Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo was an Italian polymath, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer.
Whew! Often described as the archetype of the renaissance man
Leonardo’s unquenchable curiosity was rivaled only by his powers of invention.

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Madonna Litta - Leonardo da Vinci

Madonna Litta.1490
Leonardo da Vinci
Oil on panel
The Hermitage, St.
Petersburg, Russia

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Portrait of a Young Man - Leonardo da Vinci

Portrait of a Young Man
Leonardo da Vinci
c.1490.
Oil on wood.
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan

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The Virgin of the Rocks - Leonardo da Vinci

The Virgin of the Rocks
Leonardo da Vinci
1482-1486
Oil on wood
Louvre

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Portrait of Ginevra de'Benci

Portrait of Ginevra de'Benci
Leonardo da Vinci
1478-1480
Oil and tempera on wood
National Gallery of Art,Washington DC

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Madonna with the Carnation - Leonardo da Vinci

Madonna with the Carnation
Leonardo da Vinci
Oil on wood
Alte Pinakothek,Munich

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The Annunciation - Leonardo da Vinci

The Annunciation
Leonardo da Vinci
1472-1475
Oil and tempera on wood
Uffizi Gallery,Florence, Italy

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The Baptism of Christ

The Baptism of Christ
Leonardo da Vinci

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The Baptism of Christ - Leonardo da Vinci

The Baptism of Christ
Leonardo da Vinci
1472-1475. Oil and
tempera on wood.
Uffizi Gallery,Florence

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Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani

Leonardo da Vinci 9
Portrait of Cecilia
Gallerani (Lady with
an Ermine). c.1490
Oil on wood.
Czartorychi Muzeum
Cracow, Poland

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Leda - LEONARDO DA VINCI

Leda - LEONARDO DA VINCI
Oil on wood
painting - mythological
Staatliche Museen, Kassel

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Head of a Man

Head of a Man- LEONARDO DA VINCI
Red chalk on paper - study
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

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St. John in the Wilderness Bacchus

St. John in the Wilderness Bacchus - Leonardo Da Vinci
Oil on walnut panel transferred to canvas
177 cm × 115 cm (70 in × 45 in)

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His Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci

Painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, 1498

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Mona Lisa

Portrait of Mona Lisa (1479-1528), also known as La Gioconda, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo; 1503-06 (150 Kb); Oil on wood, 77 x 53 cm (30 x 20 7/8 in); Musee du Louvre, Paris

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Leonardo da Vinci,

Leonardo DA VINCI (b. 1452, Vinci, Italy --d. May 2, 1519, Cloux, Fr.), Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.
His Last Supper (1495-97) and Mona Lisa (1503-06) are
among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance.
His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific
inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of his time.

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Michelangelo works - part 3

Over 300 figures adorn the vaulted ceiling of that chapel, each of them painted solely by Michelangelo.
He’d originally began work with several assistants but it only took a short time before he became dissatisfied with the way the project was going and started
over by himself, letting no one but the Pope see his progress for the first three years.
It’s hard to get a real sense of the size and magnificence of the Sistine
Chapel unless you see it yourself, since any reproduction is limited to the space on a page or screen.
Because of that, I’ve chosen to show just two of the figures, rather than large sections.
Suffice it to say, it’s doubtful whether any work by an individual artist
will ever rival this masterpiece in scope, composition, or sheer impressiveness.

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Michelangelo works - part 2

His first works, however, were sculptures—including the Pieta —which led to a commission for his most famous sculpture, the David.
Michelangelo felt most fulfilled working with marble and stone
so if the Pope hadn’t requested that he paint
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, it’s likely that Michelangelo
would have continued sculpting and left painting to other artists entirely.
Luckily for the world, Michelangelo complied with the Pope’s request, and after four years of back-breaking, demanding labor, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was completed.

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Michelangelo works - part1

Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in 1475 in Florence, Italy, and came
into his own at the height of the Renaissance.
For an artist of his talent and abilities, it was simply perfect timing.
Like his contemporary and rival Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo had a wide range of talents, including architecture, sculpture, painting, and poetry, all of which
he used prolifically during the course of his life.
The tasks he undertook were immense, many of them taking several years to complete.
If for no other reason, the sheer scale of some of his projects
(most notably the Sistine Chapel) is enough to prove Michelangelo’s place in history.

