Bernardo Daddi

Bernardo Daddi (ca. 1280 - 1348) was an early Italian renaissance painter
and apprentice of Giotto.
He was also influenced by the Sienese art of Lorenzetti.
Daddi's birth date remains unknown. He is first mentioned in 1312.
He focused on religious motifs and altarpieces.
A triptych he painted in 1328 is in the Uffizi, and there
are several panels in National Gallery of Art and the Walters Art Gallery.
Daddi became the leading painter of Florence during his generation.
His last work dates from 1347, and it is believed he died the next year.
his Works
-The Martyrdom of St Stephen (1324, unverified)
-Madonna and two Saints, or Ognissanti Triptych (1328)
-St. Ursula (1333)
-Madonna and Child (1335)
-The Marriage of the Virgin (1336-1340)
-Polyptych of S. Pancrazio (1336-1340)

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx

Hans Von Aachen - The Amazement of the Gods

Hans Von Aachen
The Amazement of the Gods
National Gallery, London, England

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx

Hans von Aachen

German painter, born in Cologne (in spite of his name, which derives from his father s birthplace) and active in the Netherlands, Italy (1574-87), and most notably Prague, where he settled in 1596 as court painter to the emperor Rudolf II.
On Rudolf s death (1612) he worked for the emperor Matthias.
His paintings, featuring elegant, elongated figures, are - like those of his colleague Bartholomeus Spranger - leading examples of the sophisticated Mannerist art then in vogue at the courts of Northern Europe, and he was particularly good with playfully erotic nudes
( The Triumph of Truth, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 1598).
Engravings after his work gave his style wide infiuence and
he ranks as one of the most important German artists of his time.

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx

Virgin of the Rocks - Leonardo da Vinci

Virgin of the Rocks
Leonardo da Vinci
1506-08- Oil on wood
National Gallery - London

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx

Leda and the Swan - Leonardo da Vinci

Leda and the Swan
Leonardo da Vinci
1505-10- Oil on wood
Earl of Pembroke,Wilton House,Salisbury, UK

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx

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.

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx

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

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx

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.

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx

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.

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx

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.

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx

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.

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx

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.

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx

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.

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx

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

dig stu red del yahoo face spu slash furl twit tech simpy buz mixx