Zephyr Diversity embraces whom is a blessed one. And Zephyr here desires to become a mirror of diversity.

Charles Christian Nahl established a career based on his paintings of California’s mining industry. Miners were portraye...
06/27/2023

Charles Christian Nahl established a career based on his paintings of California’s mining industry. Miners were portrayed in fiction and popular culture as either moral men or dissolute louts, offering lessons on virtue and vice. By the time Nahl painted this picture, the gold rush had long subsided. His work coincided with a popular reimagining of this legendary era as a time that tested the wills of men. His painting The Dead Miner was designed to elicit maximum sympathy: depicted as a martyr to progress, the miner’s outstretched hand clasps a portrait of his sweetheart, and he has only his loyal hound to mourn him.

~ The Dead Miner (Mourning the Master) | 1867

Who or which compels you to stay underneath the tainted sky? Break the roof, melt the chain, topple the wall down which ...
06/26/2023

Who or which compels you to stay underneath the tainted sky? Break the roof, melt the chain, topple the wall down which is erected to conspire against you.

Which refrains you from unifying with dew, with western wind, with the sun and moon-blanched sand, makes you deaf to hear the echo of dew, the songs of fountain and the call of your ancestors and the insects is not a shelter, rather it's a conspiracy : Conspiracy against emancipation, conspiracy against creation, conspiracy against the quest of self-discovery.

✍️ Aazanic Fragments |

09/13/2022

"Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free."

🍀

~ Jalal al-Din Muḥammad Rumi |

07/27/2022

Why can't you hear what the flowers white said to the fountains faraway in a moonlit night? Why your journey cease on the edge of the petals each time while sways them wind?

Why you claim yourself a listener, when you can unable to hear flowers and fountains to each other echo what in a cloudy day! Why you claim yourself as an ally of wind, while you unaware completely are of that flowers are the poesy of a shapeless painter : Wind!

Who can't hear the unheard is not a listener. Who can't perceive smelling the wind which canyon's balmy it carries never be a mystic. Who can't yet experience the brushstro

🍀

~ Muhammad Aazan

These chess pieces were found unexpectedly on a beach on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland in 1831. They were carved from wa...
07/26/2022

These chess pieces were found unexpectedly on a beach on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland in 1831. They were carved from walrus ivory and whale tooth between around 1150 and 1200. When found some were stained red, suggesting that the original colour combination of the pieces was red and white. The chess pieces were probably made in Norway. At this time the Isle of Lewis was part of the kingdom of Norway. The chess pieces may have been buried by a merchant travelling along the trade route from Scandinavia to Ireland.

🍀

~ Lewis Chessmen |

06/01/2022

"Gather the baskets for the sacrifices, place wreaths on your head. You, too, Menelaos, get everything ready for this joyous occasion and let’s hear the flutes sing and the dancers pound the earth with their feet."

🍀

~ Euripides | Lines : 432- 436

By his own account, Ryder was so enthralled by a five-hour performance of Wagner's Götterdämmerung that he rushed home a...
05/13/2022

By his own account, Ryder was so enthralled by a five-hour performance of Wagner's Götterdämmerung that he rushed home and began painting this rendition of the opera's narrative, working without sleep or food for forty-eight hours. Galloping down a moonlit path, the legendary Norse hero Siegfried encounters a group of Rhine Maidens who beckon seductively from the phosphorescent river. They warn the hero that the magical ring he won by slaying a dragon was forged from stolen gold and bears a deadly curse. Siegfried defiantly proclaims he would rather die than give up his prize. By the opera's dramatic climax, the nymphs' apocalyptic prophecy is fulfilled: Siegfried is killed; overcome by grief, the heroine Brünnhilde sacrifices herself on her lover's funeral pyre, the other gods and heroes of Valhalla are consumed by the spreading conflagration, and the Ring of the Nibelung, now purified by the flames, is returned to the river from whence it came.

