Hello dear friends, I don’t know if I have enough time till my leave to find all these wonderful and great genius women who are not actually hidden but that the society is so blind or rather dumb to disclose them to the poblic.

At least, I must be lucky to find out them. Here is another Brilliant one:

I don’t know if you know or have heard of this amazing woman. I didn’t; till Mike Ben, a FB friend of mine caught my attention on this fascinating Dame whom every man (including me) could fall in love with her. She’s not only a great painter but also a writer and poet.

Here, some dropping words about her life;

In her own words… Dorothea Tanning was born in 1910 in Galesburg, Illinois and attended Knox College in her hometown before studying painting in Chicago (haunting the Art Institute where she learned what painting was.)   In 1941, now in New York, she met the art dealer, Julien Levy, and his surrealist friends, refugees from Nazi occupied France. Late in 1942 Max Ernst visited her studio, saw a painting, (Birthday), and stayed to play chess. They would have 34 years together, at first in Sedona, Arizona (a mere outpost at the time).  Here she would continue to paint her enigmatic versions of life on the inside, looking out: The Guest Room, The Truth About Comets, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Interior with Sudden Joy, Insomnias, Palaestra, Tamerlane, Far From. By 1956 Max and Dorothea had chosen to live and work thenceforth in France. Though Paris was headquarters, they preferred the country quiet lure in Touraine and Provence. These years included, for Dorothea Tanning, an intense five- year adventure in soft sculpture:  Cousins, Don Juan’s Breakfast, Fetish, Rainy Day Canapé, Tragic Table, Verb, Xmas, Emma, Revelation or the End of the Month, Hôtel du Pavot Room 202.

Max Ernst died on April 1, 1976 and Dorothea faced a solitary future. “Go home,” said the paint tubes, the canvases, the brushes. Returning to the United States in the late 1970s, and still painting, Tango Lives, Woman Artist, On Avalon, Door 84, Still in the Studio, Blue Mom, Dionysos S.O.S., she gave full rein to her long felt compulsion to write.  Words, poetry.  Written, read, heard.  Would she join these voices even then?  Her poems have since appeared in a number of literary reviews and magazines, such as The Yale Review, Poetry, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The Boston Review, The Southwest Review, Parnassus, and in Best Poems of 2002 and 2005. Her published works include two memoirs, Birthday and Between Lives, a collection of poems, A Table of Content, and a novel, Chasm.

At present Dorothea Tanning lives in New York City, breathes words, as well as air, and looks at her paintings with amazement. It is 2009.
 

About the artist: Dorothea Tanning died at her home in New York City on January 31, 2012.  She was 101 years old, and had just published her second collection of poems, Coming to That (Graywolf Press, 2011). 

Still later, when I was more in touch with
the world, they told me, “You have a future.”
I thought that over. Even if I believed them,
what did my little future, whatever that was,
have to do with the real thing, whatever that is?
—from “Waiting”

Let’s enjoy her paintings with the beginning of her self-portrait; Birthday.

Artist, Once https://poets.org/

Dorothea Tanning – 1910-2012

That was in a room for rent.
It had a window and a bed,

it was enough for dreaming,
for stunning facts like being

at last, and undeniably
in NYC, enough to hold

enfolded as in a pregnancy,
those not-yet-painted works

to be. They, hanging fire,
slow to come—to come

out—being deep inside her,
oozing metamorphosis

in her warm dark, took
their time and promised.

Fast forward. Trapped in now,
she's not all that sure.

Compared to what entwined
her mind before the test,

before the raw achievement
pat, secure—oh, such bounty

to be lived, yet untasted,
undefined—all the rest...

Sources:

https://www.dorotheatanning.org/dorothea-tanning

https://www.dorotheatanning.org/

https://www.graywolfpress.org/themes/oc_patterns/logo.svg

Hi dear fellows. Let me first drop some lines as a prologue before begin to report our trip;
As a novice in the matter of writing, I look always for gathering some idea for my weekend post. I am getting used to doing it (it seems to become a ritual for me). Therefore, I try to begin on Mondays because I need time! though it sometimes stuns me to see some friends who simply post a video-clip or share from the WEB a quote with a title; The Quote of the Day, and that was it! I can’t, I don’t know why but I can not do it so simply. Surely I use also the WEB but when I want to tell something, must be composed a part of my own thoughts too.
Anyway, this time I was in Bonn and I couldn’t get ready to prepare something or even not a free mind to catch up with an idea. And when we came back home I was so rigid that I couldn’t fix the days till today I worked up and I had a feeling like a pupil who had not finished his homework and must appear in the school!!
Now at least there was a trip and I can tell thereabout and share some pictures with you, I hope you’ll enjoy it.

