¨To become a truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams.¨
Giorgio de Chirico
Stonehenge is a megalithic monument on the Salisbury Plain in Southern England, composed mainly of thirty upright stones (sarsens, each over ten feet tall and weighing 26 tons), aligned in a circle, with thirty lintels (6 tons each) perched horizontally atop the sarsens in a continuous circle. There is also an inner circle composed of similar stones, also constructed in post-and-lintel fashion.
Stonehenge Megaliths
Constructed without the use of draft animals and shaped by stone tools,
Stonehenge was erected many miles from the quarry from which the stones came.
It is an amazing feat of engineering, and many stories, both old ones and retellings, frequently name Merlin as this engineer.
The archaeological evidence at Stonehenge simply does not support an Arthurian date of construction. The archaeology points to a construction date between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago (more than likely, several construction dates over this time). Stonehenge is angled such that on the equinoxes and the solstices, the sun rising over the horizon appears to be perfectly placed between gaps in the megaliths. This is doubtless not an accident, and probably contributed to the stories of its mysterious origins.
One of the great enigmas of planet Earth revolves around a collection of approximately 15,000 pre-Columbian artifacts - the ancient carved gliptolithic rock-library known as the Ica Stones.
They are carved stones supposedly found in a cave in the coastal desert city of Ica, Peru. Ica is a relatively small area, some 300 kilometers from Lima. In the 1960's a farmer claimed to have found piles and piles of rocks deep in various gorges and caves not far from the Nazca Lines. Some were also buried slightly under the ground. The native farmer produced only bags of stones at first, but later, he produced literally thousands of the artifacts. For some time he made a good living selling the stones to tourists.
The farmer became something of a celebrity. Word traveled in the archealogical world, and experts descended on Ica.
The Peruvian government took an interst in the stones. They did not Peru to become another Egypt, overrun with diggers and robbers. They had enough of them already. No one knows what was said to the farmer but after arrest and confinement, he suddenly admitted in writing that the stones were hoaxed and that he had carved the stones himself. He was going to bilk the tourists and never realized it would get out of hand.
In 1966, Dr. Javier Cabrera, the town's physician, received a small, carved rock for his birthday from a native. The carving on the rock looked ancient to Dr. Cabrera, but intrigued him because it seemed to depict a primitive fish.
Dr. Cabrera became the prime customer for the stones, and the farmer apparently had an endless supply. Dr. Cabrera questioned the farmer about carving the stones. The farmer was evasive and maintained his story about created them himself for fear of being arrested again and put in jail for the rest of his life.
When Dr. Cabrera had bought a few thousand he wanted to know how many there were in total. The farmer seemed to produce more every week. Cabrera was beginning to believe that he had fallen prey to this farmer, and the man had created them himself. The farmer refused to discuss how he made the stones. Logically Dr. Cabrerafigured that the farmer would have had to carve one stone every day for over 40 years to produce the total library! This could not be possible. Dr. Cabrera set out to find answers about his Ica Stones based on the designs on the stones.
The stones come in all sizes. There are small ones that can fit in the palm of you hand. There are rocks as large as a dog. All of the stones have images that have been carved with continuous lines etched into the rock surface. The etching reveals a lighter color than the original dark varnish of age, yet the etched grooves also bear traces of this varnish, indicating that the carving was done in ancient times. They are a form of andesite, a gray to black volcanic rock, and a very hard mineral that would make etching quite difficult with primitive tools, a local river rock, covered with a patina of natural oxidation. Laboratories in Germany have authenticated the incisions that make up the carvings as extremely ancient. Nearby fossil finds indicate the area to be replete in bone fragments millions of years old.
Unlike clay figurines that have organic material (i.e. straw) in their composition, there are no organic materials in plain old rock that will tell anything of its age. Traditional radiocarbon dating techniques rely upon organic material (that was once alive) to determine age. The surface of these rocks, however, has a varnish that is the result of bacteria and minute organisms which have adhered to them. A good black varnish or patina will take thousands of years to discolor and coat each stone. Etching these rocks would have removed the existing varnish, revealing the bare rock. Since these rocks have developed additional varnish in the grooves, it seems likely that they have were carved a long time ago.
Dr. Cabrera's library is organized by subject matter including the races of man, ancient animals, lost continents, and the knowledge of a global catastrophe.
There are scenes of natives adorned with robes and high crowns, similar to the Incas, performing medical procedures on patients. Several depict heart and brain transplants.
The stones are clearly carved depicting people
riding dinasours and flying reptiles.
There are stones with genetic codes, and the prolongation of life. Blood vessels are shown being reconnected via re-absorption tubes utilizing the natural regeneration of cells.
There are carvings of a cesearean section with acupuncture as a form of anesthesia.
