institutions. This art stands for something significant in the American experience.

Where do you think the state of Chicano art is today?

I think Chicano art today is, like most Mexican-Americans, still clawing to exist. There are, however, glimpses of hope here and there. To be a working artist is hard enough, and to be a Chicano artist is highly hopeless. Although there are pockets of collectors who have kept me, and others like me, in the art scene.

What was it like growing up as a Latino in San Antonio in the 1960s?

Growing up as a Chicano on the West Side of San Antonio was an incredible experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. In the '60s, it was a hard time to make a living. My parents had eight kids, and I worked in the fields every summer just to put food on the table and have clothes for school. In spite of that, we had so much fun and laughed so hard. Chicano culture on the West Side was like barrio theater, with the way we handled hardship with humor and friendship.

Were there artists you looked up to?

My peers wouldn't even talk to me. Only after I gained national recognition when the [Metropolitan Museum of Art] bought two of my pieces for their permanent collection, and after my paintings were featured in a movie, did I gain some grudging respect. As far as influential art, I loved Jesse Treviño's art, which was about my barrio, and César Chávez, whose art I really admired. In Los Angeles, I was influenced by the late Carlos Almaraz ... César Martínez, who has lived next door to me since 1986, has become like a brother to me, and I think his work is incredible.

If someone were to ask you about the content behind Chicano art, what would you say?

I prefer to call myself a Chicano artist because I come from a time when we were slave labor. My parents and grandparents knew nothing else. It was the Chicano Civil Rights movement that allowed us to realize our dreams. We came out of the fields and into the classroom and became empowered. Most Mexican-American youths don't know about our struggle. They think their rights were given to them by a caring America. We are also grateful for white people like Robert and Ethel Kennedy, who came to our struggle. Nobody seems to care about our struggle, even though there was plenty of violence against our leaders. Our rallying cry was, "Adelante con la causa! La gente primero! Y que viva la raza!"

What's your best advice to young artists?

My advice to young artists is that if you are not obsessed with art, viewing or creating it, find other ventures. Art demands everything from you if it is to be worth viewing. And if you are that person who is devoted, remember that every age has its great truths, and it is up to artists and authors to reveal them to the world.

Why do you think artists and musicians never seem to find appreciation where they live?

In 1980, local Chicano artist Jesse Treviño took the city by storm. Never had this town seen such incredible Chicano art. He influenced me greatly, and 10 years later I got a break when my work was discovered by Hollywood, and I was hired to create 30 paintings for Taylor Hackford's cult classic Blood In, Blood Out. Local actor Jesse Borrego played the Chicano artist in the film. It took Hollywood for my work to be accepted, in a film that crashed cultural barriers internationally. And most of that had to do with my art in the film. Viva Chicano art!

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Artist Adán Hernandez‘s work was collected by Hollywood celebs, including the likes of Cheech Marin and the one and only Helen Mirren. Still, most recognized his artwork more likely from the paintings he created for the 1993 movie “Blood In Blood Out“. Before “Blood In Blood Out,” Hernandez was a down on his luck artist. After the film came out, the monetary value of his work jumped, & 2 of his paintings were first bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for its collection. One of his art pieces from the film is in the San Antonio Museum of Art collection.“All my dreams came true in an avalanche,” he mentioned in the interview with video producer Dan Segovia submitted last year to Chased By Hounds, a Facebook fan page dedicated to the movie. Marin published a picture of the 2 of them on Instagram Monday, writing, “There is no purer voice from the barrio than Adán Hernandez. He was the artistic soul of Chicano noir.” Some of Hernandez’s work was included in”Chicano Visions,” a touring exhibition drawn from Marin’s collection that started at the San Antonio Museum of Art in 2002. As news of the artist’s death reached Hollywood, his family received condolence calls from some people who worked on “Blood In Blood Out,” his brother Armando mentioned, including director Taylor Hackford & costar Benjamin Bratt.

The 1993 film follows three youthful gang members in East Los Angeles whose lives abide by divergent paths as adults– one goes to prison (Damian Chapa), one becomes a cop (Bratt) & one becomes an artist (Jesse Borrego).HERNANDEZ WAS HIRED FOR THE JOB AFTER A PRODUCTION DESIGNER HAPPENED TO SEE SOME OF HIS WORK IN A SAN ANTONIO GALLERY WINDOW.

Originally, the team had considered shooting the film at this said gallery. Hackford asked Hernandez to make more than thirty paintings ascribed to Borrego’s character. He regularly made a painting a day to fulfill the tight deadline. In an interview, he recalled that he was working so fast & so long that his hands were cramped and his vision was impaired. In addition to providing the paintings for the movie, ” he appeared in a small scene. And then he taught Borrego how to mix paint & how to hold a paintbrush. Borrego, a fellow San Antonian, also used a great deal of time in Hernandez’s studio, watching him work & folding details from these hours Into his performance. They became intimate friends. And they had expected to one day open up a Chicano art museum on the West Side. Borrego, to this day, expects to make that happen, with pieces by Hernandez as a centerpiece.

“But it’s going to be sad, looking at all types of his work that’s going to be past work, not the stuff he still wanted to paint,” he mentioned. “His work will live on after him, & I think it’s going to be remarkable for art history one day. Independent curator Joseph Bravo, which was well-acquainted with Hernandez for more than 20 years, sees the late artist as one among the biggies of all Chicano art, putting him on the same degree as Mel Casas, Jesse Treviño, and César Martínez.

The movie is what catapulted him into that tier, Bravo stated.

“Those paintings were tremendously important in the Chicano imagination because where were you going to see paintings in the barrio? There were no museums, no retail art galleries,” he mentioned.

The film relayed the message that being an artist is a possibility for Latinos, ” he mentioned. And Hernandez’s paintings for the film captured optimistic images.

“Yes, they dressed the way they dressed; they looked like cholos,” Bravo stated. “But he humanized them, and they weren’t simply caricatures any longer.”

Later, Hernandez’s work shifted to Chicano noir, darker, heavier, more disturbing paintings. In a similar vein, he also composed and illustrated”Los Vryosos: A Tale From the Varrio,” a crime novel published in 2006. César Martinez, who resided right next door to Hernandez, stated he was intrigued with his work the 1st time he saw it, and the two artists broke a friendship.“Like me, he tended to be very private & needed privacy to do his work, but was affable in-person & very easy to hang out with,” Martínez stated via email. “His passing leaves a void.”

Hernandez used the earlier years of his life in Robstown, by which he & his family worked in the cotton fields. When he was 9, they proceeded to San Antonio’s West Side. He discovered an affinity for art at Edgewood High School and studied at San Antonio School for a while. However, he was put off with the emphasis on classical Greco-Roman forms — he didn’t see much of a link in the middle of that and the Chicano experiences that he wanted to capture in his work — so he fell out. After that, he was largely self-taught. “My brother & I grew up idolizing 3 San Antonio artists as kids: César Martínez, Jesse Treviño, & Adán Hernandez, the holy trinity of San Anto Art in the 1980s & early’90s,” Rigoberto Luna, an artist & curator of both Presa House Gallery, composed in an email. “I was lucky to meet Adán through the late Manuel Castillo. My brother and my first art gallery show were at Adán’s gallery El Otro Ojo. He was an original, an innovator, & a torchbearer for Chicano art.”

Painter Gerardo Quetzatl Garcia remembered introducing himself as a teen to Hernandez, worried about meeting the artist who had made the “Blood In Blood Out” paintings. “Never one to belittle or condescend, his huge skill seemed to have a small influence on how he treated others, and I feel that’s one of the many things that will be missed by his passing,” Garcia stated. Hernandez inspired Eddie Salinas, his second cousin, to go after a music career.

“He was an amazing artist and activist for the Chicano culture, & he’s influenced thousands, if not millions of Latino artists, myself being living proof that his art and stance in the culture has inspired many to strive for life outside of the barrios that a lot of us struggle to get out of,” Salinas stated.

“He opened the door & showed that it’s possible to pursue passions, especially within the art realm.” And then he was all the time game to talk about “Blood In Blood Out.” When Segovia reached out to him via Facebook about five years ago and asked if he can interview him about the movie, Hernandez responded right away, inviting him to film their chat in his studio. “That isn’t an uncommon story,” Segovia mentioned. “If you talk to almost anyone who was a big fan of his work, he extended an invite. That’s the kind of male he was. He was very open to the community, very willing to share his story.” Segovia stated many opinions on the “Chased By Hounds” page have to do with Hernandez’s work. “It’s wild to see others tattooing his art on their body,” he mentioned. “That’s what those images mean to people.” As important as the film is to many, including Borrego, Hernandez’s influence goes beyond it, the actor stated. “His work is very remarkable & prolific beyond the cult status of ‘Blood In Blood Out,”’ he stated. “We lost a good one.” He is survived by his kids, Adam Hernandez, James Hernandez, Cory Hernandez, Italia Lane and Clayton Hernandez, & from his siblings, Gloria Treviño, Robert Hernandez, David Hernandez, Ruben Hernandez, Armando Hernandez & Bert Hernandez

Chicano Arts in World / American & Spanish ( Chicano Movement ) /  History / Society & Mexico / North America / Creativity / America Works / Arts /  Comprehensive Portrayal

The Chicano art movement refers to the ground-breaking Mexican-American art movement in which artists developed an artistic identity, heavily influenced by the Chicano movement of the 1960s. Chicano artists aimed to form their own collective identity in the art world, an identity that promoted pride, affirmation, and a rejection of racial stereotypes. The most well-known and famous Chicano artists include Carlos Almaraz, Chaz Bojórquez, Richard Duardo, Yreina Cervántez, and Magú. Chicano artists developed their works to exist as a form of a community-based representation of life in the barrio, but it also acted as a form of activism for social issues faced by Latin-American people in the United States.

The Chicano art movement began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, alongside the growth of the Chicano movement, or El Movimiento, and was created and defined by Mexican people, or people of Mexican descent living in the United States. The term “Chicano” is used interchangeably with “Mexican-American”, emerging from the youth who rejected assimilation to the Euro-Centric American culture. The term was widely used in the 1960s and 1970s and became associated with indigenous pride, culture affirmation, ethnic solidarity, and political empowerment. The Chicano art movement involved Chicano artists forming and establishing a specific and unique artistic identity, that diverted from the mainstream United States art forms. As the movement was meant to represent a rejection of the White-American culture and its forms of art, the Chicano movement aimed to form and develop a collective identity that distinguished itself as Mexican-American. Chicano muralists and Chicano painters drew their inspiration from Mexican murals and Pre-Columbian Art. Pre-Columbian art refers to works made by the Aztec, Inca, Mayan, and Native Mexican people.

These communities, all native to Latin America or South America, were heavily disrupted by the colonization by the Spanish conquistadors. The Chicano movement, and by extension, the Chicano art movement aimed to reject the dominant White American culture, which their ancestors were unable to do when the Spanish invaded. Chicano artists developed their work as an expression of their experiences and culture. Often, Chicano art drawings feature the subject of “rasquachismo”, which refers to the Spanish word, “rasquache”, which means “poor”. Rasquachismo refers to the cultural attitude to always be hard-working and resourceful, getting by with the few resources they tend to have in a society dominated by wealthy White Americans. In other words, the Chicano art movement was meant to be a form of protest, with the artwork often being very direct and vibrant. Chicano mural paintings not only promoted community in their subject matter but often involved community members in their creation; discussing and formulating what they wanted to depict based on their cultural history and struggles. These murals were often painted by self-taught artists, which again shows the movement’s value for resourcefulness. These murals were usually painted on public walls, where entire communities would be able to see by walking or driving by. The public nature of this art form emphasized histories that were often overshadowed by the White-American narrative, which tended to present historical events in a pro-European light. This public nature allowed for audiences to be politicized and mobilized without expecting them to go into an art gallery or museum. Besides murals, Chicano artists also used silkscreen creations, which allowed for the production of posters and printed images, that could be distributed in large numbers, spreading the political and social aspect of the Chicano movement. The subject matter of Chicano art commonly features imagery relating to issues of immigration and displacement, issues that the Latin communities of the United States often dealt with. Mexicans often struggle with immigration to the United States and native Mexicans and South Americans were being displaced by Spanish and Portuguese colonization.

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The Chicano Art Movement represents groundbreaking movements by Mexican-American artists to establish a unique artistic identity in the United States. Much of the art and the artists creating Chicano Art were heavily influenced by Chicano Movement (El Movimiento) which began in the 1960s.

Chicano art was influenced by post-Mexican Revolution ideologies, pre-Columbian art, European painting techniques and Mexican-American social, political and cultural issues.[1] The movement worked to resist and challenge dominant social norms and stereotypes for cultural autonomy and self-determination. Some issues the movement focused on were awareness of collective history and culture, restoration of land grants, and equal opportunity for social mobility. Women used ideologies from the feminist movement to highlight the struggles of women within the Chicano art movement.

Throughout the movement and beyond, Chicanos have used art to express their cultural values, as protest or for aesthetic value. The art has evolved over time to not only illustrate current struggles and social issues, but also to continue to inform Chicano youth and unify around their culture and histories. Chicano art is not just Mexican-American artwork: it is a public forum that emphasizes otherwise "invisible" histories and people in a unique form of American

Beginning in the early 1960s, the Chicano Movement, was a sociopolitical movement by Mexican-Americans organizing into a unified voice to create change for their people. The Chicano Movement was focused on a fight for civil and political rights of its people, and sought to bring attention to their struggles for equality across southwest America and expand throughout the United States.[3] The Chicano movement was concerned with addressing police brutality, civil rights violations, lack of social services for Mexican-Americans, the Vietnam War, educational issues and other social issues.[3]

The Chicano Movement included all Mexican-Americans of every age, which provided for a minority civil rights movement that would not only represent generational concerns, but sought to use symbols that embodied their past and ongoing struggles. Young artists formed collectives, like Asco in Los Angeles during the 1970s, which was made up of students who were just out of high school.[4]

The Chicano movement was based around the community, an effort to unify the group and keep their community central to social progression, so they too could follow in the foot steps of others and achieve equality. From the beginning Chicanos have struggled to affirm their place in American society through their fight for communal land grants given to them by the Mexican government were not being honored by the U.S. government after the U.S. acquired the land from Mexico. The solidification of the Chicano/a struggles for equality into the Chicano Movement came post World War II, when discrimination towards returning Mexican-American servicemen was being questioned, for the most part these were usually instances of racial segregation/discrimination that spanned from simple dining issues to the burial rights of returning deceased servicemen.