A few days ago, my wife and I were in Bonn not only to visit the former capital city of Germany (BRD the west part) But surely to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Ludwig von Beethoven; one of the greatest ever in the classic music.

The truth is that we wanted to travel to Berlin as we’d planed last year to get my interview with the US Embassy for getting a visa for me if you might remember it. It has been cancelled because of the Corona emerge and we have just thought to change this meeting to few-days travel in Berlin to meet also the ex from my wife! But Berlin became a Hot-spot, therefore, we made an immediate change to Bonn, also towards Beethoven, an unbelievable chance.

I love him and his works; especially his once and for all Concerto Violon which He had composed only one (many other compositors have more than one Concerto Violon) but this is a remarkable one.
And we had met the Rhein and her beauty, we had also an unexpected encounter with Beavers who walking cooly around.

And we took a look at his house or museum, we were not allowed to take any pictures, therefore, I had to steal one from the WEB! It’s his piano, so small but what the masterworks he’d created with it; even later when he was deaf.

There some more, have a peaceful weekend 🙏💖

And yet, let’s have the great piece; with a woman as the soloist, what else.

I just can’t stop thinking admirably about this woman. She, with her infinite courage, had fought for her idea till to the end, alone.

Her unlimited view on ethnicities, religions or creeds is stunning me; she had a wider look at the problem of the human judgement than her fellow colleagues. As we might know this point of view is lacking in our society, either those days or now. And it causes a big problem in many countries on Earth.

But honestly, to reach such a point of view looks like idealistic, a dream! Although, she had done it and was so fearless to talk about it.

Her breakthrough was her participation in the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the organizer of the jews death-transport to the Gas-Chamber, who was captured so refined by Mossad (the Israeli secret service) in 1960 in Argentina and transported to Israel for the trial. She had been invited by a famous Magazine to make a report on this Process. But what she wrote in her announcement was not what the peoples expected for; it was a superhuman report as I might call. She had not, as the others did, observed this occurrence superficially (as the motto; everything runs perfectly).

“After Germany’s defeat in 1945, Eichmann was captured by US forces, but escaped from a detention camp and moved around Germany to avoid re-capture. He ended up in a small village in Lower Saxony, where he lived until 1950, when he moved to Argentina using false papers he obtained with help from an organisation directed by Catholic bishop Alois Hudal. Information collected by the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, confirmed his location in 1960. A team of Mossad and Shin Bet agents captured Eichmann and brought him to Israel to stand trial on 15 criminal charges, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the Jewish people. During the trial, he did not deny the Holocaust or his role in organising it, but claimed that he was simply following orders in a totalitarianFührerprinzip system. He was found guilty on all of the charges, and was executed by hanging on 1 June 1962.^[c] The trial was widely followed in the media and was later the subject of several books, including Hannah Arendt‘s Eichmann in Jerusalem, in which Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe Eichmann.^[6]” From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann

She had looked at this man; Eichmann, psychologically and understood something which the others never wanted to understand; the main purpose of engendering such a creature.

She said in the opposite of others, that this man was not a monster but a very simply naive man who did his orders from above; the real monster is the ideology behind him. That is that, what makes monsters from the normal simple people. It was, of course, a hammer on the heads of all conservatives in every group.
I believe her wholeheartedly; if we take a deeper look at all these monsters in history, for example, the Nazi regime one by one; we can find a lot of ideots there. Hitler himself in his ideas, may be a mad but genius one. But the rests were ill-minded poor creatures who wanted only to keep and cast their power.

Here is the final act of a movie which I watched some days ago, a well-made production by Margarethe von Trotta. A fascinated speech by a fascinated woman.

The definition of the crime of the Nazi is not only the crime against Jews, it is the crime against humanity. Induiality means to be somebody.

Is it still I that burns there all alone?
Unrecognizable? memories denied?
O life, o life: being outside.
And I in flames—no one is left—unknown. —Rainer Maria Rilke, Komm Du (1926), trans. by Walter Kaufmann (1975)

And after all these she became alone; here she tells about the loneliness;

Just as terror, even in its pre-total, merely tyrannical form ruins all relationships between men, so the self-compulsion of ideological thinking ruins all relationships with reality. The preparation has succeeded when people have lost contact with their fellow men* as well as the reality around them; for together with these contacts, men lose the capacity of both experience and thought. The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.

