Art & Culture

“Incredible Video Shows How Boulders Demolished a 300-Year-Old Italian Farmhouse”

“Incredible Video Shows How Boulders Demolished a 300-Year-Old Italian Farmhouse”

Via Yahoo News

“Miraculously, no one was injured when three enormous boulders rolled down a hill and leveled a 300-year old house in Tramin, Northern Italy.

Drone footage captured the aftermath of the 4,000-cubic-meter rock fall. Two boulders leveled the barn, and then a third stopped just short of the living quarters and a car parked outside, sparing those inside.

It is believed that a rock tower that crumbled caused the accident. The property, which lies below a cliff, is owned by the Servite order of the Catholic Church. Philipp von Hohenbühel, who runs the Freisingerhof estate, estimates to Südtirol News that the boulders caused millions of dollars in damage.”

“Through Art, Coping With Depression and a Death”

“Through Art, Coping With Depression and a Death”

by John Otis via “NY Times“

“Last May, Ms. Christian, 64, lost her partner of 37 years, Linda Brown.Even before Ms. Brown died, Ms. Christian had a tenuous grip on happiness.

“I’ve been depressed for most of my life,” she said. “Even as a kid, I never really felt attuned to what was going on around me.”

Dejection took further root in Ms. Christian this year when Ms. Brown, who had severe rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes, began to deteriorate. Her mind started shutting down as rapidly as her body, said Ms. Christian, who was alarmed to see one day that Ms. Brown had cut off her beloved dreadlocks. When asked for a reason, Ms. Brown replied, with a vacant stare, “because I wanted to.” . . . .”

 

 

 

“Paintings looted by Nazi, recovered by Allies to be auctioned in NY”

“Paintings looted by Nazi, recovered by Allies to be auctioned in NY”

by Patricia Reaney via “Yahoo News“

“NEW YORK (Reuters) – Paintings looted by the Nazis during World War Two and retrieved by the Monuments Men, the Allied group tasked with returning masterpieces to their rightful owners, will be sold at auction on Thursday in New York.

The works, which will go under the hammer during Sotheby’s sale of Important Old Master Paintings and Sculpture, were among the tens of thousands of works recovered by the art experts whose story is told in the George Clooney film “The Monuments Men,” which opens in U.S. theaters on February 7.

“The scale of looting was absolutely extraordinary,” said Lucian Simmons, Sotheby’s head of restitution.

“In France, for example, 36,000 paintings were stolen from institutions and largely from individuals. The Monuments Men managed to recover and return the majority of those,” he said in an interview.

Two small paintings in the sale, “La cueillette des roses” and “Le musicien” by the French rococo artist Jean-Baptise Pater, were chosen by Adolf Hitler’s air force chief Hermann Goering for his personal collection. . . . . .”

“14,000 Latvians Form Human Chain to Deliver Books to New Library”

“14,000 Latvians Form Human Chain to Deliver Books to New Library”

by Sarah Dougherty via “Global Post“

 

 

“On Saturday, about 14,000 people in Latvia’s capital formed a human chain of book lovers to kick off Riga’s year as a 2014 European Capital of Culture. The crowd braved icy temperatures to pass library books — by hand — from the old National Library to the new building 1.2 miles (2 km) away. As you can see from this video, there was much dancing and rejoicing:

According to the AFP, Saturday’s event recalled 1989 Baltic Way, a peaceful demonstration by citizens of the Baltics to demand independence from the Soviet Union. On Aug. 23, 1989, some 2 million people joined hands to create a massive human chain. They stretched 370 miles (600 km) and linked the Baltic capitals of Vilnius (Lithuania), Riga (Latvia) and Tallinn (Estonia). Within two years, all three countries were independent. . . . .”

“New Candidates for World Heritage Titles”

“New Candidates for World Heritage Titles”

via “Deutschland.de”

“Hamburg’s Speicherstadt and the Naumburg Cathedral are to be included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List. This was announced by the Conference of Cultural Ministers. They have submitted the nominations to the GermanFEDERAL GOVERNMENT with the request that this be passed on to UNESCO in Paris.

Hamburg’s docklands Speicherstadt was built between 1885 and 1927 is widely regarded as the largest coherent and uniform storage and warehouse ensemble in the world, the applicants submitted. The Naumburg Cathedral in SAXONY Anhalt is, the Conference of Cultural Ministers continued, the most visible symbol of a unique cultural LANDSCAPE that evolved from High Medieval structures. The figures of the patron founders in the cathedral are “among the most outstanding created by European Medieval sculptors.”

The UNESCO World Cultural Heritage committee convenes once a year and will decide on the two nominations at its summer 2015 meeting. . . . “