Wagner's orchestration engulfed listeners with an overwhelming torrent of sound, and Ryder's composition offers a visual counterpart to this rhapsodic aesthetic experience. Although Ryder's technical naiveté and his unorthodox methods have caused the surfaces of his once-luminous paintings to crack and darken over time, the expressive power and emotional intensity of his art endures.

🍀

~ Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens, 1888/1891.

04/29/2022

In the land of ice and fire.

🍀

▪1,500-year-old burial in China holds lovers locked in eternal embrace :The skeletal remains of two lovers, buried toget...
04/23/2022

▪1,500-year-old burial in China holds lovers locked in eternal embrace :

The skeletal remains of two lovers, buried together more than 1,500 years ago in northern China, were recently discovered locked in an eternal embrace, a new study finds.

It's possible that the woman, who wore a metal ring on her left ring finger, sacrificed herself so that she could be buried with her husband, the researchers said. While joint male-female burials are not uncommon in China, this entwined burial "with two skeletons locked in an embrace with a bold display of love" is the first of its kind in the country, and may reflect changing attitudes toward love in Chinese society at that time, the researchers wrote in the study.

"This is the first [couple] found in a loving embrace, as such, anywhere anytime in China," study lead researcher Qian Wang, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the Texas A&M College of Dentistry, told Live Science in an email.

Archaeologists discovered the burial in June 2020 during the excavation of a cemetery that had been exposed during construction work in Shanxi province. The cemetery contained about 600 burials from the Xianbei, an ancient nomadic group in northern China that assimilated into Han Chinese culture, and dated to the North Wei Dynasty (A.D. 386-534), the grave shapes and ceramic goods found in the cemetery revealed.

Because the couple's burial was unique, the archaeologists decided not to fully excavate the skeletal remains. Instead, the team left them entwined so that the duo could be put on display in a future museum exhibit. The archaeologists found two other couples buried together in the same cemetery; but these couples were not hugging as closely, and the females were not wearing rings, Wang said.

The ringed lovers' partial excavation still revealed plenty about them. The man would have stood about 5 feet, 4 inches (161.5 centimeters) tall and had a few injuries, including a broken arm, part of a missing finger on his right hand and bone spurs on his right leg. He likely died between the ages of 29 and 35, the researchers said.

The woman, in contrast, was fairly healthy when she died. She stood about 5 feet, 2 inch (157.1 cm) tall and only had a few dental problems, including cavities. She likely died between the ages of 35 and 40. It's possible that the woman wore the ring on her ring finger due to influence "by the customs from the western regions and beyond through the Silk Roads … and assimilation of the Xianbei people, reflecting the integration of Chinese and Western culture," Wang said.

Whoever buried the couple did so with tender care. The man's body was curved toward the woman's, and his left arm lay beneath her body. His right arm embraced her, with his hand resting on her waist. The woman's body was placed "in a position to be embraced," the researchers wrote in the study. Her head faced slightly downward, meaning her face would have rested on his shoulder. Her arms hugged his body.

It's likely this scene reflected the couple's dedication to each other in life. "The [burial] message was clear — husband and wife lied together, embracing each other for eternal love during the afterlife," the researchers wrote in the study.

The team had a few ideas about how the couple ended up in the same grave. It's unlikely the lovers died at the same time from violence, disease or poisoning, as there is no evidence yet of any of these things. Perhaps the husband died first and the woman sacrificed herself so that they could be buried together, the researchers said. It's also possible that the woman died first and the husband sacrificed himself; however, this is less likely, as the woman appears to have been in better health than her partner.

During the first millennium, when this couple was alive, the ability to freely express and pursue love in China became culturally "prominent," the researchers said. There were fictional love stories galore and even historical records of people taking their own lives for love. In essence, pursuing love and dying by su***de for love was "accepted, if not promoted," Wang said.

While the circumstances that led to these lovebirds' intimate entombment remains a mystery, their burial is a "unique display of human emotion of love in a burial, offering a rare glimpse towards love, life, death, and afterlife," Wang said.