Let’s say happy birthday to this great musician, thinker, human; John Lennon. He’d be eighty years old if a mad and ill-minded man didn’t kill him forty years ago.
As I can remember, Al and I were listening to the Beatles, we have been grown up with them I’d say, it wasn’t usual in Iran in those days (60s).
After their separation, we kept buying every single which the fab-four had alone produced, but I should say that between John and Paul, we were more inclined to John than Paul. As I believe (and I might not be alone) their separation had shown that the Paul was more the body and John was the soul of Lennon&Macartney. I mean even in their way of compositions.

That’s for sure that their songs were not the same as they made music together; and when we nevertheless bought all of their LPs, I felt Paul’s working as a businessman to sell his songs but John was trying to make music!

Anyway, I think that he (John) can celebrate his birthday because he is and remains alive; in his songs in which we listen to every time. Happy Birthday John. 💖💖🙏💖💖

“Imagine”
(from “Imagine: John Lennon” soundtrack)

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today… Aha-ah…

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace… You…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world… You…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

I’d like to paint the way you write; says Cezanne to Zola.

I think there fits also the other way round; I’d like to write the way you paint.

It’d be a short post (because my lovely granddaughter Mila will come soon?)
I have watched this movie yesterday, though I have recorded some weeks ago and it was so wonderful that I wanted to share it with you, might be interested to see it.

I was fascinated by this movie, not only because of the amazing atmosphere at the end of the 19th century’s but also to see these crazy and unpredictable genius whom I saw them all in my life in my family!

Let’s meet the genius again in a very sensitive version 😊have a wonderful weekend 🙏💖

Or; ~ And Goddess made Woman in her own Image

What we as human search and find but sometimes, through our ego get some certainties, puzzles me always. We must know that we don’t know first, then when we think twice, we might guess the answers and look through it again and again to find the right one!

Here I just want to present a pure beauty of the creation on this earth; we must be stunned now and then how far can the elegance go. This created art is fascinating, a beauty itself;

With many thanks to Marie Grillot http://Marie Grillot · Égypte-actualités for her amazing description of this find. Translated from French. via https://egyptophile.blogspot.com/

This sculpted portrait of Queen Tiyi, great royal wife of Amenhotep III, mother of Akhenaton, seduces us with its beauty and gentleness. The sculptor who made it seems to have barely scratched the white limestone with his finest chisel, to turn it into a work of art imbued with femininity and perfection.

The queen is shown in profile – the left – and wears a ceremonial headdress. Her tripartite, smooth wig is surrounded by a diadem adorned on the forehead with two uraei which stand out in relief: one wears the red crown (decheret) of Lower Egypt, while the other wears the white crown. (hedjet) from Upper Egypt. The back of the tiara is embellished with an intricately carved falcon which spreads its long protective wings. Between his talons, he holds the shen sign, symbol of eternity.

The wig is surmounted by a mortar encircled by seven-disc uraei, the first three have suffered: their upper part is missing. This modius is surmounted by two tall ostrich feathers of which only the base remains.

The queen’s face is perfect: her almond-shaped eye surmounted by a beautifully arched eyebrow, her nose of ideal proportions, her delicate ear, near which – a charming detail – appears a short lock of hair and her mouth whose lips full seem to sketch a slight smile.

Her shoulders and her breast are soft and round. Of the flagellum – fly swatter – which she held in one hand, only the upper part is now visible. Its long curved stem opens onto a lotus.

This portrait aroused as much wonder as admiration, sparking just as many interesting analyzes and studies!

“It is executed in a more traditional style than many of the images we know of it. It represents one of the peaks of the art of official portraiture. In a play of flexible and elegant lines, the artist idealized the facial features, the upper lip a little heavy, the fold of the mouth with sagging corners (Woman in the time of the pharaohs – Six works of art from the Egyptian collection of the Royal Museums of Art and History).

“The style is of rare elegance, particularly as regards the face. It will be observed that making use of a relief barely three millimetres thick, the sculptor manages to render both the gaze (shadow amassed towards the front of the eye), the palpitation of the nostrils and the sensuality of the mouth “. (Pierre Gilbert, in “Ancient Mediterranean”).

“The smooth whiteness of the bare limestone softens subtle indications of the queen’s age, such as the very slight puffiness on the cheeks. Her hair is smooth; the artist may have intended to paint the details” (Arielle Kozloff in “Amenophis III, the sun pharaoh”).

“Tiyi’s recognizable features are also reminiscent of those of her husband. It was the custom, in Egyptian art, to attribute to gods and humans something of the physiognomy of the reigning king, which was the best pledge of union between the ones and the others. But here, the resemblance has undoubtedly more significance. The understanding often marked by Amenophis III between him and Tiy is reflected in the face of this one, where the resemblance becomes a sign of reciprocal amorous happiness (The Reign of the Sun Akhnaton and Nefertiti).