The formation of the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), co-founded by César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, and Gil Padilla, sought to unionize Mexican-American labor forces to fight for improved wages/working conditions through such forms as strikes, marches, and boycotts was a notable spike in the national awareness of El Movimiento.[3] Using symbols, such as the black eagle and creating unique poster and union art, helped raise awareness of the social issues NFWA faced, even while the workers themselves were largely invisible.[2]

Aztlán is also another consistent symbol used by the Chicano Movement, the term unified the Mexican Americans under a term of inheritance of land and culture. Along with this common rhetoric of land claims and civil rights, an alternative to the peaceful protesting of César Chávez, Reies Lopez Tijerina attempted to resolve the issues of communal land grants in New Mexico through the creation of Alianza Federal de Mercedes and eventually resulting in attempts to secede from the Union and form their own territory, Republic of Chama.

The union then brought in thousands more lettuce and vegetable pickers in the Salinas Chicano Movement art developed out of necessity for a visual representation of the self perceived sociopolitical injustice that the movement was seeking out to change. As in any movement there is a need for signage that brings awareness to the issues at hand, starting with murals. Murals represented the main form of activism in Mexico prior to the Chicano Movement taking place in the United States. The murals depicted the lives of native Mexicans and their struggles against the oppression of the United States, as well as, native problems to Mexico's poverty and farming industry. Many of the images and symbols embodied in these classic Mexican graffiti murals were later adopted by the Chicano Movement to reaffirm and unify their collective under a specific light of activism.

Chicano art as activism

“El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán understood art as a vehicle of the movement and of revolutionary culture”.[5] Although the Chicano movement dissolved, Chicano art continued as an activist endeavor, challenging the social constructions of racial/ethnic discrimination, citizenship and nationality, labor exploitation, and traditional gender roles in effort to create social change. As Fields further explains, “Linked to its constitutive phased with the Chicano movement, or Movimiento, of the 1960s and 1970s, Chicano/a art articulated and mirrored a broad range of themes that had social and political significance, particularly with respect to cultural affirmation”.[6] Activism often took form in representing alternative narratives to the dominant through the development of historical consciousness, illustrations of injustices and indignities faced by Mexican-American communities, and development of a sense of belonging of Chicanos within the United States. Chicano art in its activist endeavors has become a form of popular education, of the people and by the people, in its ability to create a dialogue about these issues while empowering Chicanos to construct their own solutions.

Geography, immigration and displacement are a common themes in Chicano art.[7] Taking an activist approach, artists illustrate the historical presence of Mexicans and indigenous peoples in the Southwest, human rights abuses of undocumented immigrants, racial profiling, and the militarization of the border. “Many Chicano artists have focused on the dangers of the border, often using barbed wire as a direct metaphorical representation of the painful and contradictory experiences of Chicanos caught between two cultures”.[8] Art provides a venue to challenge these xenophobic stereotypes about Mexican-Americans and bring awareness to our broken immigration law and enforcement system, while simultaneously politicizing and mobilizing its audience to take action. Another common theme is the labor exploitation in agricultural, domestic work, and service industry jobs, particularly of the undocumented. Drawing from the Chicano movement, activists sought art as a tool to support social justice campaigns and voice realities of dangerous working conditions, lack of worker's rights, truths about their role in the U.S. job market, and the exploitation of undocumented workers. Using the United Farm Workers campaign as a guideline, Chicano artists put stronger emphasis on working-class struggles as both a labor and civil rights issue for many Chicanos and recognized the importance of developing strong symbols that represented the movement's efforts, such as the eagle flag of the UFW, now a prominent symbol of La Raza.[9] Often through the distribution of silk-screen posters, made on large scales, artists are able to politicize their community and make a call to mobilize in effort to stop immigration raids in the workplace and boycott exploitative and oppressive corporations, while exemplifying dignity and visibility to an often invisible working population.

The Chicano People's Park (Chicano Park) in San Diego highlights the importance of activism to Chicano art. For many years, Barrio Logan Heights petitioned for a park to be built in their community, but were ignored.[10] In the early 1960s, the city instead tore down large sections of the barrio to construct an intersection for the Interstate 5 freeway and on-ramp for the Coronado Bridge which bisected their community and displaced 5000 residents.[10] In response, “on April 22, 1970, the community mobilized by occupying the land under the bridge and forming human chains to halt the bulldozers” who were working to turn the area into a parking lot. The park was occupied for twelve days, during which people worked the land, planting flowers and trees and artists, like Victor Ochoa, helped paint murals on the concrete walls.[10] Now this park is full of murals and most of them refer to the history of the Chicanos. Some of them include Cesar Chavez, La Virgen de Guadalupe and many others.[11] Residents raised the Chicano flag on a nearby telephone pole and began to work the land themselves, planting flowers and “re-creating and re-imagining dominant urban space as community-enabling place”.[12] After extensive negotiations, the city finally agreed to the development of a community park in their reclamation of their territory.[10] From here, Salvador Torres, a key activist for the Chicano Park, developed the Chicano Park Monumental Mural Program, encouraging community members and artists to paint murals on the underpass of the bridge, transforming the space blight to beauty and community empowerment. The imagery of the murals articulated their cultural and historical identities through their connections to their indigenous Aztec heritage, religious icons, revolutionary leaders, and current life in the barrios and the fields. Some iconography included Quetzalcoatl, Emiliano Zapata, Coatlicue (Aztec Goddess of Earth), undocumented workers, La Virgen de Guadalupe, community members occupying the park, and low-riders.[13] As Berelowitz further explains, “the battle for Chicano Park was a struggle for territory, for representation, for the constitution of an expressive ideological-aesthetic language, for the recreation of a mythic homeland, for a space in which Chicano citizens of this border zone could articulate their experience and their self-understanding”.[12] The significance of the repossession of their territory through the Chicano People's Park is intimately connected to their community's experience, identity, and sense of belonging.

As expressed through the Chicano Peoples’ Park, community-orientation and foundation is another essential element to Chicano art. Murals created by Chicano artists reclaim public spaces, encourage community participation, and aid in neighborhood development and beautification. “In communities of Mexican descent within the United States, the shared social space has often been a public space. Many families have been forced to live their private lives in public because of the lack of adequate housing and recreational areas”.[15] Community-based art has developed into two major mediums – muralism and cultural art centers. Chicano art has drawn much influence from prominent muralists from the Mexican Renaissance, such as Diego Rivera and José Orozco.[16] Chicano art was also influenced by pre-Columbian art, where history and rituals were encoded on the walls of pyramids.[16] Even so, it has distinguished itself from Mexican muralism by keeping production by and for members of the Chicano community, representing alternative histories on the walls of the barrios and other public spaces, rather than sponsorship from the government to be painted in museums or government buildings. In addition, Chicano mural art is not an exhibition of only one person's art, but rather a collaboration among multiple artists and community members, giving the entire community ownership of mural. Its significance lies in its accessibility and inclusivity, painted in public spaces as a form of cultural affirmation and popular education of alternative histories and structural inequalities.[17] The community decides the meaning and content of the work. “In an effort to ensure that the imagery and content accurately reflected the community, Chicano artists often entered into dialogue with community members about their culture and social conditions before developing a concept – even when the mural was to be located in the muralist’s own barrio”.[18] Accessibility not only addresses public availability to the community, but also includes meaningful content, always speaking to the Chicano experience.

Pinches Rinches Series by Natalia Anciso, as seen from Galeria de la Raza's Studio 24, on the corner of 24th and Bryant in the Mission District of San Francisco.

Cultural art centers are another example of community-based Chicano art, developed during the Chicano Movement out of need for alternative structures that support artistic creation, bring the community together, and disseminate information and education about Chicano art. These centers are a valuable tool that encourages community gatherings as a way to share culture, but also to meet, organize and dialogue about happenings in the local Chicano community and society as a whole. “In order to combat this lack of voice, activists decided it was essential to establish cultural, political, and economic control of their communities”.[19] To again ensure accessibility and relevance, cultural art centers were located in their immediate community. These spaces provided Chicanos with an opportunity to reclaim control over how their culture and history is portrayed and interpreted by society as a whole. As Jackson explains, these centers “did not take the public museum as their guide; not only did they lack the money and trained staff, they focused on those subjects denied by the public museum’s homogenized narrative and history of the United States”. An example of a prominent cultural art center is Self-Help Graphics and Art Inc., a hub for silkscreen printmaking, an exhibition location, and space for various types of civic engagement. Beginning in the 1970s, their goal to foster “Chicanismo” by educating, training and empowering young adults has continued to the present day.[21] Self-Help Graphics offered apprenticeship opportunities, work alongside an experienced silkscreen printer, or ‘master printer,’ to develop their own limited-edition silkscreen print. The center also maintained efforts to support the local community by allowing artists to exhibit their own prints and sell them to support themselves financially.[22] As common to successful cultural art centers, Self-Help Graphics supported the development of Chicano art, encouraged community development, and provided an opportunity for empowerment for the Chicano peoples.Other community-based efforts include projects for youth, such as the Diamond Neighborhood murals where Victor Ochoa and Roque Barros helped teach youth to paint in an area that had once been overwhelmed with graffiti. About 150 teenagers attended daily art classes taught by Ochoa and graffiti declined significantly.  

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Protokollierung / Historically Paintings & Drawings from Japanese Art  Illustrated / Include a Volcano Image / Protokoll / 15.11.2022 AD

Japanese Art

Japanese art covers a wide range of art styles and media, including ancient pottery, sculpture, ink painting and calligraphy on silk and paper, ukiyo-e paintings and woodblock prints, ceramics, origami, and more recently manga and anime. It has a long history, ranging from the beginnings of human habitation in Japan, sometime in the 10th millennium BC, to the present-day country.

Japan has been subject to sudden invasions of new ideas followed by long periods of minimal contact with the outside world. Over time the Japanese developed the ability to absorb, imitate, and finally assimilate those elements of foreign culture that complemented their aesthetic preferences. The earliest complex art in Japan was produced in the 7th and 8th centuries in connection with Buddhism. In the 9th century, as the Japanese began to turn away from China and develop indigenous forms of expression, the secular arts became increasingly important; until the late 15th century, both religious and secular arts flourished. After the Ōnin War (1467–1477), Japan entered a period of political, social, and economic disruption that lasted for over a century. In the state that emerged under the leadership of the Tokugawa shogunate, organized religion played a much less important role in people's lives, and the arts that survived were primarily secular. The Meiji Period (1868-1912) saw an abrupt influx of Western styles, which have continued to be important.

Painting is the preferred artistic expression in Japan, practiced by amateurs and professionals alike. Until modern times, the Japanese wrote with a brush rather than a pen, and their familiarity with brush techniques has made them particularly sensitive to the values and aesthetics of painting. With the rise of popular culture in the Edo period, a style of woodblock prints became a major form and its techniques were fine-tuned to produce colorful prints. The Japanese, in this period, found sculpture a much less sympathetic medium for artistic expression; most large Japanese sculpture is associated with religion, and the medium's use declined with the lessening importance of traditional Buddhism.

Japanese pottery is among the finest in the world[citation needed] and includes the earliest known Japanese artifacts; Japanese export porcelain has been a major industry at various points. Japanese lacquerware is also one of the world's leading arts and crafts, and works gorgeously decorated with maki-e were exported to Europe and China, remaining important exports until the 19th century.[1][2] In architecture, Japanese preferences for natural materials and an interaction of interior and exterior space are clearly expressed.

History of Japanese art

Jōmon art

The first settlers of Japan were the Jōmon people (c. 10,500 – c. 300 BCE),[3] named for the cord markings that decorated the surfaces of their clay vessels, were nomadic hunter-gatherers who later practiced organized farming and built cities with populations of hundreds if not thousands. They built simple houses of wood and thatch set into shallow earthen pits to provide warmth from the soil. They crafted lavishly decorated pottery storage vessels, clay figurines called dogū, and crystal jewels.

Early Jōmon period

During the Early Jōmon period (5000-2500 BCE),[3] villages started to be discovered and ordinary everyday objects were found such as ceramic pots purposed for boiling water. The pots that were found during this time had flat bottoms and had elaborate designs made out of materials such as bamboo. In addition, another important find was the early Jōmon figurines which might have been used as fertility objects due to the breasts and swelling hips that they exhibited.[3]

The Middle Jōmon period (2500-1500 BCE),[3] contrasted from the Early Jōmon Period in many ways. These people became less nomadic and began to settle in villages. They created useful tools that were able to process the food that they gathered and hunted which made living easier for them. Through the numerous aesthetically pleasing ceramics that were found during this time period, it is evident that these people had a stable economy and more leisure time to establish beautiful pieces. In addition, the people of the Middle Jōmon period differed from their preceding ancestors because they developed vessels according to their function, for example, they produced pots in order to store items.[3] The decorations on these vessels started to become more realistic looking as opposed to the early Jōmon ceramics. Overall, the production of works not only increased during this period, but these individuals made them more decorative and naturalistic.[3]

Late and Final Jōmon period

During the Late and Final Jōmon period (1500-300 BCE),[3] the weather started to get colder, therefore forcing them to move away from the mountains. The main food source during this time was fish, which made them improve their fishing supplies and tools. This advancement was a very important achievement during this time. In addition, the numbers of vessels largely increased which could possibly conclude that each house had their own figurine displayed in them. Although various vessels were found during the Late and Final Jōmon Period, these pieces were found damaged which might indicate that they used them for rituals. In addition, figurines were also found and were characterized by their fleshy bodies and goggle like eyes.[3]

Dogū figurines

Dogū

Dogū ("earthen figure") are small humanoid and animal figurines made during the later part of the Jōmon period.[4] They were made across all of Japan, except Okinawa.[4] Some scholars theorize the dogū acted as effigies of people, that manifested some kind of sympathetic magic.[5] Dogū are made of clay and are small, typically 10 to 30 cm high.[6] Most of the figurines appear to be modeled as female, and have big eyes, small waists, and wide hips.[4] They are considered by many to be representative of goddesses. Many have large abdomens associated with pregnancy, suggesting that the Jomon considered them mother goddesses.

Affiliated

The earliest Japanese sculptures of the Buddha are dated to the 6th and 7th century.[10] They ultimately derive from the 1st- to 3rd-century AD Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, characterized by flowing dress patterns and realistic rendering,[11] on which Chinese artistic traits were superimposed. After the Chinese Northern Wei buddhist art had infiltrated a Korean peninsula, Buddhist icons were brought to Japan by Various immigrant groups.[12] Particularly, the semi-seated Maitreya form was adapted into a highly developed Ancient Greek art style which was transmitted to Japan as evidenced by the Kōryū-ji Miroku Bosatsu and the Chūgū-ji Siddhartha statues.[13] Many historians portray Korea as a mere transmitter of Buddhism.[14] The Three Kingdoms, and particularly Baekje, were instrumental as active agents in the introduction and formation of a Buddhist tradition in Japan in 538 or 552.[15] They illustrate the terminal point of the Silk Road transmission of art during the first few centuries of our era. Other examples can be found in the development of the iconography of the Japanese Fūjin Wind God,[16] the Niō guardians,[17] and the near-Classical floral patterns in temple decorations.[18]

The earliest Buddhist structures still extant in Japan, and the oldest wooden buildings in the Far East are found at the Hōryū-ji to the southwest of Nara. First built in the early 7th century as the private temple of Crown Prince Shōtoku, it consists of 41 independent buildings. The most important ones, the main worship hall, or Kondō (Golden Hall), and Gojū-no-tō (Five-story Pagoda), stand in the center of an open area surrounded by a roofed cloister. The Kondō, in the style of Chinese worship halls, is a two-story structure of post-and-beam construction, capped by an irimoya, or hipped-gabled roof of ceramic tiles.