🍀

~ International Journal of Osteoarchaeology | Laura Geggel

On Curran's present painting, a young woman (the artist's wife Grace Wickham Curran) arranges a bouquet of snowballs, pa...
03/17/2022

On Curran's present painting, a young woman (the artist's wife Grace Wickham Curran) arranges a bouquet of snowballs, pausing to take in their sweet fragrance. The small scale of the painting matches the intimacy of the moment. Her delicate features, light green shawl and blossom-like hat equate her to a flower, suggesting that she is as lovely and dainty as the blooms she savors. Curran's choice of flower is likely a deliberate one. At the time this
work was painted, bouquets were used to convey
messages, with each flower having a specific symbolic meaning. According to the Victorian "language of flowers, the snowball symbolized thoughts of heaven, adding an air
of Christian piety to this work.

🍀

~ Birmingham Museum of Art

03/03/2022

▪Volendam | The Netherlands

As well as being famous for their fishing heritage, The Volendammers are also well known for their distinctive music, which is called Palingsound (literally "eel sound"). Wherever you turn they seem to spontaneously break out a chorus of traditional folk songs.

🍀

~ Jimmy Nelson

02/18/2022

“I tried to imagine myself a long time ago, in the lands where these stories were first told, during the long winter nights perhaps, under the glow of the northern lights.”

🍀

~ Neil Gaiman

Hellelil sitteth in bower there,None knows my grief but God alone,And seweth at the seam so fair,I never wail my sorrow ...
02/17/2022

Hellelil sitteth in bower there,
None knows my grief but God alone,
And seweth at the seam so fair,
I never wail my sorrow to any other one.
But there whereas the gold should be
With silk upon the cloth sewed she.
Where she should sew with silken thread
The gold upon the cloth she laid.
So to the Queen the word came in
That Hellelil wild work doth win.
Then did the Queen do furs on her
And went to Hellelil the fair.
"O swiftly sewest thou, Hellelil,
Yet nought but mad is thy sewing still!"
"Well may my sewing be but mad
Such evil hap as I have had.
My father was good king and lord,
Knights fifteen served before his board.
He taught me sewing royally,
Twelve knights had watch and ward of me.
Well served eleven day by day,
To folly the twelfth did me bewray.
And this same was hight Hildebrand,
The King's son of the English Land.
But in bower were we no sooner laid
Than the truth thereof to my father was said.
Then loud he cried o'er garth and hall:
'Stand up, my men, and arm ye all!
'Yea draw on mail and dally not,
Hard neck lord Hildebrand hath got!'
They stood by the door with glaive and spear;
'Hildebrand rise and hasten here!'
Lord Hildebrand stroked my white white cheek:
'O love, forbear my name to speak.
'Yea even if my blood thou see,
Name me not, lest my death thou be.'
Out from the door lord Hildebrand leapt,
And round about his good sword swept.
The first of all that he slew there
Were my seven brethren with golden hair.
Then before him stood the youngest one,
And dear he was in the days agone.
Then I cried out: 'O Hildebrand,
In the name of God now stay thine hand.
'O let my youngest brother live
Tidings hereof to my mother to give!'
No sooner was the word gone forth
Than with eight wounds fell my love to earth.
My brother took me by the golden hair,
And bound me to the saddle there.
There met me then no littlest root,
But it tore off somewhat of my foot.
No littlest brake the wild-wood bore,
But somewhat from my legs it tore.
No deepest dam we came unto
But my brother's horse he swam it through.
But when to the castle gate we came,
There stood my mother in sorrow and shame.
My brother let raise a tower high,
Bestrewn with sharp thorns inwardly.
He took me in my silk shirt bare
And cast me into that tower there.
And wheresoe'er my legs I laid
Torment of the thorns I had.
Wheresoe'er on feet I stood
The prickles sharp drew forth my blood.
My youngest brother me would slay
But my mother would have me sold away.
A great new bell my price did buy
In Mary's Church to hang on high.
But the first stroke that ever it strake
My mother's heart asunder brake."
So soon as her sorrow and woe was said,
None knows my grief but God alone,
In the arm of the Queen she sat there dead,
I never tell my sorrow to any other one.