This magnificent relief comes from the Theban tomb of Userhat, guardian of the royal harem of the temple of Amenhotep III, located in the necropolis of el-Khokha. In the “Annals of the Antiquities Service of Egypt, Volume IV, 1902-1903″, Howard Carter – who was then inspector of the Theban necropolis – reports that he went there to see this tomb that ” the Omdeh of Qournah “indicated to him. If it has already been looted, he nevertheless notes that: “The reliefs are of remarkable work and as for Tiy, I do not remember having seen a better portrait of it!”

In his report, he also publishes the full relief, representing the queen, who was sitting behind her husband during a ceremony.

How to explain the fact that this portrait of the TT 47, was then cut out, to have only an almost square shape (height 41.9 cm – width 40.3 cm)? Then outraged, overloaded with inscriptions carried in black on the cheek, neck, torso and a shoulder, and deprived of some hieroglyphic signs, erased, levelled with the mortar?
How to explain that this relief is then found at Drouot in Paris, on April 10-12, 1905, in the catalogue of the sale of Paul Philip, a collector who had excavated the site of Heliopolis?

It is thus “curiously” presented under the n ° 91: “Fragment of a bas-relief of the Ptolemaic period in limestone and representing one of the Ptolemies. The king is wearing the headband held rigid at the back by the goddess of victory in the form of a bird of prey and at the front by the two uraei. Above this first headdress is placed the shouti crown (crown of the double feather) truncated, and adorned at the base uraei. A cloth also encloses all the hair. The hand holds the heraldic lotus. A demotic, almost indecipherable inscription has been traced with kalam on the face, neck, chest and arm “.

It will be acquired for a modest sum (180 F) by Jean Capart, deputy curator of the Royal Museums of Decorative and Industrial Arts of Brussels, who is then responsible for building a rich and representative collection of Egyptian antiquities.

How can we believe that Jean Capart did not immediately recognize a typical piece of the art of Amenhotep III? And that, according to Jean-Michel Bruffaerts: “It is the French Egyptologist Georges Daressy, assistant curator at the Cairo Museum, who was the first to suggest that this relief could date, not from the Ptolemaic period as claimed by the Catalog Philip, but well of the XVIIIe dynasty (New Kingdom) “?

Thus, two years will pass before Jean Capart realizes the true “origin” of his acquisition: it was indeed part of the relief photographed by Carter in the TT 47!

Looking at it from then on with a new eye, with increased attention, he will decide to clean it, to remove the ‘filthy’ black inscriptions which deteriorated its purity …

The relief will be restored with care, the queen will regain her lost “status” for some time and will become the “star” of the Egyptian collection of the Brussels museum.

Why not end with the words of Jean Capart: “The fragment of relief of Queen Tiyi cannot fail to strike our visitors. It will show them, several centuries before the first gropings of Greek art, an ideal of beauty and learned processes to translate it, which all those who claim to judge in an impartial manner the artistic evolution of humanity no longer have the right to ignore any more “.

Marie Grillot http://Marie Grillot

Sources :

Capart J., 1904, New acquisitions. Egyptian section. Antiquities of the Thinite Period, Bulletin of the Royal Museums of Decorative and Industrial Arts
Capart J., 1908, A portrait of queen Tiyi, in: Bulletin of the Royal Museums of Decorative and Industrial Arts
Carter H., 1903, Report of Work done in Upper Egypt (1902-1903), in Annals of the Antiquities Service of Egypt 4, p. 177-178, pl. II.
TOPOGRAPHICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHIC TEXTS, RELIEFS, AND P AINTINGS I. THE THEBAN NECROPOLIS PART 1. PRIVATE TOMBS, BY THE LATE BERTHA PORTER AND ROSALIND L. B. MOSS, B.Sc. (OxoN.), F.S.A. Assisted by ETHEL W. BURNEY
SECOND EDITION REVISED AND AUGMENTED – OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS © Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1960 Revised edition first published 1960 by the Oxford University Press Re-issued by the Griffith Institute 1970
http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/topbib/pdf/pm1-1.pdf
Catalog of an Exhibition of Ancient Egyptian Art, London, 1922 – p. 63
https://archive.org/details/catalogueofexhib00burlrich
http://www.kmkg-mrah.be/fr/éggypt
Pierre GILBERT, Ancient Mediterranean and Humanism in Art, L’art Témoin 2, Editions Desoer, Liège, 1967
Jean Capart and Queen Tiyi, “the Mona Lisa of the Cinquantenaire”, Jean-Michel Bruffaerts
BULLETIN of the ROYAL MUSEUMS OF ART AND HISTORY PARC DU CINQUANTENAIRE BRUSSELS van de KONINKLIjKE MUSEA VOOR KUNST EN GESCHIEDENIS JUBELPARK BRUSSEL, TOME / DEEL 80, 2009
https://jeancapart.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/TAP-2009-Jean-
Woman in the time of the pharaohs – Six works of art from the Egyptian collection of the Royal Museums of Art and History – RMAH November 30, 1985 – February 27, 1986
Amenophis III, the sun pharaoh, RMM, 1993 (Arielle Kozloff)
The Reign of the Sun Akhnaton and Nefertiti
Exhibition organized by the Ministries of Culture at the Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels – January 17 – March 16, 1975 (Pierre Gilbert)