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Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
(6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564)
commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer.
Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender
for the title of the archetypal Renaissance
man, along with his rival and fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.

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Greece Sculpture

Greek art and sculpture has had a profound effect throughout the ages.
Many of the styles have been reproduced
and copied by some of what the modern day audiences would class as some
of the finest artists to have ever lived e.g. Michelangelo.
Western art and sculpture derived from Roman art, while in the East, Alexander the Great's conquest gave birth to Greco-Buddhist art, which has even had an influence as far as Japan all of which stem from ancient Greek art.

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plato - Philosophers

The Athenian philosopher Plato (427-347) is usually called a pupil of Socrates
but his ideas are no less inspired by Parmenides.
Plato accepted the world of the phenomena as a mere shadow of the real world of the ideas.
When we observe a horse
we recognize what it is because our soul remembers the idea of the horse
from the time before our birth. In Plato's political philosophy
only wise men who understand the dual nature of reality are fit to rule the country.
He made three voyages to Syracuse to
establish his ideal state, both times without lasting results.
Plato's hypothesis that our soul was once in a better place and now lives in a fallen world made it easy to combine platonic philosophy and Christianity
which accounts for the popularity of Platonism in Late Antiquity.
One element, however, was not acceptable: the idea of platonic love - a homosexual relation with pedagogical aspects.

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antisthenes

Antisthenes (c. 444-365 BC), the founder of the Cynic school of philosophy, was born at Athens of a Thracian mother, a fact which may account for the extreme boldness of his attack on conventional thought.
In his youth he studied rhetoric under Gorgias, perhaps also under
Hippias and Prodicus. Some suggest that he was originally in good circumstances, but was reduced to poverty.
However this may be, he came under the influence of Socrates, and became a devoted pupil.
So eager was he to hear the words of Socrates that
he used to walk daily from Peiraeus to Athens, and persuaded his friends accompany him.
Filled with enthusiasm for the Socratic idea virtue, he founded a school of his own in the Cynosarges. Thither he attracted the poorer masses by the simplicity of his life and teaching.
He wore a cloak and carried a staff and a wallet, and this costume became uniform of his followers.
Diogenes Laertius says that his works filled ten volumes, but of these, fragments only remain.
His favourite style seems to have been the dialogue, wherein see the effect of his early rhetorical training.
Aristotle speaks of him as uneducated and simple-minded, and Plato describes him as struggling in vain with the difficulties of dialectic.
His work represents one great aspect
of Socratic philosophy, and should be compared with the Cyrenaic and Igarian doctrines

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antisthenes - Philosophers

In the decade after the death of Socrates, Antisthenes (c.445-c.365)
was the most important Athenian philosopher.
Like his master, he tried to find out what words mean
but he was convinced that it was not possible to establish really good definitions
(which brought him into conflict with Plato).
He did only partially agree with Socrates that someone who knew what was good
would not do a bad thing.
Antisthenes added that one also had to be strong enough ("as strong as Socrates") to pursue what was good. Therefore, Antisthenes recommended physical training of all kinds, and wanted his students to refrain from luxury.
His most famous pupil was Diogenes of Sinope.

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Socrates

The philosopher Socrates (469–399 B.C.E.)

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socrates - Philosophers

Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Democritus had been trying to explain the diversity of nature.
The object of the studies of the Athenian philosopher Socrates (469-399) was altogether different: he was interested in ethics.
It was his axiom that no one would knowingly do a bad thing. So knowledge was important, because it resulted in good behavior.
If we are to believe his student Plato, Socrates was always asking people about what they knew, and invariably they had to admit that they did not really understand what was meant by words like courage, friendship, love etc. Socrates was never without critics.
The comic poet Aristophanes ridiculed him in
The clouds, and when his pupil Alcibiades had committed
high treason, Socrates' position became very difficult.
He was forced to drink hemlock after a charge that he had corrupted the youth. Among his students were Antisthenes, Plato and Xenophon.

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Democritus of Abdera - Philosophers

One of the solutions to the problem postulated by
Parmenides of Elea, was the hypothesis of Democritus of Abdera: matter is made up from atoms.
There was no real evidence for this idea (which was not completely new), but it explained why change was possible.
The atoms were always moving and clustering in various, temporary combinations.
Therefore, things seemed to change, but 'not being' never
changed into 'being'. (It was assumed that 'not being' was a vacuum, which means that it is in fact not a 'not being' because a vacuum exists in four dimensions.)
The consequence of this idea is that we are allowed to
use our senses, although Democritus warns us to be careful.