Inside the Kondō, on a large rectangular platform, are some of the most important sculptures of the period. The central image is a Shaka Trinity (623), the historical Buddha flanked by two bodhisattvas, sculpture cast in bronze by the sculptor Tori Busshi (flourished early 7th century) in homage to the recently deceased Prince Shōtoku. At the four corners of the platform are the Guardian Kings of the Four Directions, carved in wood around 650. Also housed at Hōryū-ji is the Tamamushi Shrine, a wooden replica of a Kondō, which is set on a high wooden base that is decorated with figural paintings executed in a medium of mineral pigments mixed with lacquer.

Temple building in the 8th century was focused around the Tōdai-ji in Nara. Constructed as the headquarters for a network of temples in each of the provinces, the Tōdaiji is the most ambitious religious complex erected in the early centuries of Buddhist worship in Japan. Appropriately, the 16.2-m (53-ft) Buddha (completed 752) enshrined in the main Buddha hall, or Daibutsuden, is a Rushana Buddha, the figure that represents the essence of Buddhahood, just as the Tōdaiji represented the center for Imperially sponsored Buddhism and its dissemination throughout Japan. Only a few fragments of the original statue survive, and the present hall and central Buddha are reconstructions from the Edo period.

Clustered around the Daibutsuden on a gently sloping hillside are a number of secondary halls: the Hokke-dō (Lotus Sutra Hall), with its principal image, the Fukukenjaku Kannon (不空羂索観音立像, the most popular bodhisattva), crafted of dry lacquer (cloth dipped in lacquer and shaped over a wooden armature); the Kaidanin (戒壇院, Ordination Hall) with its magnificent clay statues of the Four Guardian Kings; and the storehouse, called the Shōsōin. This last structure is of great importance as an art-historical cache, because in it are stored the utensils that were used in the temple's dedication ceremony in 752, the eye-opening ritual for the Rushana image, as well as government documents and many secular objects owned by the Imperial family.

Choukin (or chōkin), the art of metal engraving or sculpting, is thought to have started in the Nara period.

World / News / ( Egypt ) / Middle East / Red Sea / Ancient Arts & Artefacts from Egyptian Abu Simbel Temple & Complex & Different Related / Protokoll 26.11.2022

Abu Simbel, site of two temples built by the Egyptian king Ramses II (reigned 1279–13 BCE), now located in Aswān muḥāfaẓah (governorate), southern Egypt. In ancient times the area was at the southern frontier of pharaonic Egypt, facing Nubia. The four colossal statues of Ramses in front of the main temple are spectacular examples of ancient Egyptian art. By means of a complex engineering feat in the 1960s, the temples were salvaged from the rising waters of the Nile River caused by erection of the Aswan High Dam.

Carved out of a sandstone cliff on the west bank of the Nile, south of Korosko (modern Kuruskū), the temples were unknown to the outside world until their rediscovery in 1813 by the Swiss researcher Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. They were first explored in 1817 by the early Egyptologist Giovanni Battista Belzoni.

Temple ruins of columns and statures at Karnak, Egypt (Egyptian architecture; Egyptian archaelogy; Egyptian history)

You know basic history facts inside and out. But what about the details in between? Put your history smarts to the test to see if you qualify for the title of History Buff.The 66-foot (20-metre) seated figures of Ramses are set against the recessed face of the cliff, two on either side of the entrance to the main temple. Carved around their feet are small figures representing Ramses’ children, his queen, Nefertari, and his mother, Muttuy (Mut-tuy, or Queen Ti). Graffiti inscribed on the southern pair by Greek mercenaries serving Egypt in the 6th century BCE have provided important evidence of the early history of the Greek alphabet. The temple itself, dedicated to the sun gods Amon-Re and Re-Horakhte, consists of three consecutive halls extending 185 feet (56 metres) into the cliff, decorated with more Osiride statues of the king and with painted scenes of his purported victory at the Battle of Kadesh. On two days of the year (about February 22 and October 22), the first rays of the morning sun penetrate the whole length of the temple and illuminate the shrine in its innermost sanctuary.

Just to the north of the main temple is a smaller one, dedicated to Nefertari for the worship of the goddess Hathor and adorned with 35-foot (10.5-metre) statues of the king and queen.

In the mid-20th century, when the reservoir that was created by the construction of the nearby Aswan High Dam threatened to submerge Abu Simbel, UNESCO and the Egyptian government sponsored a project to save the site. An informational and fund-raising campaign was initiated by UNESCO in 1959. Between 1963 and 1968 a workforce and an international team of engineers and scientists, supported by funds from more than 50 countries, dug away the top of the cliff and completely disassembled both temples, reconstructing them on high ground more than 200 feet (60 metres) above their previous site. In all, some 16,000 blocks were moved. In 1979 Abu Simbel, Philae, and other nearby monuments were collectively designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica ( Resource )

This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Zeidan.

Ancient Egyptian art refers to art produced in ancient Egypt between the 6th millennium BC and the 4th century AD, spanning from Prehistoric Egypt until the Christianization of Roman Egypt. It includes paintings, sculptures, drawings on papyrus, faience, jewelry, ivories, architecture, and other art media. It is also very conservative: the art style changed very little over time. Much of the surviving art comes from tombs and monuments, giving more insight into the ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs.

The ancient Egyptian language had no word for "art". Artworks served an essentially functional purpose that was bound with religion and ideology. To render a subject in art was to give it permanence. Therefore, ancient Egyptian art portrayed an idealized, unrealistic view of the world. There was no significant tradition of individual artistic expression since art served a wider and cosmic purpose of maintaining order (Ma'at).

Art of Pre-Dynastic Egypt (6000–3000 BC)

Pre-Dynastic Egypt, corresponding to the Neolithic period of the prehistory of Egypt, spanned from c. 6000 BC to the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period, around 3100 BC.

Continued expansion of the desert forced the early ancestors of the Egyptians to settle around the Nile and adopt a more sedentary lifestyle during the Neolithic. The period from 9000 to 6000 BC has left very little archaeological evidence, but around 6000 BC, Neolithic settlements began to appear all over Egypt.[1] Studies based on morphological,[2] genetic,[3] and archaeological data[4] have attributed these settlements to migrants from the Fertile Crescent returning during the Neolithic Revolution, bringing agriculture to the region.[5]

Merimde culture (5000–4200 BC)

From about 5000 to 4200 BC, the Merimde culture, known only from a large settlement site at the edge of the Western Nile Delta, flourished in Lower Egypt. The culture has strong connections to the Faiyum A culture as well as the Levant. People lived in small huts, produced simple undecorated pottery, and had stone tools. Cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs were raised, and wheat, sorghum and barley were planted. The Merimde people buried their dead within the settlement and produced clay figurines.[6] The first Egyptian life-size head made of clay comes from Merimde.[7]

Badarian culture (4400–4000 BC)

The Badarian culture, from about 4400 to 4000 BC,[8] is named for the Badari site near Der Tasa. It followed the Tasian culture (c. 4500 BC) but was so similar that many consider them one continuous period. The Badarian culture continued to produce blacktop-ware pottery (albeit much improved in quality) and was assigned sequence dating (SD) numbers 21–29.[9] The primary difference that prevents scholars from merging the two periods is that Badarian sites use copper in addition to stone and are thus chalcolithic settlements, while the Neolithic Tasian sites are still considered Stone Age.

Art of Dynastic Egypt

Early Dynastic Period (3100–2685 BC)

The Early Dynastic Period of Egypt immediately follows the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, c. 3100 BC. It is generally taken to include the First and Second Dynasties, lasting from the end of the Naqada III archaeological period until about 2686 BC, or the beginning of the Old Kingdom.[8]

Cosmetic palettes reached a new level of sophistication during this period, in which the Egyptian writing system also experienced further development. Initially, Egyptian writing was composed primarily of a few symbols denoting amounts of various substances. In the cosmetic palettes, symbols were used together with pictorial descriptions. By the end of the Third Dynasty, this had been expanded to include more than 200 symbols, both phonograms and ideograms.[20]

Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650–1550 BC)

The Hyksos, a dynasty of ruler originating from the Levant, do not appear to have produced any court art,[32] instead appropriating monuments from earlier dynasties by writing their names on them. Many of these are inscribed with the name of King Khyan.[33] A large palace at Avaris has been uncovered, built in the Levantine rather than the Egyptian style, most likely by Khyan.[34] King Apepi is known to have patronized Egyptian scribal culture, commissioning the copying of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus.[35] The stories preserved in the Westcar Papyrus may also date from his reign.[36]

The so-called "Hyksos sphinxes" or "Tanite sphinxes" are a group of royal sphinxes depicting the earlier Pharaoh Amenemhat III (Twelfth Dynasty) with some unusual traits compared to conventional statuary, for example prominent cheekbones and the thick mane of a lion, instead of the traditional nemes headcloth. The name "Hyksos sphinxes" was given due to the fact that these were later reinscribed by several of the Hyksos kings, and were initially thought to represent the Hyksos kings themselves. Nineteenth-century scholars attempted to use the statues' features to assign a racial origin to the Hyksos.[37] These sphinxes were seized by the Hyksos from cities of the Middle Kingdom and then transported to their capital Avaris where they were reinscribed with the names of their new owners and adorned their palace.[31] Seven of those sphinxes are known, all from Tanis, and now mostly located in the Cairo Museum.[31][38] Other statues of Amenehat III were found in Tanis and are associated with the Hyksos in the same manner.

Metals

While not a leading center of metallurgy, ancient Egypt nevertheless developed technologies for extracting and processing the metals found within its borders and in neighbouring lands. Copper was the first metal to be exploited in Egypt. Small beads have been found in Badarian graves; larger items were produced in the later Predynastic Period, by a combination of mould-casting, annealing and cold-hammering. The production of copper artifacts peaked in the Old Kingdom when huge numbers of copper chisels were manufactured to cut the stone blocks of pyramids. The copper statues of Pepi I and Merenre from Hierakonpolis are rare survivors of large-scale metalworking. The golden treasure of Tutankhamun has come to symbolize the wealth of ancient Egypt, and illustrates the importance of gold in pharaonic culture. The burial chamber in a royal tomb was called "the house of gold". According to the Egyptian religion, the flesh of the gods was made of gold. A shining metal that never tarnished, it was the ideal material for cult images of deities, for royal funerary equipment, and to add brilliance to the tops of obelisks. It was used extensively for jewelry, and was distributed to officials as a reward for loyal services ("the gold of honour").Silver had to be imported from the Levant, and its rarity initially gave it greater value than gold (which, like electrum, was readily available within the borders of Egypt and Nubia). Early examples of silverwork include the bracelets of the Hetepheres. By the Middle Kingdom, silver seems to have become less valuable than gold, perhaps because of increased trade with the Middle East. The treasure from El-Tod consisted of a hoard of silver objects, probably made in the Aegean, while silver jewelry made for female members of the 12th Dynasty royal family was found at Dahshur and Lahun. In the Egyptian religion, the bones of the gods were said to be made of silver.Iron was the last metal to be exploited on a large scale by the Egyptians. Meteoritic iron was used for the manufacture of beads from the Badarian period. However, the advanced technology required to smelt iron was not introduced into Egypt until the Late Period. Before that, iron objects were imported and were consequently highly valued for their rarity. The Amarna letters refer to diplomatic gifts of iron being sent by Near Eastern rulers, especially the Hittites, to Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. Iron tools and weapons only became common in Egypt in the Roman Period.

Wood

Because of its relatively poor survival in archaeological contexts, wood is not particularly well represented among artifacts from Ancient Egypt. Nevertheless, woodworking was evidently carried out to a high standard from an early period. Native trees included date palm and dom palm, the trunks of which could be used as joists in buildings, or split to produce planks. Tamarisk, acacia and sycamore fig were employed in furniture manufacture, while ash was used when greater flexibility was required (for example in the manufacture of bowls). However, all these native timbers were of relatively poor quality; finer varieties had to be imported, especially from the Levant.

Abu Simbel / Temple / Egypt / Nile / Middle East / Also Connectivity to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ( NEOM ) / Protokoll / 26.11.2022 AD

The Notorious B.I.G  / Art /  One of the Most Notorious Figures & Personalities in the History of New York  / ( Wikipedia Source ) / 01.12.2022 / Protokollierung 

Christopher George Latore Wallace (May 21, 1972 – March 9, 1997), better known by his stage names the Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or simply Biggie,[2] was an American rapper. Rooted in East Coast hip hop and particularly gangsta rap, he is widely considered one of the greatest rappers of all time. Wallace became known for his distinctive laid-back lyrical delivery, offsetting the lyrics' often grim content. His music was often semi-autobiographical, telling of hardship and criminality, but also of debauchery and celebration.[3]Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, Wallace signed to Sean "Puffy" Combs' label Bad Boy Records as it launched in 1993, and gained exposure through features on several other artists' singles that year. His debut album Ready to Die (1994) was met with widespread critical acclaim, and included his signature songs "Juicy" and "Big Poppa". The album made him the central figure in East Coast hip hop, and restored New York's visibility at a time when the West Coast hip hop scene was dominating hip hop music.[4] Wallace was awarded the 1995 Billboard Music Awards' Rapper of the Year.[5] The following year, he led his protégé group Junior M.A.F.I.A., a team of himself and longtime friends, including Lil' Kim, to chart success.