When Queen Tiyi was presented as “a Ptolemaic king” …

Hello, my dear friends. Let me again have a review on the history of art in my birth land, not only because of my pride in this matter, I just think it is an interesting issue. Though, we have a quote saying; I am the one whom Rostam was the legend! Which means that one utters himself proudly because of his historical legacy. 😅😂

“Rostam was one of the heroes in the Persian Saga in Shahnameh by the Persian poet Ferdowsi” (I will come to this Myth one day.)

Anyway, it gives me even a sad feeling; in the old Persians, there were many artworks which were damaged after the Arab invasion of Persia, led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire of Iran (Persia) in 651 and the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion. It was a destructive attack in the years (642 – 821)

The Persians have witnessed this destructive Arabs’ invasion of Iran after the defeat of the Sassanians’ army, the reason; maybe the lack of discipline, order, unity, and integration within the administration body of Sassanians’ government paved the way for the Arabs’ conquest of Iran with a deadly blow. And pityingly, it was not only bloodsheds but also all kind of arts like Carpets, Paintings, Books, Music instruments and composed pieces written on the papers was burned out with the palaces together; under the motto; The only art is the Quran (the holy book of Islam) and nothing else.

Well, therefore, nothing’s remained from the old arts. And what we can talk about the Persian genius, it can be only after Islam and there are many; it is because the Arabs were not in a way making an imperium for themselves; they had actually no idea thereabout, they just wanted to convert people to Islam as many as they could. One had to say God is great and Muhammad is one and the only prophet. That was all, then the people could live and do what they wanted in their own home.

That’s why we see so many genii in the world of Islam, especially in Iran like Abu Ali Sina (Avicenna – The greatest doctor after Galinos)
Whom I once wrote about him, Zakariya al-Razi (inventor of Alcohol http://Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi ) and also Omar Khayyam whom I want to introduce him here.

I must add here that my expression above doesn’t have to be interpreted as patriotism as I am not one. I feel it just unfair to see how a great culture gets damaged by some uncultivated ideologist. As we might know; for example; the equality between gender in the old Persia compared to the Arabs as Muhammad the prophet quoted that “Heaven is under the feet of the mothers” to stop men burring their daughters after born; they wanted only sons!

Omar Khayyam was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet. He was born in Nishabur, in northeastern Iran, and spent most of his life near the court of the Karakhanid and Seljuq rulers in the period which witnessed the First Crusade. (Wikipedia)

I was not only fascinated by his poems but also by his solitary view to the world and into the life. He was convinced that life is now; enjoy every minute in it that when the time comes, nothing of you will remain.

Of course, there are some translations on his works; the famous one is Edward FitzGerald http://Edward FitzGerald (poet) who has a freewill-translation; nice and good but I had preferred to translate these two poems by myself.😉

from child became a teacher in a while
as a teacher, we’re happy for a while
listen to the end what we’ve received
We came out of the dust and gone with the wind

{translated by me}

یکچند به کودکی به استادشدیم
یک چند ز استادی خود شاد شدیم
پایان سخن شنو که مارا چه رسید
از خاک برامدیم و بر باد شدیم

without a pure drink, existing I can’t
without a sip of wine, bearing the body, I can’t
I avid for that moment that Saghy says;
Take another cup and I can’t {translated by me}

This video which I represent here is not only embellished with some wonderful Khayyam’s poems but also is a very informative on Khayyam as a scientist and the story of the old Persian. If you’d have about 30 minutes time, you’d be surely amused.

Sources:

https://www.destinationiran.com/history-destructive-arabs-invasion-of-iran.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Zakariya_al-Razi#:~:text=Muhammad%20ibn%20Zakariya%20al%2DRazi%20%2D%20Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayyam

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Omar-Khayyam-Persian-poet-and-astronomer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_FitzGerald_(poet)

Here I’d like also present the article of my Greek friends whom I am always thankful for their great posts about the sad sinking the Titanic and more sadly the worthy book of Edward FitzGerald.