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Parmenides of Elea - Philosophers

Parmenides of Elea was a younger contemporary of Heraclitus of Ephesus, but he lived at the opposite end of the Greek world: in Italy.
Both men were intrigued by the immense variety of phenomena, but where Heraclitus discerned order in the chaos, Parmenides pointed out that the endless
variety and eternal changes were just an illusion.
In a long poem, which partially survives, he opposed 'being' to 'not being', and pointed out that change was impossible, because it would mean that something that was 'not being' changed into 'being', which is absurd.
In other words, we had to distrust our senses and rely solely on our intellect.
The result was a distinction between two worlds: the unreal world which we experience every day, and the reality, which we can reach by thinking.
This idea was to prove one of the most influential in western culture.

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Heraclitus - Philosophers

Heraclitus was a rich man from Ephesus and lived c.500, during the Persian occupation
of his home town.
His philosophical work consists of a series of cryptical pronouncements that force a reader to think. Unfortunately, a great part of his work is lost, which makes it very difficult to reconstruct Heraclitus' ideas.
It seems certain, however, that he thought that the basic principle of the universe was the logos, i.e. the fact that it was rationally organized and therefore understandable.
Bipolar oppositions are one form of organization, but the sage understands
that these oppositions are just aspects of one reality.
Fire is the physical aspect of the perfect logos.

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Pythagoras of Samos - Philosophers

Thales was not the only one who was looking for a first cause.
Pythagoras of Samos (c.570-c.495) did the same.
According to legend, he left his country and studied with the wise men of Egypt, but was taken captive when the Persian king Cambyses invaded the country of the Nile (525).
He now became a student of the Chaldaeans of Babylon and the Magians of Persia.
Some even say that he visited the Indian Brahmans, because
Pythagoras believed in reincarnation. At the end of the sixth century, he lived in southern Italy, where he founded
a community of philosophers.
In his view, our world was governed by numbers, and therefore essentially harmonious.

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Thales of Miletus - Philosophers

We know almost nothing about Thales of Miletus.
Later generations told many anecdotes about this wise man, but it is difficult to verify the reliability of these stories.
What seems certain, however, is that he predicted the solar eclipse of 28 May 585, which was remembered because the Lydian king Alyattes and the Median leader Cyaxares were fighting a battle on that day. Another reliable bit of information is that he did geometrical research, which enabled him to measure the pyramids.
However, his most important contribution to European civilization is his attempt to give rational explanations for physical phenomena.
Behind the phenomena was not a catalogue of deities, but one single, first principle.
Although his identification of this principle with water is rather unfortunate, his idea to look for deeper causes was the true beginning of philosophy and science. Thales died after 547.

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Portrait bust of Epicurius - Louvre Museum

Epicurius lived from approx 341 - 270 BC was an ancient Greek philosopher and
the founder of the school of philosophy
called Epicureanism.

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Goddess Minerva - Louvre Museum

Minerva, known also as Pallas Athena
in Greek mythology, was the Roman name of Greek goddess Athena.
She was considered to be the virgin goddess of warriors, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, crafts, and the inventor of music

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Apollo in the louvre museum

In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo is one of the most important of all the deities.
Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the
sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and
more.
Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis.

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sculpture of the mythological

The Three Graces is a sculpture of the mythological three charites, daughters of Zeus – identified on some engravings of the statue as Euphrosyne
Aglaea and Thalia - who were said to represent beauty, charm and joy.
The Graces presided over banquets and gatherings
primarily to entertain and delight the guests of the Gods.

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Aphrodite in the Louvre Museum

Aphrodite is the classical Greek goddess of love.
her Roman equivalent was Venus

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entrance Louvre Museum

The Pyramid Entrance to the Louvre
The Louvre Pyramid is a large glass and metal pyramid
surrounded by three smaller ones
in the courtyard of the Musée du Louvre Museum in Paris

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Ideas help you in the Louvre Museum