During 1996, while recording his second album, Wallace became ensnarled in the escalating East Coast–West Coast hip hop feud. Following Tupac Shakur's death in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in September 1996, speculations of involvement in Shakur's murder by criminal elements orbiting the Bad Boy circle circulated as a result of Wallace's public feud with Shakur. On March 9, 1997, six months after Shakur's death, Wallace was murdered by an unidentified assailant in a drive-by shooting while visiting Los Angeles. Wallace's second album Life After Death, a double album, was released two weeks later. It reached number one on the Billboard 200, and eventually achieved a diamond certification in the United States.[6]With two more posthumous albums released, Wallace has certified sales of over 28 million copies in the United States,[7] including 21 million albums.[8] Rolling Stone has called him the "greatest rapper that ever lived",[9] and Billboard named him the greatest rapper of all time.[10] The Source magazine named him the greatest rapper of all time in its 150th issue. In 2006, MTV ranked him at No. 3 on their list of The Greatest MCs of All Time, calling him possibly "the most skillful ever on the mic".[11] In 2020, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Life and career

1972–1991: Early life

Christopher George Latore Wallace was born at St. Mary's Hospital in the New York City borough of Brooklyn on May 21, 1972, the only child of Jamaican immigrant parents. His mother, Voletta Wallace, was a preschool teacher, while his father, Selwyn George Latore, was a welder and politician.[12][13] His father left the family when Wallace was two years old, and his mother worked two jobs while raising him. Wallace grew up at 226 St. James Place in Brooklyn's Clinton Hill,[14] near the border with Bedford-Stuyvesant.[12][15] Raised Catholic, Wallace excelled at Queen of All Saints Middle School, winning several awards as an English student. He attended St Peter Claver Church in the borough.[16] He was nicknamed "Big" because he was overweight by the age of 10.[17] Wallace claimed to have begun dealing drugs at about age 12. His mother, often at work, first learned of this during his adulthood.[18]

He began rapping as a teenager, entertaining people on the streets, and performed with local groups, the Old Gold Brothers as well as the Techniques.[19] His earliest stage name was MC CWest.[20] At his request, Wallace transferred from Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Fort Greene to George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School in Downtown Brooklyn, which future rappers Jay-Z and Busta Rhymes were also attending. According to his mother, Wallace was still a good student but developed a "smart-ass" attitude at the new school.[13] At age 17 in 1989, Wallace dropped out of high school and became more involved in crime. That same year in 1989, he was arrested on weapons charges in Brooklyn and sentenced to five years' probation. In 1990, he was arrested on a violation of his probation.[21] A year later, Wallace was arrested in North Carolina for dealing crack cocaine. He spent nine months in jail before making bail.[18]

1991–1994: Early career and first child

After release from jail, Wallace made a demo tape, Microphone Murderer, while calling himself Biggie Smalls, alluding both to Calvin Lockhart's character in the 1975 film Let's Do It Again and to his own stature and obesity, 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) and 300 to 380 lb (140–170 kg).[22] Although Wallace reportedly lacked real ambition for the tape, local DJ Mister Cee, of Big Daddy Kane and Juice Crew association, discovered and promoted it, thus it was heard by The Source rap magazine's editor in 1992.[21]In March, The Source column "Unsigned Hype", dedicated to airing promising rappers, featured Wallace.[23] He then spun the attention into a recording.[23] Upon hearing the demo tape, Sean "Puffy" Combs, still with the A&R department of Uptown Records, arranged to meet Wallace. Promptly signed to Uptown, Wallace appeared on labelmates Heavy D & the Boyz's 1993 song "A Buncha Niggas".[19][24] Mid-year, or a year after Wallace's signing, Uptown fired Combs, who, a week later, launched Bad Boy Records,[25] instantly Wallace's new label.[26]On August 8, 1993, Wallace's longtime girlfriend gave birth to his first child, T'yanna,[26] although the couple had split by then.[27] A high-school dropout, Wallace promised his daughter "everything she wanted", in his reasoning that if he had had the same in childhood, he would have graduated at the top of his class.[28] Although he continued dealing drugs, Combs discovered that and obliged him to quit.[19] Later that year, Wallace gained exposure on a remix of Mary J. Blige's single "Real Love". Having found his moniker Biggie Smalls already claimed, he took a new one, holding for good, The Notorious B.I.G.[29]Around this time, Wallace became friends with fellow rapper Tupac Shakur. Lil' Cease recalled the pair as close, often traveling together whenever they were not working. According to him, Wallace was a frequent guest at Shakur's home and they spent time together when Shakur was in California or Washington, D.C.[30] Yukmouth, an Oakland emcee, claimed that Wallace's style was inspired by Shakur.[31]The "Real Love" remix single was followed by another remix of a Mary J. Blige song, "What's the 411?" Wallace's successes continued, if to a lesser extents, on remixes of Neneh Cherry's song "Buddy X" and of reggae artist Super Cat's song "Dolly My Baby", also featuring Combs, all in 1993. In April, Wallace's solo track "Party and Bullshit" was released on the Who's the Man? soundtrack.[32] In July 1994, he appeared alongside LL Cool J and Busta Rhymes on a remix of his own labelmate Craig Mack's "Flava in Ya Ear", the remix reaching No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100.[33]

1994: Ready to Die and marriage to Faith Evans

On August 4, 1994, Wallace married R&B singer Faith Evans, whom he had met eight days prior at a Bad Boy photoshoot.[34] Five days later, Wallace had his first pop chart success as a solo artist with double A-side, "Juicy / Unbelievable", which reached No. 27 as the lead single to his debut album.[35]Ready to Die was released on September 13, 1994. It reached No. 13 on the Billboard 200 chart[36] and was eventually certified four times platinum.[37] The album shifted attention back to East Coast hip hop at a time when West Coast hip hop dominated US charts.[38] It gained strong reviews and has received much praise in retrospect.[38][39] In addition to "Juicy", the record produced two hit singles: the platinum-selling "Big Poppa", which reached No. 1 on the U.S. rap chart,[40] and "One More Chance", which sold 1.1 million copies in 1995.[41][42] Busta Rhymes claimed to have seen Wallace giving out free copies of Ready to Die from his home, which Rhymes reasoned as "his way of marketing himself".[43]Wallace also befriended basketball player Shaquille O'Neal. O'Neal said they were introduced during a listening session for "Gimme the Loot"; Wallace mentioned him in the lyrics and thereby attracted O'Neal to his music. O'Neal requested a collaboration with Wallace, which resulted in the song "You Can't Stop the Reign". According to Combs, Wallace would not collaborate with "anybody he didn't really respect" and that Wallace paid O'Neal his respect by "shouting him out".[44] Wallace later met with O'Neal on Sunset Boulevard in 1997.[45] In 2015, Daz Dillinger, a frequent Shakur collaborator, said that he and Wallace were "cool", with Wallace traveling to meet him to smoke cannabis and record two songs.[46]

1995: Collaboration with Michael Jackson, Junior M.A.F.I.A., success and coastal feud

Wallace worked with pop singer Michael Jackson on the song "This Time Around", featured on Jackson's 1995 album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I.[47] Lil' Cease later claimed that while Wallace met Jackson, he was forced to stay behind, with Wallace citing that he did not "trust Michael with kids" following the 1993 child sexual abuse allegations against Jackson.[48] Engineer John Van Nest and producer Dallas Austin recalled the sessions differently, saying that Wallace was eager to meet Jackson and nearly burst into tears upon doing so.[49]In the summer, Wallace met Charli Baltimore and they became involved in a romantic relationship.[50] Several months into their relationship, she left him a voicemail of a rap verse that she had written and he began encouraging her to pursue a career in rap music.[51]Wallace was booked to a show in Sacramento, When they arrived at the venue they were not a lot of people there, and when they started performing they were getting coins tossed at them. When they left they were held at gunpoint in the venue's parking lot set up by E-40's goons. They were mad over an interview he did with a Canadian magazine, when asked to rank a handful of artists on a scale from one to 10, Wallace gave him a zero. One of Wallace's entourage said to get E-40 on the phone, Wallace explained how they had "got him drunk" and had got him "to say anything", E-40 told his men to stand down and safely escorted them to the airport.[52]In August 1995, Wallace's protégé group, Junior M.A.F.I.A. ("Junior Masters At Finding Intelligent Attitudes"), released their debut album Conspiracy. The group consisted of his friends from childhood and included rappers such as Lil' Kim and Lil' Cease, who went on to have solo careers.[53] The record went gold and its singles, "Player's Anthem" and "Get Money", both featuring Wallace, went gold and platinum. Wallace continued to work with R&B artists, collaborating with R&B groups 112 (on "Only You") and Total (on "Can't You See"), with both reaching the top 20 of the Hot 100. By the end of the year, Wallace was the top-selling male solo artist and rapper on the U.S. pop and R&B charts.[19] In July 1995, he appeared on the cover of The Source with the caption "The King of New York Takes Over", a reference to his alias Frank White, based on a character from the 1990 film King of New York.[54][55] At the Source Awards in August 1995, he was named Best New Artist (Solo), Lyricist of the Year, Live Performer of the Year, and his debut Album of the Year.[56] At the Billboard Awards, he was Rap Artist of the Year.[21]In his year of success, Wallace became involved in a rivalry between the East and West Coast hip hop scenes with Shakur, now his former friend. In an interview with Vibe in April 1995, while serving time in Clinton Correctional Facility, Shakur accused Uptown Records' founder Andre Harrell, Sean Combs, and Wallace of having prior knowledge of a robbery that resulted in him being shot five times and losing thousands of dollars worth of jewelry on the night of November 30, 1994. Though Wallace and his entourage were in the same Manhattan-based recording studio at the time of the shooting, they denied the accusation.[57]Wallace said: "It just happened to be a coincidence that he [Shakur] was in the studio. He just, he couldn't really say who really had something to do with it at the time. So he just kinda' leaned the blame on me."[58] In 2012, a man named Dexter Isaac, serving a life sentence for unrelated crimes, claimed that he attacked Shakur that night and that the robbery was orchestrated by entertainment industry executive and former drug trafficker, Jimmy Henchman.[59]Following his release from prison, Shakur signed to Death Row Records on October 15, 1995. This made Bad Boy Records and Death Row business rivals, and thus intensified the quarrel.[60]

1996: More arrests, accusations regarding Shakur's death, car accident and second child

On March 23, 1996, Wallace was arrested outside a Manhattan nightclub for chasing and threatening to kill two fans seeking autographs, smashing the windows of their taxicab, and punching one of them.[21] He pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment and was sentenced to 100 hours of community service. In mid-1996, he was arrested at his home in Teaneck, New Jersey, for drug and weapons possession charges.[21]During the recording for his second album, Wallace was confronted by Shakur for the first time since "the rumors started" at the Soul Train Awards and a gun was pulled.[61]In June 1996, Shakur released "Hit 'Em Up", a diss track in which he claimed to have had sex with Faith Evans, who was estranged from Wallace at the time, and that Wallace had copied his style and image. Wallace referenced the first claim on Jay-Z's "Brooklyn's Finest", in which he raps: "If Faye have twins, she'd probably have two 'Pacs. Get it? 2Pac's?" However, he did not directly respond to the track, stating in a 1997 radio interview that it was "not [his] style" to respond.[58]On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas and died six days later. Rumors of Wallace's involvement with Shakur's murder spread. In a 2002 Los Angeles Times series titled "Who Killed Tupac Shakur?", based on police reports and multiple sources, Chuck Philips reported that the shooting was carried out by a Compton gang, the Southside Crips, to avenge a beating by Shakur hours earlier, and that Wallace had paid for the gun.[62][63]Los Angeles Times editor Mark Duvoisin wrote that "Philips' story has withstood all challenges to its accuracy, ... [and] remains the definitive account of the Shakur slaying."[64] Wallace's family denied the report,[65] producing documents purporting to show that he was in New York and New Jersey at the time. However, The New York Times called the documents inconclusive, stating:

The pages purport to be three computer printouts from Daddy's House, indicating that Wallace was in the studio recording a song called Nasty Boy on the night Shakur was shot. They indicate that Wallace wrote half the session, was in and out/sat around and laid down a ref, shorthand for a reference vocal, the equivalent of a first take. But nothing indicates when the documents were created. And Louis Alfred, the recording engineer listed on the sheets, said in an interview that he remembered recording the song with Wallace in a late-night session, not during the day. He could not recall the date of the session but said it was likely not the night Shakur was shot. We would have heard about it, Mr. Alfred said."[66]Evans remembered her husband calling her on the night of Shakur's death and crying from shock. She said: "I think it's fair to say he was probably afraid, given everything that was going on at that time and all the hype that was put on this so-called beef that he didn't really have in his heart against anyone." Wayne Barrow, Wallace's co-manager at the time, said Wallace was recording the track "Nasty Boy" the night Shakur was shot.[67] Shortly after Shakur's death, he met with Snoop Dogg, who claimed that Wallace declared he never hated Shakur.[68]

Two days after the death of Shakur, Wallace and Lil' Cease were arrested in Brooklyn for smoking marijuana in public and had their car repossessed.[69] The next day, the dealership chose them a Chevrolet Lumina rental SUV as a substitute, despite Lil' Cease's objections. The vehicle had brake problems but Wallace dismissed them.[70] The car collided with a rail in New Jersey, shattering Wallace's left leg, Lil' Cease's jaw and Charli Baltimore with numerous injuries.[71Wallace spent months in a hospital following the accident. He was temporarily confined to a wheelchair,[19] forced to use a cane,[57] and had to complete therapy. Despite his hospitalization, he continued to work on the album. The accident was referred to in the lyrics of "Long Kiss Goodnight": "Ya still tickle me, I used to be as strong as Ripple be / Til Lil' Cease crippled me."[72.On October 29, 1996, Evans gave birth to Wallace's son, Christopher "C.J." Wallace Jr.[26] The following month, Junior M.A.F.I.A. member Lil' Kim released her debut album, Hard Core, under Wallace's direction while the two were having a "love affair".[19] Lil' Kim recalled being Wallace's "biggest fan" and "his pride and joy".[73] In a 2012 interview, Lil' Kim said Wallace had prevented her from making a remix of the Jodeci single "Love U 4 Life" by locking her in a room. According to her, Wallace said that she was not "gonna go do no song with them",[74] likely because of the group's affiliation with Tupac and Death Row Records.