Like in the ancient time; the old Hellenes and ole Persians hold together. 🙏💖🙏

Rubayat: The most luxurious book of poetry in the history of mankind

By http://SearchingTheMeaningOfLife

Natalia Petriti

When the Titanic sank on the night of April 14, 1912, in addition to the dozens of souls he was about to carry to the depths of the ocean, he would take with him one of the most important versions of all time. This book was a fictional manuscript of Rubáiyát, the 11th-century Iranian scholar Omár Khayyám. The book was considered valuable because it was the only one in the world at the time.

In fact, at that time there were plenty of copies of the volume of Persian poems. But when the Titanic made its first and final voyage, this version of Rubayat surpassed all other collections, not because of its content, but because of its unrealistic appearance. In fact, the story of the manuscript was the inspiration for a novel by French and Lebanese author Amin Maalouf, entitled Samarkand.

The story of Rubayat

Desiring to revive medieval bookbinding traditions using gemstones, George Sutcliffe and Francis Sangorski were known in the early 1900s for their luxurious and state-of-the-art designs. Henry Sotheran, a bookstore owner, turned to them to make a book like no other.

Sotheran was not interested in the cost of its creation and so the creators put their imagination to work and all their mastery.

The book was completed in 1911, after two years of intensive work. The edition consisted of loose Victorian renditions by Edward FitzGerald of Omar Khayyám’s poems, illustrated by Elihu Vedder and became known as “The Great Omar” and “The Book Wonderful” for its sheer brilliance. It had a gilded cover with three peacocks, the tails of which were decorated with precious stones and were surrounded by intricate floral patterns, pervasive in medieval Persian manuscripts. On the back cover, a Greek bouzouki adorned the book.

More than 1000 precious and semi-precious stones were used to create it. Rubies, turquoise, emeralds, as well as about 5000 pieces of leather, silver, ivory and ebony. The pagination required 600 sheets of 22 carat gold.

The Great Omar

Although destined for New York by Sotheran, the bookseller refused to pay the huge fee imposed on him by US customs. It was returned to England, where it was bought by Gabriel Wells at Sotheby’s auction for 450 450, less than half its ίας 1,000 reserve value. Wells, like Sotheran before him, intended to bring the masterpiece to America. But choosing the Titanic as the ship that would carry the book would be fatal.

The story, however, would not end with the sinking of the Titanic, or the strange death of Sangorski from drowning a few weeks later. Sutcliffe’s nephew Stanley Bray was determined to relive the memory of the “Great Lobster”.

Using Sangorski’s original designs, he managed, after six years of exhausting work, to reproduce the book, which was placed in a bank vault.

Bray once again tried to make a copy of his uncle’s “swan song”, but this time it would take him 40 years to complete. When the new copy was finalized, the result was so good that he lent it to the British Library, where he bequeathed all his property after his death.

FitzOmar

But who was Omar Khayyám’s Rubayat and who was this enigmatic person who fascinated Sotheran? An 11th-century learned man from eastern Iran, Khayyám was famous throughout his life for his pioneering work in astronomy and mathematics. Khayyám was also a poet. His poetry, however, was unlike that of any other poet of Persian origin and has been considered for centuries unique in classical Persian literature.

Because of his adventurous nature, Khayyám challenged the things that were then taken for granted: faith, the afterlife, and the meaning of life itself. He had little faith in the promises of his religion, and in his talk on “Paradise and Hell” he expressed doubts about the existence of God. There was only one thing Khayyám was sure of and truly loved: this life.

He had a good understanding – perhaps because of the turbulent times in which he lived (Iran was then under Turkish occupation, and would soon live under Arab and Mongol invasion) – of the meaning of life and the inevitability of death. Any discussion of the afterlife or religion was unnecessary for him.

Victorian poet Edward FitzGerald adored Khayyám’s Iranian spirit. When he turned his attention to him, he had already translated from Persian. But translations of Khayyám’s work were to be his magnum opus.

The translations of FitzGerald were free, but they faithfully conveyed the spirit of the original, which is why many referred to the translator using the name “FitzOmar”, which came from the combination of his adjective and “Big Omar”.

While when the work was released it was not very popular, the small but profound book would soon enjoy a popularity that FitzGerald could never have imagined. In the late 19th century, a high society literary club in London took its name from Khayyám. Rubayat has also been a source of inspiration for artists such as William Morris.