The Musée du Louvre in Paris is perhaps the most famous museum in the world.
1. Getting into the building
The long queues at the Pyramid entrance in the centre
of the Louvre are almost as famous as the museum itself.
Getting in line for an entrance ticket at the Pyramid can sometimes take as long as an hour.
That’s hardly surprising when 15,000 people a day visit the building.
But did you know that there are four other entrances?
If you want to avoid the queues then try using the entrance
at the Porte des Lions just east of the Pont Royal; at number 99 the Rue du Rivoli; at the Arc du Carousel or directly from the Metro station Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre (platform on line 1).
You can escape the queues completely by purchasing your ticket in advance at FNAC or other department stores.
There’s usually a small fee of a couple of euros per ticket for this service.
2. Good value tickets
Entrance to the Louvre is €9. If you head there after 6pm on a Wednesday or Friday, entrance is reduced to just €6 and the museum is open until 9.45pm.
Entrance is free for under 26s on Friday evenings.
On Bastille Day (14 July) and the first Sunday of each month entrance
is free for everyone, all day.
Be warned though, the galleries get even more busy at these times.
3. Get the view of an expert
The Louvre is massive. There are 35,000 works of art and 380,000 museum objects to see.
It’s so huge that it would take you a whole
day just to walk through all the galleries, never mind seeing any of the art.

In fact, a good way to get an overview of this enormous museum is to take one of the excellent guided tours, which depart from under the Pyramide throughout the day.
Tours are available in a variety of languages and are aimed at different levels, from first-time visitors to art experts. Tour times vary daily
so check the board when you arrive to see what’s on offer that day.
4. Check in advance
Of course, no trip to the Louvre is complete without seeing the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. The Louvre have a habit of moving these
masterpieces around the building at short notice, so if you want to avoid wandering endless galleries needlessly
then take a quick look at their website before you visit www.louvre.fr.
5. Stop and recharge
With so many galleries, you’ll be in need of refreshment.
There are good places to eat and drink in the Louvre, but be warned that the Café Denon and Café Richlieu are rather expensive. Better value can be had at the Café Mollien (on the first floor) which also has a summer terrace.
But if you want to escape the building
you can get good snacks and light lunches in the
many cafés in the beautiful Jardins des Tuileries.
Also look out for the mobile snack stands which serve good
quality coffee at half the price of the museum cafés.

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Louvre Museum

The national museum of France is Louvre and is situated in Paris.
It is one of the most historic pieces of art that has been restored by the French.
There is a very common saying for the French that they consider
themselves the best in the world. One can only be less or equal
but never better than them.
The museum is spread in a total area of 652,300 square feet and has more than thirty five thousand objects placed in it.
It is almost impossible to see the entire museum in a couple of hours and do justice to every piece of art that is placed from the 6th century BC till the 19th century AD.
This museum was actually built as the fort for Philip II and some remains of the fort are still present, not exactly in its best shape.
A lot of changes in terms of its structure have been made to give it the present look and finally it was decided to keep the royal collection in the museum.
The museum was inaugurated in 1739.
However, due to some infrastructural problems, it was shut down for almost a period of 5 years. Some of the most famous pieces
of art that is displayed is the Antonio Canova’s Psyche, the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa painting, some handprints and drawings, Egypt, Greek, and roman antiques, along with handmade cultures and beautiful glass paintings.
The museum thus has a very rich heritage that has made the French proud of it.

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Versailles city

Versailles a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles
was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789.

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Toulouse - france

Toulouse is a city in southwest France on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way
between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.
the Toulouse metropolitan area is the fifth-largest in France.
Toulouse is the home base of the European aerospace industry
Toulouse was the capital of the former province of Languedoc
It is now the main city of the Midi-Pyrénées region, the largest region
in metropolitan France.
It is also the main city of the Haute-Garonne

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strasbourg - france

Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north-eastern France.
Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin department.
Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions such as the Council of Europe and the Eurocorps as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as of road, rail, and river communications.
The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany.
The city is the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine.
Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île, was classified
a World Heritage site by UNESCO

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Paris History - part 6

- 1940: Nazi Germany invades Paris and marches on the Champs-Elysées.
A four-year occupation begins. General Charles de Gaulle flees to London and leads a resistance movement from abroad, sending messages to resistants over British radio.
- 1942: The collaborationist Paris government helps organize the massive deportation of French Jews to Nazi concentration camps
first assembling them at the Velodrome d'Hiver near the Eiffel Tower.
- 1944: Paris is liberated by Allied forces.
The city narrowly escapes destruction by the Nazis when
an officer refuses to obey Hitler's orders.

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