1997: Life After Death

On January 27, 1997, Wallace was ordered to pay US$41,000 in damages following an incident involving a friend of a concert promoter who claimed Wallace and his entourage beat him following a dispute in May 1995.[75] He faced criminal assault charges for the incident, which remains unresolved, but all robbery charges were dropped.[21] Following the events, Wallace spoke of a desire to focus on his "peace of mind" and his family and friends.[76]In February 1997, Wallace traveled to California to promote his album Life After Death and record a music video for its lead single, "Hypnotize". That month Wallace was involved in a domestic dispute with girlfriend Charli Baltimore at the Four Seasons hotel, over pictures of Wallace and other girls. Wallace had told Lil' Cease the night prior to take the bag out of the room of the photos but never did; she ended up throwing Wallace's ring and watch out the window. They found the watch but did not recover the ring.[77]

Death

On March 8, 1997, Wallace attended Soul Train Awards after-party hosted by Vibe and Qwest Records at the Petersen Automotive Museum.[57] Guests included Evans, Aaliyah and members of the Bloods and Crips gangs.[17] The next day at 12:30 a.m. PST, after the fire department closed the party early due to overcrowding, Wallace left with his entourage in two GMC Suburbans to return to his hotel.[78] He traveled in the front passenger seat alongside associates Damion "D-Roc" Butler, Lil' Cease, and driver Gregory "G-Money" Young. Combs traveled in the other vehicle with two bodyguards. The two trucks were trailed by a Chevrolet Blazer carrying Bad Boy director of security Paul Offord.[17][79]By 12:45 a.m., the streets were crowded with people leaving the party. Wallace's truck stopped at a red light 50 yards (46 m) from the Petersen Automotive Museum, and a black Chevy Impala pulled up alongside it. The Impala's driver, an unidentified African-American man dressed in a blue suit and bow tie, rolled down his window, drew a 9 mm blue-steel pistol, and fired at Wallace's car. Four bullets hit Wallace, and his entourage subsequently rushed him to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where doctors performed an emergency thoracotomy, but he was pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m.[17] He was 24 years old. His autopsy, which was released 15 years after his death, showed that only the final shot was fatal; it entered through his right hip and struck his colon, liver, heart, and left lung before stopping in his left shoulder.[80]Wallace's funeral was held at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel in Manhattan on March 18. There were around 350 mourners at the funeral, including Lil' Cease, Queen Latifah, Mase, Faith Evans, SWV, Jay-Z, Damon Dash, DJ Premier, Charli Baltimore, Da Brat, Flavor Flav, Mary J. Blige, Lil' Kim, Run-D.M.C., DJ Kool Herc, Treach, Busta Rhymes, Salt-N-Pepa, DJ Spinderella, Foxy Brown, and Sister Souljah. David Dinkins and Clive Davis also attended the funeral.[81] After the funeral, his body was cremated and the ashes were given to his family.[82]

World / News / Asia  / India / Arts  Transcontinental India / Exemplified in Opportunities / Indian Gods /  Different  ( Resources )  from Web / Protokoll / 13.12.2022

India is a country with diverse heritage and rich culture. It is home to some of the most beautiful folk art traditions! Its folk art is colorful, vibrant, beautiful, and elaborate. You may have noticed that there is a huge amount of Indian folk art that depicts Gods and Goddesses. Religious and mystical elements are essential features of folk art that are not only seen in elaborate paintings but also in other forms of folk art. Some tell their stories, depict their environment, others praise their miracles and valorous deeds. Let’s take a look at a few handpicked Indian folk art that depict Gods and Goddesses.

According to the Hindu view, there are four goals of life on earth, and each human being should aspire to all four. Everyone should aim for dharma, or righteous living; artha, or wealth acquired through the pursuit of a profession; kama, or human and sexual love; and, finally, moksha, or spiritual salvation. This holistic view is reflected as well as in the artistic production of India. Although a Hindu temple is dedicated to the glory of a deity and is aimed at helping the devotee toward moksha, its walls might justifiably contain sculptures that reflect the other three goals of life. It is in such a context that we may best understand the many sensuous and apparently secular themes that decorate the walls of Indian temples.

Hinduism is a religion that had no single founder, no single spokesman, no single prophet. Its origins are mixed and complex. One strand can be traced back to the sacred Sanskrit literature of the Aryans, the Vedas, which consist of hymns in praise of deities who were often personifications of the natural elements. Another strand drew on the beliefs prevalent among groups of indigenous peoples, especially the faith in the power of the mother goddess and in the efficacy of fertility symbols. Hinduism, in the form comparable to its present-day expression, emerged at about the start of the Christian era, with an emphasis on the supremacy of the god Vishnu, the god Shiva, and the goddess Shakti (literally, “Power”).

The pluralism evident in Hinduism, as well as its acceptance of the existence of several deities, is often puzzling to non-Hindus. Hindus suggest that one may view the Infinite as a diamond of innumerable facets. One or another facet—be it Rama, Krishna, or Ganesha—may beckon an individual believer with irresistible magnetism. By acknowledging the power of an individual facet and worshipping it, the believer does not thereby deny the existence of many aspects of the Infinite and of varied paths toward the ultimate goal. Deities are frequently portrayed with multiple arms, especially when they are engaged in combative acts of cosmic consequence that involve destroying powerful forces of evil. The multiplicity of arms emphasizes the immense power of the deity and his or her ability to perform several feats at the same time. The Indian artist found this a simple and an effective means of expressing the omnipresence and omnipotence of a deity. Demons are frequently portrayed with multiple heads to indicate their superhuman power. The occasional depiction of a deity with more than one head is generally motivated by the desire to portray varying aspects of the character of that deity. Thus, when the god Shiva is portrayed with a triple head, the central face indicates his essential character and the flanking faces depict his fierce and blissful aspects.

.By Subhamoy Das

Updated on February 20, 2019

The Vedic deities symbolize the forces of nature as well as inside human beings. While discussing the symbolic significance of Vedic deities in his The Secret of the Vedas, Rishi Aurobindo says that the gods, goddesses, and demons mentioned in the Vedas represent various cosmic powers, on one hand, and man's virtues and vices on the other.

Why Worship Idol?

Idol worship and rituals are at the heart of Hinduism and have great religious and philosophical significance. All Hindu deities are themselves symbols of the abstract Absolute and point to a particular aspect of the Brahman. The Hindu Trinity is represented by three Godheads: Brahma - the creator, Vishnu - the protector, and Shiva - the destroyer.

Why Worship Different Deities?

Unlike the followers of any other religion, Hindus enjoy the freedom of worshipping their personally chosen icon to offer their prayers to the indefinable Brahman. Each deity in Hinduism controls a particular energy. These energies, present in man as wild forces must be controlled and canalized fruitfully to infuse a divine consciousness in him. For this, man has to gain the goodwill of different gods who stir up his consciousness accordingly to help him master the different forces of nature. In a person's path of spiritual progress, he or she needs to develop the various attributes of these godheads in him or her to attain all-round spiritual perfection.

Symbolism of Gods & Goddesses

Each Hindu God and Goddess has many characteristics, like the dress, 'vehicle', weapons, etc., that are themselves symbols of the deity's power. Brahma holds the Vedas in his hands, which signifies that he has the supreme command over creative and religious knowledge. Vishnu holds a conch which stands for the five elements and eternity; a discus, which is the symbol of the mind; a bow that symbolizes power and a lotus which is the symbol of the cosmos. Shiva's trident represents the three gunas. Similarly, Krishna's flute symbolizes divine music.

Many deities can be recognized by the symbols associated with them. Shiva is often symbolized by the 'linga' or 'tripundra' - the three horizontal lines on his forehead. In the same way, Krishna can be identified by the peacock feather he wears in his head and also by the prong-like mark on his forehead.

Vehicles of the Gods

Each deity has a particular vehicle on which he or she travels. These vehicles, which are either animals or birds, represent the various forces that he or she rides. Goddess Saraswati's vehicle, the graceful and beautiful peacock denotes that she is the controller of the pursuit of performing arts. Vishnu sits on the primal serpent, which represents the desire of consciousness in humankind. Shiva rides the Nandi bull, which stands for the brute and blind power, as well as the unbridled sexual energy in man - the qualities only he can help us control. His consort Parvati, Durga or Kali rides on a lion, which symbolizes mercilessness, anger, and pride - vices she can help her devotees check. Ganesha's carrier, the mouse represents the timidity and nervousness that overwhelm us at the onset of any new venture - feelings that can be overcome by the blessings of Ganesha.

Paraguay / Arts from Continent South America / Transcontinental to ( EU ) / Collage Arts Defined Below  / Protokoll 14.01.2023

Paraguayan Indigenous art is the visual art created by the indigenous peoples of Paraguay. While indigenous artists embrace contemporary Western art media, their arts also include pre-Columbian art forms. Indigenous art includes ceramics, baskets, weaving and threading, feather art and leather work. It is a hybrid nature includes the embroideries, lace, woodcarving and different metal products. Paraguay is particularly known for its indigenous featherwork and basket weaving.[1]

Handmade products

The handmade products of Paraguay are of a great variety and comprise ceramic articles, as well as embroideries and sewn articles, as well as wood, baskets, leather work and silver work. Pre-Columbian ceramics made in the Paraguayan territory were rustic and made from terracotta clay. They were painted in red, and occasionally in black and white. The clay used to be worked by hand. Some tribes incised their pottery with decorations before firing. The Spanish, especially the Jesuits, influenced the technical level of production and the finishing of the native ceramics. These had been characterized by extreme simplicity and production of functional goods. The Jesuits taught the Indian population in the missions.

Ceramic products produced today by some Indian groups include jars, flower vases, and some without specific shapes, as well as water vases. Among those, the pottery most widely sold today due to its beauty and quality comes from Tobaty and Ita.

Baskets weaving

Baskets are woven from the fibers of canes. Paraguayan Indians weave open baskets, baskets with handles, hand fans, shades, place mats, and especially piri, the typical Paraguayan hat of the country men. Leather products, such as bags, hats, sacks, etc. have their main centers in Limpio and Luque, where also centers for production of beautiful baskets. Materials for wickerwork include indigenous bromeliads including tacuarembó and caraguatá, as well as pindo palm leaves.[1] The rich Indian basket production of Paraguay is dividing by plantations. For example, in some communities where the main crop is cassava, baskets are solid with great storage capacity. The ajaka mbya basket is an average of 35 centimeters diameter with rigid supports that can to hold the heavy weight of the cassavas. The ajak is a basket made by weaving tacuarembo and dark guembepi, making braided figures as well as geometric ones, in accordance with the Guaraní concept of beauty. The baskets associated with the production of corn are smaller and lighter and are constructed from pindo palm tree leaves.

Ceramics

Ceramics are an ancient art form in Paraguay, and ancient ceramics have been preserved through the centuries. Ceramics range from the utilitarian—cooking vessels, water jugs—to the sacred, such as funerary urns.[1]

Featherwork

A precolumbian art form, featherwork provides distinctive personal adornment. Brilliantly colored feathers are fashioned into anklets, bracelets, collars, headdresses, and even entire cloaks. Guaraní medicine men used to wear full feather cloaks. The Guaraní create feather headdresses called jeguaka worn during ceremonial occasions.[1]

Textile arts

Ñandutí lace from Asunción, Paraguay

Indian embroidery, weaving, and other textile art are an important source of income for the domestic economy. Before the arrival of the Spanish, the Indians used a horizontal piece of material to make hammocks with cotton threads, as well as the baskets and bags to transport food and nets for fishing and hunting. Later on they also knitted ponchos and other clothing items. As with ceramics, the Jesuits also introduced new techniques in this area, using the vertical frame to make the threads. Tribal artisans began producing sheets, towels, blankets, table clothes and other articles, as well as the special hammocks, which were knitted and still are with cotton threads and ornaments on the sides. New technical resources brought by the Spanish inspired the typical cotton dresses, the ones called ao poi, made with a fine thread, and the povyi, a little wider thread weaving, as well as linen, and the beautiful ñanduti, which means "spider web" in Guaraní language and consists of fine embroidery, with which table clothes, curtains, blouses and more are made.The most coveted textiles are the Ñandutí embroideries made in the cities of Guarambaré and Itauguá. Woven ponchos, known for their beauty and quality, are made by the ethnic groups Lengua, Maskoy, Nivaclé, and Wichí from the Gran Chaco. They use sheep wool tinted in red and the ones called of 60 lists, made in Pirayú and Yataity, in the Guairá Department.

Rock art

Ancient indigenous peoples of Paraguay carved petroglyphs into stone, particularly in the hills of Amambay Department.[2]

Woodcarving

Wood is carved into ceremonial masks, smoking pipes, chairs known as apyká, and anthropomorphic and zoomorphic effigies.[1] Gourds are also carves with images.

By tribe

Chamacoco

The Chamacoco ethnic group, from the Alto Paraguay Department, used dresses during their annual ritual called Debylyby. These are knitted of special fibers. Associated masks are carved from the karaguata tree and adorned with feathers from Chaco birds.

The Chamacocos used a pupo, a protective vest made of karaguata. The pupo is knitted when the fibers are wet; these become rigid when dry and can serve as armor. They protected the wearer from the arrows of the enemies.

Karaguata

The weaving of Karaguata is an important element of Indigenous art in Paraguay. It is an expression of the Indian people of the Gran Chaco. The bags of Karaguata are some of the most common applications of fiber twining. Collector's bags are mainly used by women, who carry them on their backs and have a form of a large half moon. Hunting bags are smaller, rectangular, carried by men on their shoulders.

Paï-Tavytera

The Pai Tavytera from Eastern Paraguay and Brazil are known for their necklaces made from carved wood and colorful seeds of different fruits.[3] They use urucú, a red dye made from Bixa orellana for body painting. Personal adornment is made from feathers, such as those of the toucan, and cotton. Labrets are made from resin. Men typically weave baskets, while women make ceramics.[4] They are also being consulted in interpreting ancient rock art in Amambay.[2]

Toba-Qom

The Toba tribe makes textiles from colorful wool threads, as well as the traditional bags, piri hats and carandilla leaf baskets.

Transcontinental Art of  Italy  / Europe / Vatican City / Leonardo Da Vinci  / Romans /  Jesus Christ  /  Renaissance Works of  Italian  Historically  Paintings in World / Julius Caesar 100 B.C / 16.03.2023

Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring in the Italian Peninsula, which was at that time divided into many political states, some independent but others controlled by external powers. The painters of Renaissance Italy, although often attached to particular courts and with loyalties to particular towns, nonetheless wandered the length and breadth of Italy, often occupying a diplomatic status and disseminating artistic and philosophical ideas.[1]

The city of Florence in Tuscany is renowned as the birthplace of the Renaissance, and in particular of Renaissance painting, although later in the era Rome and Venice assumed increasing importance in painting. A detailed background is given in the companion articles Renaissance art and Renaissance architecture.

Italian Renaissance painting is most often divided into four periods: the Proto-Renaissance (1300–1425), the Early Renaissance (1425–1495), the High Renaissance (1495–1520), and Mannerism (1520–1600). The dates for these periods represent the overall trend in Italian painting and do not cover all painters as the lives of individual artists and their personal styles overlapped these periods.

The Proto-Renaissance begins with the professional life of the painter Giotto and includes Taddeo Gaddi, Orcagna and Altichiero. The Early Renaissance style was started by Masaccio and then further developed by Fra Angelico, Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca, Sandro Botticelli, Verrocchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Giovanni Bellini. The High Renaissance period was that of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Coreggio, Giorgione, the latter works of Giovanni Bellini, and Titian. The Mannerist period, dealt with in a separate article, included the latter works of Michelangelo, as well as Pontormo, Parmigianino, Bronzino and Tintoretto.

Influences

Fresco. St Anne rests in bed, in a richly decorated Renaissance room. Two women hold the newborn baby Mary, while a third prepares a tub to bath her. A group of richly dressed young women are visiting. On the left is a staircase with two people embracing near an upper door.

The influences upon the development of Renaissance painting in Italy are those that also affected Philosophy, Literature, Architecture, Theology, Science, Government and other aspects of society. The following is a summary of points dealt with more fully in the main articles that are cited above.

Philosophy

A number of Classical texts, that had been lost to Western European scholars for centuries, became available. These included Philosophy, Poetry, Drama, Science, a thesis on the Arts and Early Christian Theology. The resulting interest in Humanist philosophy meant that man's relationship with humanity, the universe and with God was no longer the exclusive province of the Church. A revived interest in the Classics brought about the first archaeological study of Roman remains by the architect Brunelleschi and sculptor Donatello. The revival of a style of architecture based on classical precedents inspired a corresponding classicism in painting, which manifested itself as early as the 1420s in the paintings of Masaccio and Paolo Uccello.