Numerous other works of art have also been produced by artists such as Edmund Dulac and Edmund Joseph Sullivan. An illustration of the latter, in fact, would adorn the cover of the 1971 Grateful Dead album of the same name in the future. Agatha Christie released the novel The Moving Fingerhad in 1942, using the title of a poem from the play as her name, and Martin Luther King used excerpts from it in an anti-war speech in 1967. In the 1950s, Rubayat was now so famous that more than half the book was in the collective books “Bartlett’s Quotations” and “The Oxford Book of Quotations”.

Rubayat today

Khayyám’s poetry has undoubtedly stood the test of time. In his homeland, Iran, Rubayat exists in every home. FitzGerald’s performance, despite the freedoms he received in this regard, is the best known in English to date and is considered a classic. The work has also been translated into almost all languages ​​of the world.

The answer to why this work is so popular is easily found in its timelessness and its “universal” truths, which do not depend on culture, religion and creed.

Source;

https://m.tvxs.gr / https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/156613939.pdf

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180111-the-rubaiyat-historys-most-luxurious-book-of-poetry

https://yd.gyproc-club.ru/425 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00210862.2014.906184?scroll=top&needAccess=true

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/215684728_A_Criticism_and_Survey_of_the_Translation_of_the_Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam_by_FitzGerald

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam

Or the mysterious power of the Anima

Today I wanted to share my second post (as I usually do) with one part of own memorial time of my life which has influenced me in my Anima strongly, but first,( it will come later one time, I promise) I have to tell about this great movie that gave my Anima more power to pay more attention to this part.
As we might know, we all have the two sides of our created nature; Anima and Animus, it will help us to know our inner soul, we must know our both parts, though, it is a big difference in all humans, how they come forward with this.

It isn’t easy, I know. But I had the chance to come over it and I know my Anima, as a man, with no doubt, that I have an Anima part. although here I must confess that my Anima part is a lesbian! It took a long study in the whole of my life to understand and comprehend it, and to accept it, as a man. But I am sure; I have no interest in Masculine; for me, the important issue is the only chance to get knowing about the female’s part and I will call it the rescue of mankind!

It has surely do with my mother wish in which she had always a dream to have a daughter, for her happily chance, she took me as a last born son to grow up as her lost unborn daughter. I have learned a lot, I must say; cooking, cleaning, sewing; I have become an independent man. What a luck!

Anyway, long talk short meaning, you might know this old movie; it is about two women ( or two girlfriends) and the movie’s title had the name of one of them; Julia, I think because this Julia had more weight on all characters in this film as everyone else. I think that it is the only reason. Just look at the actresses; Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave (Oh I love her……) Rosemary Murphy, even Marly Streep (just Great ) and surely not to ignore the masculine characters; Jason Robards (Dash Hammet; Perfect!) and one of my rarest great German actor; Maximillian Schell in high quality…

Don’t you like to be praised as the same?? I bet 😉

But now, It is the story which means a lot, and tells a lot; Let’s have a Wikipedia Look

Julia is a 1977 American holocaust period drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann, from a screenplay written by Alvin Sargent based on a chapter from Lillian Hellman‘s controversial book Pentimento (1973), about the author’s alleged friendship with a woman named, “Julia”, who fought against the Nazis in the years prior to World War II. The film stars Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards, Hal Holbrook, Rosemary Murphy, Maximilian Schell and Meryl Streep (in her film debut).

Julia was released theatrically on October 2, 1977 by 20th Century Fox to generally positive reviews and grossed $20.7 million. It received a leading eleven nominations at the 50th Academy Awards, including for the Best Picture and won three; Best Supporting Actor (for Robards), Best Supporting Actress (for Redgrave), and Best Adapted Screenplay. At the 35th Golden Globe Awards, it received a leading six nominations including for the Best Motion Picture – Drama, with Fonda and Redgrave winning Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively. It also received a leading ten nominations at the 32nd British Academy Film Awards and won four, including for the Best Film.

Although, I found this as a fascinating growing up of two girls in very different characters; one is in a very stubborn statue; well-born child in a rich family but anyhow resistant; against? and the other one is also resistant but in her own way! They get friends in all eternity, the one who forever crazy and clever, leave all decent way of living, and the other one, try to find herself; her being there as a purpose; a writer.

I had to mention that I have tried to find so scene with my lovely Vanessa but no chance, it seems not to succeed. Anyway, I will highly recommend this film as one of the greatest movies ever made.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_(1977_film)

http://by Lillian Hellman

Starring Jane Fonda

Vanessa Redgrave

Jason Robards

Hal Holbrook

Rosemary Murphy

Maximilian Schell

Meryl Streep

There is again; a magnificent creation of art, perception and individual way of the cult. A walking God in its perfect form.