There are telescopes and
ancient maps and star maps.
There is a series of four stones show the hemispheres of Earth pointing to the existence of unknown continent's that today remains a part of our collective myth.
Dr. Cabrera concluded that there was no way the farmer had time, skills, nor knowledge of how to create the stones. After pruchsing 11,000 stones, Dr. Cabrera became a trusted friend of the farmer. He learned that the man was released from prison once he signed the confession that he was cheating the tourists. He agreed not to pretend the stones came from the hills but that he had indeed carved them himself. It was either that or go to prison for the remainder of his life for selling government possessions (the international antiquity laws).
Dr. Cabrera continued his research with geologists to interpret the maps on several stones showing a weird configuration of the world. Some angles and land masses looked vaguely familiar, but the majority were badly skewered into strange shapes. Geologists have confirmed that based on current computer projections, the shapes indicated on the rocks are indeed accurate for the planet Earth, as it was, about 13,000,000 (million) years ago - pre-stone age.
The Ica Stones will remain an unsolved mystery. Who actually created the Ica Stones? Evidence seems to show it was extraterrestrial visitors - but it will remain an unsolved mystery.
Art Nouveau is an international movement and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that peaked in popularity at the turn of the 20th century (18901905). The name 'Art nouveau' is French for 'new art'. It is also known as Jugendstil, German for 'youth style', named after the magazine Jugend, which promoted it, and in Italy, Stile Liberty from the department store in London, Liberty & Co., which popularized the style. A reaction to academic art of the 19th century, it is characterized by organic, especially floral and other plant-inspired motifs, as well as highly-stylized, flowing curvilinear forms. Art Nouveau is an approach to design according to which artists should work on everything from architecture to furniture, making art part of everyday life.
Art Nouveau buildings often have asymmetrical shapes, arches and decorative surfaces with curved, plant-like designs.
The son of a coppersmith, Antoni Gaudi was born in Reus, Spain in 1852. He studied at the Escola Superior d'Arquitectura in Barcelona and designed his first major commission for the Casa Vincens in Barcelona using a Gothic Revival style that set a precedent for his future work.
Over the course of his career, Gaudi developed a sensuous, curving, almost surreal design style which established him as the innovative leader of the Spanish Art Nouveau movement. With little regard for formal order, he juxtaposed unrelated systems and altered established visual order. Gaudi's characteristically warped form of Gothic architecture drew admiration from other avant-garde artists.
Although categorized with the Art Nouveau, Gaudi created an entirely original style. He died in Barcelona in 1926.
A fragment (going on a loop) of the film of Jackson Pollock painting - shot by Hans Namuth (1950) and released as "Jackson Pollock 51" (1951). Sound is not synchronous. Available (with another short clip and a text transcript of Pollock's comments) at http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/pr...
Pollocks paintings are not about something in the way that da vinci's paintings are. He is trying to illustrate the intangible. The man had the guts to put himself on a canvas and display it. He's finding himself through painting, putting everything, his whole life on a canvas, You have to appreciate that if for no other reason, because you would be too frightened to do it yourself.
In the December 1952 issue of ARTnews, Harold Rosenberg coined the term, “action painting.” The term characterizes artists who first and foremost see the canvas as a space for action. Jackson Pollock is the artist who best illustrates the techniques of action painting.
The bold colors, movement and individuality of Jackson Pollock paintings are recognizable worldwide. His technique of “dripping” paint onto a canvas created a number of famous works that earned him considerable acclaim. Pollock’s paintbrush would dance above the canvas and express his emotions and feelings without having to touch the canvas.
Action painting refers to a style that resembles performance art, whereby the artist freely lets go and unleashes emotion. It is in the performance of action painting that a plot is created by the artist. However, there is no central motif. Action painting tells a story without the use of a central image, merely through action. The painting Lavender Mist, unveiled by Pollock in 1950, is one of the most famous Jackson Pollock paintings. The canvas which is 10 feet wide displays paint that has been dripped and splattered over every inch. Lines of color move in every direction, and the imprint of Pollock’s hands which have been dipped in paint appear at the top right corner of the canvas. The eye frantically attempts to take in the sheer magnitude of the painting and is unable to rest. Because his paintings were created through action, the process of viewing them must also involve an active process.
It is debatable whether action painting is an accurate way to describe the technique that Pollock famously used. The Jackson Pollock paintings do illustrate a technique that was not bound by restrictions of space or convention. Certainly, Pollock’s abstract expressionist style of painting broke many conventions and was heavily influenced by cubism and surrealism. Pollock himself was uninterested in labels or definitions; he simply wanted to authentically and freely express his emotions. When asked about technique he replied, “It doesn’t make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.”