Science and technology

Simultaneous with gaining access to the Classical texts, Europe gained access to advanced mathematics which had its provenance in the works of Byzantine and Islamic scholars. The advent of movable type printing in the 15th century meant that ideas could be disseminated easily, and an increasing number of books were written for a broad public. The development of oil paint and its introduction to Italy had lasting effects on the art of painting.

Society

The establishment of the Medici Bank and the subsequent trade it generated brought unprecedented wealth to a single Italian city, Florence. Cosimo de' Medici set a new standard for patronage of the arts, not associated with the church or monarchy. The serendipitous presence within the region of Florence of certain individuals of artistic genius, most notably Giotto, Masaccio, Brunelleschi, Piero della Francesca, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, formed an ethos that supported and encouraged many lesser artists to achieve work of extraordinary quality.[2]

A similar heritage of artistic achievement occurred in Venice through the talented Bellini family, their influential inlaw Mantegna, Giorgione, Titian and Tintoretto.

Themes

Much painting of the Renaissance period was commissioned by or for the Catholic Church. These works were often of large scale and were frequently cycles painted in fresco of the Life of Christ, the Life of the Virgin or the life of a saint, particularly St. Francis of Assisi. There were also many allegorical paintings on the theme of Salvation and the role of the Church in attaining it. Churches also commissioned altarpieces, which were painted in tempera on panel and later in oil on canvas. Apart from large altarpieces, small devotional pictures were produced in very large numbers, both for churches and for private individuals, the most common theme being the Madonna and Child.

Throughout the period, civic commissions were also important. Local government buildings were decorated with frescoes and other works both secular, such as Ambrogio Lorenzetti's The Allegory of Good and Bad Government, and religious, such as Simone Martini's fresco of the Maestà, in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. Portraiture was uncommon in the 14th and early 15th centuries, mostly limited to civic commemorative pictures such as the equestrian portraits of Guidoriccio da Fogliano by Simone Martini, 1327, in Siena and, of the early 15th century, John Hawkwood by Uccello in Florence Cathedral and its companion portraying Niccolò da Tolentino by Andrea del Castagno. Painting. A forest scene with figures, the central representing Venus. Left, the Three Graces dance and the God Mercury drives away clouds with his staff. Right, a wind God with dark wings swoops to catch a wood nymph who is transformed into another figure, the stately Goddess Flora who scatters flowers. During the 15th century portraiture became common, initially often formalised profile portraits but increasingly three-quarter face, bust-length portraits. Patrons of art works such as altarpieces and fresco cycles often were included in the scenes, a notable example being the inclusion of the Sassetti and Medici families in Domenico Ghirlandaio's cycle in the Sassetti Chapel. Portraiture was to become a major subject for High Renaissance painters such as Raphael and Titian and continue into the Mannerist period in works of artists such as Bronzino. With the growth of Humanism, artists turned to Classical themes, particularly to fulfill commissions for the decoration of the homes of wealthy patrons, the best known being Botticelli's Birth of Venus for the Medici. Increasingly, Classical themes were also seen as providing suitable allegorical material for civic commissions. Humanism also influenced the manner in which religious themes were depicted, notably on Michelangelo's Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Other motifs were drawn from contemporary life, sometimes with allegorical meaning, some sometimes purely decorative. Incidents important to a particular family might be recorded like those in the Camera degli Sposi that Mantegna painted for the Gonzaga family at Mantua. Increasingly, still lifes and decorative scenes from life were painted, such as the Concert by Lorenzo Costa of about 1490. Important events were often recorded or commemorated in paintings such as Uccello's Battle of San Romano, as were important local religious festivals. History and historic characters were often depicted in a way that reflected on current events or on the lives of current people. Portraits were often painted of contemporaries in the guise of characters from history or literature. The writings of Dante, Voragine's Golden Legend and Boccaccio's The Decameron were important sources of themes.

In all these subjects, increasingly, and in the works of almost all painters, certain underlying painterly practices were being developed: the observation of nature, the study of anatomy, of light, and perspective.[2][3][5]

Proto-Renaissance painting

Small altarpiece with folding wings. Background of shining gold. Centre, the Virgin Mary in dark blue, holds the Christ Child. There is a standing saint in each side panel. The colours are rich and luminous, the figures are elongated and stylised.

Duccio di Buoninsegna: Madonna and Child (c. 1280) at the National Gallery, London, is mainly Italo-Byzantine in style.

The art of the region of Tuscany in the late 13th century was dominated by two masters of the Italo-Byzantine style, Cimabue of Florence and Duccio of Siena. Their commissions were mostly religious paintings, several of them being very large altarpieces showing the Madonna and Child. These two painters, with their contemporaries, Guido of Siena, Coppo di Marcovaldo and the mysterious painter upon whose style the school may have been based, the so-called Master of St Bernardino, all worked in a manner that was highly formalised and dependent upon the ancient tradition of icon painting.[6] In these tempera paintings many of the details were rigidly fixed by the subject matter, the precise position of the hands of the Madonna and Christ Child, for example, being dictated by the nature of the blessing that the painting invoked upon the viewer. The angle of the Virgin's head and shoulders, the folds in her veil, and the lines with which her features were defined had all been repeated in countless such paintings. Cimabue and Duccio took steps in the direction of greater naturalism, as did their contemporary, Pietro Cavallini of Rome.

Giotto's contemporaries

Giotto had a number of contemporaries who were either trained and influenced by him, or whose observation of nature had led them in a similar direction. Although several of Giotto's pupils assimilated the direction that his work had taken, none was to become as successful as he. Taddeo Gaddi achieved the first large painting of a night scene in an Annunciation to the Shepherds in the Baroncelli Chapel of the Church of Santa Croce, Florence.[2]

The paintings in the Upper Church of the Basilica of St. Francis, Assisi, are examples of naturalistic painting of the period, often ascribed to Giotto himself, but more probably the work of artists surrounding Pietro Cavallini.[9] A late painting by Cimabue in the Lower Church at Assisi, of the Madonna and St. Francis, also clearly shows greater naturalism than his panel paintings and the remains of his earlier frescoes in the upper church.

Mortality and redemption

A small section of a badly damaged fresco showing people who are doomed to Hell. While horrible demons are clutching at them, the humans are intent on pursuing their evil ways of murder and seduction, seeming ignorant of their precarious state on the edge of a pit.

A common theme in the decoration of Medieval churches was the Last Judgement, which in northern European churches frequently occupies a sculptural space above the west door, but in Italian churches such as Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel it is painted on the inner west wall. The Black Death of 1348 caused its survivors to focus on the need to approach death in a state of penitence and absolution. The inevitability of death, the rewards for the penitent and the penalties of sin were emphasised in a number of frescoes, remarkable for their grim depictions of suffering and their surreal images of the torments of Hell.

These include the Triumph of Death by Giotto's pupil Orcagna, now in a fragmentary state at the Museum of Santa Croce, and the Triumph of Death in the Camposanto Monumentale at Pisa by an unknown painter, perhaps Francesco Traini or Buonamico Buffalmacco who worked on the other three of a series of frescoes on the subject of Salvation. It is unknown exactly when these frescoes were begun but it is generally presumed they post-date 1348.[2]

Two important fresco painters were active in Padua in the late 14th century, Altichiero and Giusto de' Menabuoi. Giusto's masterpiece, the decoration of the Padua Baptistery, follows the theme of humanity's Creation, Downfall, and Salvation, also having a rare Apocalypse cycle in the small chancel. While the whole work is exceptional for its breadth, quality and intact state, the treatment of human emotion is conservative by comparison with that of Altichiero's Crucifixion at the Basilica of Sant'Antonio, also in Padua. Giusto's work relies on formalised gestures, where Altichiero relates the incidents surrounding Christ's death with great human drama and intensity.[10]

An altarpiece with a golden background and a frame surmounted by five richly carved Gothic pediments. Centre, the Virgin Mary, who has been reading, turns in alarm as the Angel Gabriel kneels to the left. The angel's greeting "Ave Maria, Gratia Plena" is embossed on the gold background. The figures are elongated, stylised and marked by elegance. There are saints in the side panels.

Simone Martini: The Annunciation, 1333, Uffizi, is International Gothic in style.

In Florence, at the Spanish Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, Andrea di Bonaiuto was commissioned to emphasise the role of the Church in the redemptive process, and that of the Dominican Order in particular. His fresco Allegory of the Active and Triumphant Church is remarkable for its depiction of Florence Cathedral, complete with the dome which was not built until the following century.[2]

International Gothic

During the later 14th century, International Gothic was the style that dominated Tuscan painting. It can be seen to an extent in the work of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, which is marked by a formalized sweetness and grace in the figures, and Late Gothic gracefulness in the draperies. The style is fully developed in the works of Simone Martini and Gentile da Fabriano, which have an elegance and a richness of detail, and an idealised quality not compatible with the starker realities of Giotto's paintings.[2]

In the early 15th century, bridging the gap between International Gothic and the Renaissance are the paintings of Fra Angelico, many of which, being altarpieces in tempera, show the Gothic love of elaboration, gold leaf and brilliant colour. It is in his frescoes at his convent of Sant' Marco that Fra Angelico shows himself the artistic disciple of Giotto. These devotional paintings, which adorn the cells and corridors inhabited by the friars, represent episodes from the life of Jesus, many of them being scenes of the Crucifixion. They are starkly simple, restrained in colour and intense in mood as the artist sought to make spiritual revelations a visual reality.[2][11]

Early Renaissance painting

Small bronze sculpture in high relief. The space is crowded with action. At the top of a mountain, Abraham is about to sacrifice his son Isaac, who kneels on an altar. As Abraham wields a knife, an Angel raises his hand to stop the action, and directs him to sacrifice a sheep caught in a bush. At left are two servants and a donkey.A pair of large bronze doors, with ornate frames. The doors are divided into ten rectangular sections with decorations between them. Each section contains a relief sculpture telling a story from the Old Testament. The panels and parts of the frames are covered with gold.

Florence

The earliest truly Renaissance images in Florence date from 1401, although they are not paintings. That year a competition was held amongst seven young artists to select the artist to create a pair of bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery, the oldest remaining church in the city. The competitors were each to design a bronze panel of similar shape and size, representing the Sacrifice of Isaac.Two of the panels from the competition have survived, those by Lorenzo Ghiberti and Brunelleschi. Each panel shows some strongly classicising motifs indicating the direction that art and philosophy were moving, at that time. Ghiberti used the naked figure of Isaac to create a small sculpture in the Classical style. The figure kneels on a tomb decorated with acanthus scrolls that are also a reference to the art of Ancient Rome. In Brunelleschi's panel, one of the additional figures included in the scene is reminiscent of a well-known Roman bronze figure of a boy pulling a thorn from his foot. Brunelleschi's creation is challenging in its dynamic intensity. Less elegant than Ghiberti's, it is more about human drama and impending tragedy.[12]

Ghiberti won the competition. His first set of Baptistry doors took 27 years to complete, after which he was commissioned to make another. In the total of 50 years that Ghiberti worked on them, the doors provided a training ground for many of the artists of Florence. Being narrative in subject and employing not only skill in arranging figurative compositions but also the burgeoning skill of linear perspective, the doors were to have an enormous influence on the development of Florentine pictorial art.

Brancacci Chapel

Fresco. Jesus' disciples question him anxiously. Jesus gestures for St Peter to go to the lake. At right, Peter gives a coin, found in the fish, to a tax-collector

The first Early Renaissance frescos or paintings were started in 1425 when two artists commenced painting a fresco cycle of the Life of St. Peter in the chapel of the Brancacci family, at the Carmelite Church in Florence. They both were called by the name of Tommaso and were nicknamed Masaccio and Masolino, Slovenly Tom and Little Tom. More than any other artist, Masaccio recognized the implications in the work of Giotto. He carried forward the practice of painting from nature. His frescos demonstrate an understanding of anatomy, of foreshortening, of linear perspective, of light, and the study of drapery. In the Brancacci Chapel, his Tribute Money fresco has a single vanishing point and uses a strong contrast between light and dark to convey a three-dimensional quality to the work. As well, the figures of Adam and Eve being expelled from Eden, painted on the side of the arch into the chapel, are renowned for their realistic depiction of the human form and of human emotion. They contrast with the gentle and pretty figures painted by Masolino on the opposite side of Adam and Eve receiving the forbidden fruit. The painting of the Brancacci Chapel was left incomplete when Masaccio died at 26 in 1428. The Tribute Money was completed by Masolino while the remainder of the work in the chapel was finished by Filippino Lippi in the 1480s. Masaccio's work became a source of inspiration to many later painters, including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.[13]

Development of linear perspective

Fresco. A scene in muted colours showing the porch of a temple, with a steep flight of steps. The Virgin Mary, as a small child and encouraged by her parents, is walking up the steps towards the High Priest.

Paolo Uccello: The Presentation of the Virgin shows his experiments with perspective and light.

During the first half of the 15th century, the achieving of the effect of realistic space in a painting by the employment of linear perspective was a major preoccupation of many painters, as well as the architects Brunelleschi and Alberti who both theorised about the subject. Brunelleschi is known to have done a number of careful studies of the piazza and octagonal baptistery outside Florence Cathedral and it is thought he aided Masaccio in the creation of his famous trompe-l'œil niche around the Holy Trinity he painted at Santa Maria Novella.[13]

According to Vasari, Paolo Uccello was so obsessed with perspective that he thought of little else and experimented with it in many paintings, the best known being the three The Battle of San Romano paintings (completed by 1450s) which use broken weapons on the ground, and fields on the distant hills to give an impression of perspective.

In the 1450s Piero della Francesca, in paintings such as The Flagellation of Christ, demonstrated his mastery over linear perspective and also over the science of light. Another painting exists, a cityscape, by an unknown artist, perhaps Piero della Francesca, that demonstrates the sort of experiment that Brunelleschi had been making. From this time linear perspective was understood and regularly employed, such as by Perugino in his Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter (1481–82) in the Sistine Chapel.[12]

Rectangular panel painting. The composition is divided in two, with an interior scene and an exterior scene. To the left, the pale, brightly lit figure of Jesus stands tied to a column while a man whips him. The ruler sits to the left on a throne. The building is Ancient Roman in style. To the right, two richly dressed men and a barefooted youth stand in a courtyard, much closer to the viewer, so appearing larger.

Piero della Francesca: The Flagellation demonstrates the artist's control over both perspective and light.

