“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. . . . “

“Maple Viewers”

Kano Hideyori’s “Maple Viewers” Housed at the Tokyo National Museum

“Forensic Astronomer Solves Fine Arts Puzzles”

“Forensic Astronomer Solves Fine Arts Puzzles”

by Jennifer Drapkin and Sarah Zielinski via “Smithsonian Magazine“

“In painter Edvard Munch’s Girls on the Pier, three women lean against a railing facing a body of water in which houses are reflected. A peach-colored orb appears in the sky, but, curiously, casts no reflection in the water. Is it the Moon? The Sun? Is it imaginary? Does it matter?

To Donald Olson, an astrophysicist at Texas State University, the answer to the last question is an emphatic yes. Olson solves puzzles in literature, history and art using the tools of astronomy: charts, almanacs, painstaking calculations and computer programs that map ancient skies. He is perhaps the leading practitioner of what he calls “forensic astronomy.” But computers and math can take him only so far.

For Girls on the Pier, Olson and his research partner, Texas State physicist Russell Doescher, traveled to Asgardstrand, Norway, the resort town where Munch made the painting in the summer of 1901. By mapping the area and studying old postcards, the pair determined the exact location of the original pier (which had been torn down), the heights of the houses and the spot where Munch likely stood. They then retraced the paths of the Sun and the Moon across the sky at the time Munch was there.

They concluded that the setting Sun did not appear in that section of sky at that time, but the Moon did. As for the missing reflection, it was not an artistic choice, as some art historians had proposed, but a matter of optics: from the artist’s perspective, the row of houses blocked it. . . .”