An excellent description by Marie Grillot http://Marie Grillot 🙏💖🙏

via https://egyptophile.blogspot.com/ translated from French

When he arrived at the site of Dahshur on February 17, 1894, Jacques de Morgan, who had headed the Egyptian Antiquities Service for two years, expressed his satisfaction: “I found things as they were. I wanted to see them. The excavations in the south had uncovered mastabas and wells of the Old Kingdom; those in the north, on the contrary, had proved the existence of a vast necropolis of the XIIth Dynasty. “
Two months later, one can imagine, with good reason, that his satisfaction redoubles as he unearths, in the southern pyramid, the tomb of King Fou-ab-Ra Hor or Aou-ab-Ra Hor. The existence of this hitherto unknown ruler has only just been revealed to him by various broken objects bearing his name, left behind by grave robbers. A controversy will also arise between de Morgan and Maspero on the date of his reign: 12th? or XIIIth Dynasty?

On April 17, as he entered the tomb, accompanied by Gustave Jéquier and Georges Legrain, his attention was drawn to a large wooden naos measuring 2.09 m high, 0.68 cm wide and 0., 92 cm, “inverted flat in the eastern corner of the first chamber”.

Here is the account of the incredible discovery:

“The great naos contains the statue of the double (ka) of King Hor-Aou-Ab-Ra (or Fou-ab-Ra). The pediment was decorated with the sun disk with extended wings. The royal protocol was read in full on the uprights of the doors, broken, formerly and now disappeared. The solar disk and the hieroglyphic texts were painted in green on a gold leaf resting on a plaster plate.

“The double statue of King Hor-Fou-ab-Ra depicting “the shadow of a deceased is unique. When it was found, lying in the naos under a heap of sticks and pottery, it was still covered with a coat of grey paint that fell on the first touch …

The eyebrows, eyelids, beard stand, gorget, the tips of the breasts, toenails and hands were covered with gold leaf.

A thin belt of the same metal surrounded the kidneys, knotting at the suprapubic region to drop its extremities, which are one finger wide, down to half of the thighs.
Scattered in the back of the naos were found the fragments of the hieroglyphic sign “Ka” which surmounted the head, as well as the eyes and the beard which had once been violently torn off.
This representation of the shadow of a king bears no emblem attesting to the sovereignty of the one who united during his lifetime the two crowns of Egypt. The shadow is naked and walks calmly, a stick in the left hand guiding its walk. “

“The artist who made this statue cared little for the material he used. He may have made the head, torso and left leg in a single block of wood; but arrived there, he adjusted with large ankles the arms and the right leg and completed his work by adding new pieces to the shoulder blades and toes. All of this disappeared in the past under the coat of grey paint. Anyway and despite the difficulties involved. he was able to meet in the accomplishment of his task, the artist did a masterpiece. The body is perfect for balance and proportions. “

This statue calls out to us in different ways, by its rock crystal eyes surrounded by bronze, by its nudity and the veins of ebony wood which resemble marbling or the grain of the skin, but especially by these arms raised on the head. …

Jean-Pierre Corteggiani enlightens us on this “ka”: “The abstract notion of ‘ka’ is certainly one of the most difficult to define because, despite the ‘double’ translation adopted in the last century, it does not correspond to any of our conceptions Let us just say that with the ba, the akh, the body (The Egyptian Soul), the shadow and the name, the ka is, for an Egyptian one of the constitutive elements of the personality of an individual and that he is, in fact, a manifestation of vital energies, both creative and conservative, related to sexual potency and the forces that maintain order in the world. “

Here is something to be, once again, absolutely amazed by ancient Egypt, by its art of course and always, but also by its way of thinking, by its perception of the components of the individual and by this notion, always immensely present. , and pregnant, of maintaining the cosmic and terrestrial balance.

Marie Grillot

Sources;

Excavations at Dahchour, Jacques de Morgan, 1894
http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/sites/dl-pa.home.nyu.edu.awdl/files/fouillesdahcho01morg/fouillesdahcho01morg.pdf
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/crai_0065-0536_1895_num_39_2_70560?_Prescripts_Search_tabs1=standard&
The Egypt of the Pharaohs in the Cairo Museum, Jean-Pierre Corteggiani, 1986, Hachette
http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/sites/dl-pa.home.nyu.edu.awdl/files/fouillesdahcho01morg/fouillesdahcho01morg.pdf
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/crai_0065-0536_1894_num_38_3_70401?_Prescripts_Search_tabs1=standard&

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naos_(hieroglyph)