Understanding of light

Giotto used tonality to create form. Taddeo Gaddi in his nocturnal scene in the Baroncelli Chapel demonstrated how light could be used to create drama. Paolo Uccello, a hundred years later, experimented with the dramatic effect of light in some of his almost monochrome frescoes. He did a number of these in terra verde ("green earth"), enlivening his compositions with touches of vermilion. The best known is his equestrian portrait of John Hawkwood on the wall of Florence Cathedral. Both here and on the four heads of prophets that he painted around the inner clock face in the cathedral, he used strongly contrasting tones, suggesting that each figure was being lit by a natural light source, as if the source was an actual window in the cathedral.[14]

Piero della Francesca carried his study of light further. In the Flagellation he demonstrates a knowledge of how light is proportionally disseminated from its point of origin. There are two sources of light in this painting, one internal to a building and the other external. Of the internal source, though the light itself is invisible, its position can be calculated with mathematical certainty. Leonardo da Vinci was to carry forward Piero's work on light.[15]

The Madonna

A circular terracotta plaque, sculptured in relief and glazed in intense colours of blue and green with white figures and motifs. At the centre the Virgin Mary, watched by John the Baptist, kneels in adoration of the baby Jesus. Little cherubs look on

Square panel painting, devotional picture. Although in richly coloured paint, and set against a dark forest, the composition of Virgin and Child is very similar to that on the terracotta plaque.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, revered by the Catholic Church worldwide, was particularly evoked in Florence, where there was a miraculous image of her on a column in the corn market and where both the Cathedral of "Our Lady of the Flowers" and the large Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella were named in her honour.

The miraculous image in the corn market was destroyed by fire, but replaced with a new image in the 1330s by Bernardo Daddi, set in an elaborately designed and lavishly wrought canopy by Orcagna. The open lower storey of the building was enclosed and dedicated as Orsanmichele. Depictions of the Madonna and Child were a very popular art form in Florence. They took every shape from small mass-produced terracotta plaques to magnificent altarpieces such as those by Cimabue, Giotto and Masaccio. In the 15th and first half of the 16th centuries, one workshop more than any other dominated the production of Madonnas. They were the della Robbia family, and they were not painters but modellers in clay. Luca della Robbia, famous for his cantoria gallery at the cathedral, was the first sculptor to use glazed terracotta for large sculptures. Many of the durable works of this family have survived. The skill of the della Robbias, particularly Andrea della Robbia, was to give great naturalism to the babies that they modelled as Jesus, and expressions of great piety and sweetness to the Madonna. They were to set a standard to be emulated by other artists of Florence. Among those who painted devotional Madonnas during the Early Renaissance are Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, Verrocchio and Davide Ghirlandaio. The custom was continued by Botticelli who produced a series of Madonnas over a period of twenty years for the Medici; Perugino, whose Madonnas and saints are known for their sweetness and Leonardo da Vinci, for whom a number of small attributed Madonnas such as the Benois Madonna have survived. Even Michelangelo who was primarily a sculptor, was persuaded to paint the Doni Tondo, while for Raphael, they are among his most popular and numerous works.

Early Renaissance painting in other parts of Italy

Andrea Mantegna in Padua and Mantua

One of the most influential painters of northern Italy was Andrea Mantegna of Padua, who had the good fortune to be in his teen years at the time in which the great Florentine sculptor Donatello was working there. Donatello created the enormous equestrian bronze, the first since the Roman Empire, of the condotiero Gattemelata, still visible on its plinth in the square outside the Basilica of Sant'Antonio. He also worked on the high altar and created a series of bronze panels in which he achieved a remarkable illusion of depth, with perspective in the architectural settings and apparent roundness of the human form all in very shallow relief.

At only 17 years old, Mantegna accepted his first commission, fresco cycles of the Lives of Saints James and Christopher for the Ovetari Chapel in the transept of the church of the Eremitani, near the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. Unfortunately, the building was mostly destroyed during World War II, and they are only known from photographs which reveal an already highly developed sense of perspective and a knowledge of antiquity, for which the ancient University of Padua had become well known, early in the 15th century.[16]

Fresco. A close-up view of richly dressed middle-aged couple seated on a terrace with their family, servants and hound. The man discusses a letter with his steward. A little girl seeks her mother's attention. The older sons stand behind the parents. The space is restricted and crowded in a formal manner, but the figures are interacting naturally.

Mantegna's last work in Padua was a monumental San Zeno altarpiece, created for the abbot of the Basilica of San Zeno, Verona from 1457 to 1459.[17] This polyptych of which the predella panels are particularly notable for the handling of landscape elements, was to influence the further development of Renaissance art in Northern Italy.[17][18]

Mantegna's most famous work is the interior decoration of the Camera degli Sposi in the Ducal palace, Mantua, dated about 1470. The walls are frescoed with scenes of the life of the Gonzaga family, talking, greeting a younger son and his tutor on their return from Rome, preparing for a hunt and other such scenes that make no obvious reference to matters historic, literary, philosophic or religious. They are remarkable for simply being about family life. The one concession is the scattering of jolly winged putti, who hold up plaques and garlands and clamber on the illusionistic pierced balustrade that surrounds a trompe-l'œil view of the sky that decks the ceiling of the chamber.[12] Mantegna's main legacy in considered the introduction of spatial illusionism, carried out by a mastery of perspective, both in frescoes and in sacra conversazione paintings: his tradition of ceiling decoration was followed for almost three centuries.

( Antonello da Messina )

In 1442 Alfonso V of Aragon became ruler of Naples, bringing with him a collection of Flemish paintings and setting up a Humanist Academy. Antonello da Messina seems to have had access to the King's collection, which may have included the works of Jan van Eyck.[19] Recent evidence indicates that Antonello was likely in contact with Van Eyck's most accomplished follower, Petrus Christus, in Milan in early 1456 and likely learned the techniques of oil painting, including painting almost microscopic detail and minute gradations of light, directly from Christus.[20] As well, his works' calmer expressions on peoples' faces and calmness in the works' overall composition also appears to be a Netherlandish influence.[21] Antonello went to Venice in 1475 and remained there until the fall of 1476 so it is likely that Antonello passed on the techniques of using oil paints,[22] painting the gradation of light, and the principles of calmness to Venetian painters, including Giovanni Bellini, one of the most significant painters of the High Renaissance in Northern Italy, during that visit.[23][2][16]

Antonello painted mostly small meticulous portraits in glowing colours. But one of his most famous works, St. Jerome in His Study, demonstrates his superior ability at handling linear perspective and light. The composition of the small painting is framed by a late Gothic arch, through which is viewed an interior, domestic on one side and ecclesiastic on the other, in the centre of which the saint sits in a wooden corral surrounded by his possessions while his lion prowls in the shadows on the floor. The way the light streams in through every door and window casting both natural and reflected light across the architecture and all the objects would have excited Piero della Francesca.[2][16]

Bosnia & Herzegovina  /  Transcontinental European Continent / Representation of Bosnian Arts in World / Protokoll 16.03.2023

Ancient heritage

Prehistory

Bosnia and Herzegovina hosts the oldest monument of the Paleolithic age in southeastern Europe, engravings in Badanj cave near Stolac in Herzegovina. The most famous engraving is the Horse attacked by arrows, preserved in fragments dated around 14000 - 12000 B.C.[1]During the time when Neolithic and Copper cultures were starting to appear, Mediterranean Panonian cultures began to mix. Herzegovina was highly influenced by the impresso ceramics from the Western Mediterranean, as seen in Green Cave near Mostar, Čairi near Stolac, Lisičići near Konjic and Peć Mlini near Grude. In the upper regions of the Bosna river and the Northeastern parts of Bosnia (Obre I near Kakanj) the local culture was influenced by Adriatic cultures in the South and the Starčević culture in the Northeast. Original expressions of that culture are ceramic pots on four legs, called Rhyton. They are also found in the Danilo culture on the Croatian coast. Because of these influences, Kakanj culture is considered part of a wide circle of Neolithic tribes that followed a cult of life force (from northern Italy, Dalmatia and Epirus to Aegean). Butmir Culture near Sarajevo is distinctive with fine glazed ceramics and miscellaneous geometrical decorations, often spirals.[2][3] From the 7th century BC onwards, bronze was replaced by iron, and only jewelry and art objects were still made out of bronze. The bronze culture of the Illyrians, an ethnic group with a distinct art form, started to organize itself in what is today Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Different Illyrian tribes, under the influence of Halstat cultures from the North, formed original regional centers. With the notable exception of Pod near Bugojno in the upper valley of the Vrbas River, nothing is known of their settlements. In eastern Bosnia in the cemeteries of Belotić and Bela Crkva, the rites of inhumation and cremation are attested, with skeletons in stone cists and cremations in urns. Metal implements appear here side by side with stone implements. Most of the remains belong to the Middle Bronze Age.

A very important role played their death cult, evidence of which is seen in their careful burials and burial ceremonies. Japodian tribes (found around Bihać) produced heavy, oversized necklaces out of yellow, blue or white glass paste, large bronze fibulas, as well as spiral bracelets, diadems and helmets out of bronze foils. In the 4th century BC, the first Celts arrived in the region, bringing with them the technique of the pottery wheel, new types of fibulas and different bronze and iron belts. However, their influence on Bosnia and Herzegovina's art is negligible.

Antiquity

The Neretva Delta in the South was heavily dominated by Hellenistic influences of the Daors, an Illyrian tribe who had their capital in Daorson near Stolac.[4] Romans subdued the Illyrians in the first century BC, with the Illyrian provinces turning into provinces of Rome and Byzantium.In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romans built several small temples decorated with reliefs. They utilized Bosnia and Herzegovina's mineral deposits, particularly silver, to build military, civilian and industrial settlements.[4] The complex of step sanctuary in Gradac near Posušje from year 184 AD had marble temple dedicated to recently deceased emperor Marcus Aurelius. Late Roman art in B&H is marked most dominantly expressed by the construction of villas, Christian mausoleums, basilicas and oratories like the Mausoleum in Šipovo near Jajce and Villa Mogorjelo near Čapljina as well as sculptures.[5]

Medieval art in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina the Romanesque influence came from Croatia although it was never fully accepted and thus only adopted some elements from it.Influences of Gothic art in the 14th century are represented by preaching orders and knightly culture. In Bosnian culture, religion and nobility were the main perpetuating factors.From the earliest times of Bosnian Kingdom the nobility was buried in large necropolises near roads with graves marked by monumental tombstones (stećak). A Stećak was sometimes engraved with reliefs showing all sorts of motifs, from figurative to symbols, and sometimes writings in Bosnian Cyrillic. They are strongly linked to the Bosnian Church and most of the motifs are derived from its particular belief system, although some are also derived from Romanesque (crosses, arcades with semi-circular arches, son, half-moon etc.) and Gothic (arcades with sharp arches, knight riders, shields, swords, lilies etc.) art of the West.The two most extraordinary examples of illuminated manuscripts from medieval Bosnia are Hval’s missionary in Zagreb, a lavishly decorated manuscript with many miniatures. Misal Hrvoja Vukčića Hrvatinića - a liturgical book of the Bosnian duke and ruler of Dalmatia - Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić, today in Istanbul, is colourfully painted with many details of knightly culture. Both were painted in Split, Croatia.

Ottoman art in Bosnia and Herzegovina

In the 16th century, all of Bosnia was under Ottoman, extinguishing the Western influence of renaissance and later baroque art from the region. The only places where some Western art remained was in Franciscan monasteries in Visoko, Kreševo, Franciscan monastery in Fojnica, Franciscan monastery in Kraljeva Sutjeska etc.However, the Ottoman period opened a new era in B&H art, that of Islamic Art which flourished until the 19th century. At that time three constant art traditions coexisted in B&H: Catholic-Western, Orthodox-Byzantine and the dominating Ottoman-Islamic one.The Ottomans were quickly developing urban cities upon their conquest of B&H, enriched by Islamic and Byzantine influences. For example, in Foča in the 16th century, the Ottomans built 17 mosques, 29 public fountains, 6 public baths (hamam) and 13 caravanserai motels (han). Sarajevo is an example of a non-urban open city where the most important buildings are organized around one veining street, a čaršija (Persian chahar-su meaning all four sides). In Sarajevo the largest is famous Baščaršija with shops of 50 different crafts from the 15th century.Islamic manuscripts, decorated in the Persian style with Islamic calligraphy, and many remain in Bosnian libraries to this day. In the 16th century, the Jews expelled from Spain came to Sarajevo, where they were allowed to settle. Beside their important influence on Bosnian culture, they brought with them a luxuriously decorated manuscript called Sarajevo Haggadah from the 14th century, which is now housed in the Sarajevo museum.The bridge is an important part of Islamic art, not only because of the great skill required of an architect, but because of its symbolic meaning a mediator between Heaven and Earth. One of the most famous examples is the Old Bridge in Mostar, built by Hajredin, a pupil of the famous architect Mimar Sinan from Istanbul.In Bosnian Islamic architecture, stone is reserved for religious, public buildings and fortifications, while private houses were built out of wood and ćerpić (native simple bonding material made of clay and straw). With often console constructions of the upper floors, these houses allowed for more open spaces and large windows. When the power of Ottomans started to descend in the middle of the 17th century, so did the influence of Islamic art in Bosnia and Herzegovina.After Bosnia became part of Austro-Hungarian, the region's art scene witnessed an intensification of activity as cities modernized and changed in structure. Architecture was dominated by eclectic pseudo styles like classicism, neo-renaissance, neo-baroque, and even neo-Romanesque as well as neo-gothic. A unique pseudo style is the“oriental eclectic” style (also referred to "Pseudo-Moorish style"), based on Moorish architecture found in Southern Spain and Egypt. The style contrasted markedly with the urban ambient of Bosnian cities at the time, as can be seen in Sarajevo (National Library and City Hall), Mostar Gymnasium and Travnik (Retirement Home).The first Bosnian artists were educated in large European academies in Vienna, München, Prag, Krakow, Budapest and Paris, thanks to scholarships of cultural societies like Prosvjeta and Napredak. Artists like Atanasije Popović, Lazar Drljača, Gabrijel Jurkić, Branko Radulović, Petar Šain etc., are influenced by academism with slight touches of impressionism, art nouveau, and pointillism. After the Great Exhibition of Bosnian Artists in 1917, the native born artists have prevailed. Modern styles that entered B&H were expressionism and Cézannes-ism.

Art in the Yugoslavian Kingdom

After the end of World War I, the society of artists from SHS (state of Serbians, Croats and Slovenians) was created and held numerous exhibitions and artistic gatherings like the Blažuj colony of Vladimir Becić. Participants o were Roman Petrović and Jovan Bijelić, both with abstract proclivities, while Karlo Mijić was devoted to colouristic landscapes.However, art production in B&H was severely restricted, leading many artists to never return to B&H from their studies in Zagreb and Beograd, while many were leaving the country. The first renewal happened with the "Group of Four" and "engaged art" of Roman Petrović and his circle, "The children of the Street". Mijić and Đoko Mazalić founded an art association called Krug (The Circle) with a strong focus on urban aesthetics of nature. Vojo Dimitrijević painted the Spain in 37, a representative artwork of colouristic expression with traces of Picasso and Chagall.In the 1930s, architects were influenced by ideas of functionalism, humane architecture and Bauhaus. Those buildings were uniting function, content and form, without unnecessary plastic decoration, and with a simple rhythm of windows and modern constructions.

Art in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Right after World War II, Communist Yugoslavia was founded, which allowed artists to find a new expression through the themes of Revolution and War. Prominent representatives of this are Ismet Mujezinović and Branko Šotra. Architecture was also under the direct influence of Socialistic architecture, but never reached the monumentality of the original works.In the 1950s, art slowly transformed to a more abstract outlook, based on industrial and economic motives. The first to do so was sculptor Mirko Ostoja who replaced classical modeling with iron welding. Even the Communist State changed its feeling toward modern art by commissioning large abstract monuments dedicated to famous battles in The War (Sutjeska, Kozara, Makljen etc.). Young architects gathered around Professor Juraj Neidhardt, and tried to connect modern architecture with B&H tradition and its surroundings. The result were buildings like The Mostar Mall, “Razvitak”, built in 1970 by A. Paljaga or the Jajce Mall in 1976 by R. Jadrić, Dž. Karić and N. Kurto.In the 1960s many architects were leaving traditional boundaries and made important buildings in the manner of functionalism: The telecommunication building in Addis Abeba by Ivan Štraus and Zdravko Kovacević, or the Skenderija Hall in Sarajevo by Živorad Janković and Halid Muhasilović are exemplary.[6]In the 1970s, an art expression inspired by old Bosnian culture and tradition appeared in the graphic work of Dževad Hozo and in the paintings of Mehmed Zaimović, Seid Hasanefendić and Mersad Berber. Opposite to that, the urban expression of Ismar Mujezinović's works is more related to modern film montage and photo-optics, while Braco Dimitrijević was a Conceptual artist who worked mainly outside B&H.An example of architecture in the 1980s is the Holiday Inn Hotel built in 1983 and the Unis Twin Towers built in Sarajevo in 1986, designed by Ivan Štraus.

Art after the Bosnian War

Cultural preservation is under way in Bosnia and Herzegovina which can be seen with the most recent reconstruction of Stari Most in Mostar and many other structures of cultural and historical significance which were damaged or destroyed in the war. Commercial construction in the years following the Bosnian War has seen a boom in Sarajevo. Sarajevo is one of the cities with the most construction in southeastern Europe. The Unis Twin Towers have been renovated completely. On the site of the former Oslobodjenje Towers, the Avaz towers have now been constructed. In the Hrasno residential area, the Bosnian Company Bosmal has constructed the Bosmal City Center, which includes the tallest set of twin towers in the Balkans at 120 meters each.The Avaz Twist Tower located in Marijin Dvor, Sarajevo, is the tallest tower in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the new headquarters for Avaz, the most popular Bosnia and Herzegovina newspaper company

Poland / ( EU ) Counts to 27 Member States / European Continent / Polish Art & Design / Wikipedia Source / Protokoll 16.03.2023 AD

Nineteenth century

Polish art has often reflected European trends while maintaining its unique character. The Kraków school of history painting developed by Jan Matejko produced monumental portrayals of significant events and customs throughout Polish history. He is referred to as the most famous Polish painter or even as the "national painter" of Poland.[2][3][4] Stanisław Witkiewicz was an ardent supporter of Realism in Polish art, its main representative being Jozef Chełmoński.

Kazimierz Stabrowski, Peacock. Portrait of Zofia Borucińska, 1908The Młoda Polska (Young Poland) movement witnessed the birth of modern Polish art and engaged in a great deal of formal experimentation led by Jacek Malczewski (Symbolism), Stanisław Wyspiański, Józef Mehoffer, and a group of Polish Impressionists.

Twentieth century

Artists of the twentieth-century Avant-Garde represented various schools and life. The art of Tadeusz Makowski was influenced by Cubism; while Władysław Strzemiński and Henryk Stażewski worked within the Constructivist idiom. Distinguished contemporary artists include Roman Opałka, Wilhelm Sasnal, Leon Tarasewicz, Jerzy Nowosielski, Wojciech Siudmak, Mirosław Bałka, and Katarzyna Kozyra and Zbigniew Wąsiel in the younger generation. Tamara de Lempicka was a Polish artist creating Art Déco paintings. Józef Czajkowski was an artist of many forms, including painting, architecture, and furniture design.[5] The most celebrated Polish sculptors include Xawery Dunikowski, Katarzyna Kobro, Alina Szapocznikow and Magdalena Abakanowicz.[citation needed] Since the inter-war years, Polish art and documentary photography has enjoyed worldwide recognition. After the Second World War in Poland only few famous artists like painters Andrzej Wróblewski, Bronisław Linke and film director Andrzej Wajda (recipient of an Honorary Oscar) commemorated the war's victims of the Nazi Holocaust, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Warsaw Uprising.Kapists (Jan Cybis, Jan Szancenbach, Artur Nacht-Samborski, Hanna Rudzka-Cybisowa), Andrzej Wróblewski, Grupa Krakowska (Tadeusz Kantor, Maria Jarema, Jerzy Nowosielski), individuals like Piotr Potworowski, Władysław Hasior, Ludwik Konarzewski (junior), Jerzy Duda-Gracz, Zdzisław Beksiński were some important Polish post-war painters.In the sixties the Polish Poster School was formed, with Henryk Tomaszewski and Waldemar Świerzy at its head.[6]

Contemporary art since 1989

Some of the most important representatives of contemporary art are Wilhelm Sasnal, Rafał Bujnowski, Józef Robakowski, Paweł Althamer, Artur Żmijewski, Mirosław Bałka, Leszek Knaflewski, Robert Kuśmirowski, Zuzanna Janin, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Paulina Ołowska, Katarzyna Kozyra, Joanna Rajkowska, Gruppa Azorro.

Independent galleries, mainly in Warsaw, Krakow, and Poznań, play an important role. In many cities museums of modern art are being built, gathering not only national but also international collections (Krakow, Wrocław, and Toruń). In Warsaw, work is underway to build the Museum of Modern Art, which operates a temporary building, creating an international collection of contemporary art. It is open to the public since 2013.

World / News / Arts / Mexican Art & In Affiliation An Collage Arts  / Resource & Sourcing Wikipedia / Representation Date / Release Date / Protokollierung 23.03. 2023 AD 

Various types of visual arts developed in the geographical area now known as Mexico. The development of these arts roughly follows the history of Mexico, divided into the prehispanic Mesoamerican era, the colonial period, with the period after Mexican War of Independence, the development Mexican national identity through art in the nineteenth century, and the florescence of modern Mexican art after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). Mesoamerican art is that produced in an area that encompasses much of what is now central and southern Mexico, before the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire for a period of about 3,000 years from Mexican Art can be bright and colourful this is called encopended. During this time, all influences on art production were indigenous, with art heavily tied to religion and the ruling class. There was little to no real distinction among art, architecture, and writing. The Spanish conquest led to 300 years of Spanish colonial rule, and art production remained tied to religion—most art was associated with the construction and decoration of churches, but secular art expanded in the eighteenth century, particularly casta paintings, portraiture, and history painting. Almost all art produced was in the European tradition, with late colonial-era artists trained at the Academy of San Carlos, but indigenous elements remained, beginning a continuous balancing act between European and indigenous traditions.[1] After Independence, art remained heavily European in style, but indigenous themes appeared in major works as liberal Mexico sought to distinguish itself from its Spanish colonial past. This preference for indigenous elements continued into the first half of the 20th century, with the Social Realism or Mexican muralist movement led by artists such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, and Fernando Leal, who were commissioned by the post-Mexican Revolution government to create a visual narrative of Mexican history and culture. The strength of this artistic movement was such that it affected newly invented technologies, such as still photography and cinema, and strongly promoted popular arts and crafts as part of Mexico's identity. Since the 1950s, Mexican art has broken away from the muralist style and has been more globalized, integrating elements from Asia, with Mexican artists and filmmakers having an effect on the global stage. 

Pre-Columbian Art

 It is believed that the American continent's oldest rock art, 7500 years old, is found in a cave on the peninsula of Baja California.[2]The pre-Hispanic art of Mexico belongs to a cultural region known as Mesoamerica, which roughly corresponds to central Mexico on into Central America,[3] encompassing three thousand years from 1500 BCE to 1500 CE generally divided into three eras: Pre Classic, Classic and Post Classic.[4] The first dominant Mesoamerican culture was that of the Olmecs, which peaked around 1200 BCE. The Olmecs originated much of what is associated with Mesoamerica, such as hieroglyphic writing, calendar, first advances in astronomy, monumental sculpture (Olmec heads) and jade work.[5] They were a forerunner of later cultures such as Teotihuacan, north of Mexico City, the Zapotecs in Oaxaca and the Mayas in southern Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. While empires rose and fell, the basic cultural underpinnings of the Mesoamerica stayed the same until the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.[5] These included cities centered on plazas, temples usually built on pyramid bases, Mesoamerican ball courts and a mostly common cosmology.[3] While art forms such as cave paintings and rock etchings date from earlier, the known history of Mexican art begins with Mesoamerican art created by sedentary cultures that built cities, and often, dominions.[4][5] While the art of Mesoamerica is more varied and extends over more time than anywhere else in the Americas, artistic styles show a number of similarities.[6][7] Unlike modern Western art, almost all Mesoamerican art was created to serve religious or political needs, rather than art for art's sake. It is strongly based on nature, the surrounding political reality and the gods.[8] Octavio Paz states that "Mesoamerican art is a logic of forms, lines, and volumes that is as the same time a cosmology." He goes on to state that this focus on space and time is highly distinct from European naturalism based on the representation of the human body. Even simple designs such as stepped frets on buildings fall into this representation of space and time, life and the gods.[9] Art was expressed on a variety of mediums such as ceramics, amate paper and architecture.[7] Most of what is known of Mesoamerican art comes from works that cover stone buildings and pottery, mostly paintings and reliefs.[6] Ceramics date from the early the Mesoamerican period. They probably began as cooking and storage vessels but then were adapted to ritual and decorative uses. Ceramics were decorated by shaping, scratching, painting and different firing methods.The earliest known purely artistic production were small ceramic figures that appeared in Tehuacán area around 1,500 BCE and spread to Veracruz, the Valley of Mexico, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas and the Pacific coast of Guatemala.[4] The earliest of these are mostly female figures, probably associated with fertility rites because of their often oversized hips and thighs, as well as a number with babies in arms or nursing. When male figures appear they are most often soldiers.[10] The production of these ceramic figures, which would later include animals and other forms, remained an important art form for 2000 years. In the early Olmec period most were small but large-scale ceramic sculptures were produced as large as 55 cm.[11][12]After the middle pre-Classic, ceramic sculpture declined in the center of Mexico except in the Chupícuaro region. In the Mayan areas, the art disappears in the late pre-Classic, to reappear in the Classic, mostly in the form of whistles and other musical instruments. In a few areas, such as parts of Veracruz, the creation of ceramic figures continued uninterrupted until the Spanish conquest, but as a handcraft, not a formal art. Mesoamerican painting is found in various expressions—from murals, to the creation of codices and the painting of ceramic objects. Evidence of painting goes back at least to 1800 BCE and continues uninterrupted in one form or another until the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century.[14] Although it may have occurred earlier, the earliest known cases of artistic painting of monumental buildings occur in the early Classic period with the Mayas at Uaxactun and Tikal, and in Teotihuacan with walls painted in various colors.[4] Paints were made from animal, vegetable and mineral pigments and bases.[15] Most paintings focus one or more human figures, which may be realistic or stylized, masculine, feminine or asexual. They may be naked or richly attired, but the social status of each figure is indicated in some way. Scenes often depict war, sacrifice, the roles of the gods or the acts of nobles. However, some common scenes with common people have been found as well.

Other subjects included gods, symbols and animals.[15] Mesoamerican painting was bi-dimensional with no efforts to create the illusion of depth. However, movement is often represented.[17] Non-ceramic sculpture in Mesoamerica began with the modification of animal bones, with the oldest known piece being an animal skull from Tequixquiac that dates between 10,000 and 8,000 BCE.[10] Most Mesoamerican sculpture is of stone; while relief work on buildings is the most dominant, freestanding sculpture was done as well. Freestanding three-dimensional stone sculpture began with the Olmecs, with the most famous example being the giant Olmec stone heads. This disappeared for the rest of the Mesoamerican period in favor of relief work until the late post-Classic with the Aztecs. The majority of stonework during the Mesoamerican period is associated with monumental architecture that, along with mural painting, was considered an integral part of architecture rather than separate.[19] Monumental architecture began with the Olmecs in southern Veracruz and the coastal area of Tabasco in places such as San Lorenzo; large temples on pyramid bases can still be seen in sites such as Montenegro, Chiapa de Corzo and La Venta. This practice spread to the Oaxaca area and the Valley of Mexico, appearing in cities such as Monte Albán, Cuicuilco and Teotihuacan. These cities had a nucleus of one or more plazas, with temples, palaces and Mesoamerican ball courts. Alignment of these structures was based on the cardinal directions and astronomy for ceremonial purposes, such as focusing the sun's rays during the spring equinox on a sculpted or painted image. This was generally tied to calendar systems.[21] Relief sculpture and/or painting were created as the structures were built. By the latter pre-Classic, almost all monumental structures in Mesoamerica had extensive relief work. Some of the best examples of this are Monte Albán, Teotihuacan and Tula.[22] -Hispanic reliefs are general lineal in design and low, medium and high reliefs can be found. While this technique is often favored for narrative scenes elsewhere in the world, Mesoamerican reliefs tend to focus on a single figure. The only time reliefs are used in the narrative sense is when several relief steles are placed together. The best relief work is from the Mayas, especially from Yaxchilan.[23] Writing and art were not distinct as they have been for European cultures. Writing was considered art and art was often covering in writing.[9] The reason for this is that both sought to record history and the culture's interpretation of reality. (salvatvolp14) Manuscripts were written on paper or other book-like materials then bundled into codices.[24] The art of reading and writing was strictly designated to the highest priest classes, as this ability was a source of their power over society.[14][17] The pictograms or glyphs of this writing system were more formal and rigid than images found on murals and other art forms as they were considered mostly symbolic, representing formulas related to astronomical events, genealogy and historic events.[17] Most surviving pre-Hispanic codices come from the late Mesoamerican period and early colonial period, as more of these escaped destruction over history. For this reason, more is known about the Aztec Empire than the Mayan cultures.[15][24] Important Aztec codices include the Borgia Group of mainly religious works, some of which probably pre-date the conquest, the Codex Borbonicus, Codex Mendoza, and the late Florentine Codex, which is in a European style but executed by Mexican artists, probably drawing on earlier material that is now lost. Important museum collections in Mexico include those of the National Museum of Anthropology and the Museo Diego Rivera Anahuacalli, both in Mexico City, as well as provincial museums.