🍀

~ HILDEBRAND AND HELLELIL

"Every painting has its own journey- Distinct and hidden; A character of this unless you can become, whither in a citade...
12/07/2021

"Every painting has its own journey- Distinct and hidden; A character of this unless you can become, whither in a citadel or a tent one lives therein is identical, it for you doesn't disclose any gateway's iron bar making you a wanderer."

🍀

~ Muhammad Aazan

▪Hjalmar Munsterhjelm | Moonlight in Bärosund

The Alicanto is a mythological nocturnal bird of the desert of Atacama, pertaining to Chilean mythology. Legend says tha...
12/05/2021

The Alicanto is a mythological nocturnal bird of the desert of Atacama, pertaining to Chilean mythology. Legend says that the alicanto's wings shine at night with beautiful, metallic colors, and their eyes emit strange lights. The color of the wings may indicate the type of ore it eats, golden if from a gold mine and silvery if from a silver mine. Some descriptions also portray the color of the wings as copper-green.

Modern representation of a golden Alicanto.
The bird runs on the ground and can't fly because of the weight of the ore it eats, this means that it runs faster if it hasn't eaten recently. According to legend, a miner that follows an alicanto without being noticed by the bird can find rich mineral outcrops or treasures such as an entierro. But if the Alicanto discovers that it's being followed it will turn off the shining of its wings, and scuttle away in the darkness of the night. Also, if the miner is not of "good heart" the alicanto will guide the miner off a cliff. Accordingly, the miner will not be able to see the cliff in time because of the "intensity of the darkness".

🍀

~ Atacama Desert | Antiquity

Often when I imagine you,your wholeness cascades into many shapes.You run like a herd of luminous deer,and I am dark;I a...
11/22/2021

Often when I imagine you,
your wholeness cascades into many shapes.
You run like a herd of luminous deer,
and I am dark;
I am forest.

🍀

~ Rainer Maria Rilke | Book of Hours

Witches feasting, featured in The Historyof Witches and Wizards (1720).🍀~ Source | Wellcome Library, London, UK.
11/20/2021

Witches feasting, featured in The History
of Witches and Wizards (1720).

🍀

~ Source | Wellcome Library, London, UK.

▪ The Great Sphinx It depicts a man sitting infront of the sphinx on a small boulder rock and contemplating. The sphinx ...
11/11/2021

▪ The Great Sphinx

It depicts a man sitting infront of the sphinx on a small boulder rock and contemplating. The sphinx was still buried in the sand during that time period.

🍀

~ History Magazine | National Geography

"Argish" is a word literally means a caravan of deer, in a more philosophical sense- packing for the long road, a journe...
11/09/2021

"Argish" is a word literally means a caravan of deer, in a more philosophical sense- packing for the long road, a journey for nomadic people of the north, nenets people.

The event is large-scale and very beautiful : Literally a dozen trains constructed from the sled go through the valleys along the hills and the mountains.

🍀

~ Daniel Kordan |

◾Atacama Giant Illustrated on a Chilean hillside known as Cerro Unitas and surrounded by thousands of smaller geoglyphs,...
11/08/2021

◾Atacama Giant

Illustrated on a Chilean hillside known as Cerro Unitas and surrounded by thousands of smaller geoglyphs, the Atacama Giant, a massive image of a deity used to calculate the movements of the moon, stands as one of the largest geoglyphs ever discovered.

Likely created sometime between 1000 and 1400 CE by a successive series of indigenous cultures including the Inca, the massive figure rests among about 5,000 smaller images of birds, mystical designs, and other images that have been etched on the ground. The images were created by either digging out the lines of the design from the soil, or by placing patterns of stones and sand on top of it, and sometimes a mixture of the two methods. (Successive cultures worked to create the images, which accounts for the variation.)

The giant itself is 390 feet tall and built in a direct and unpretentious design with no flourishes, save for the straight lines emanating from its head and torso to imitate either some sort of ceremonial garb or the unearthly features of a god. Whichever the lines symbolize, researchers have determined that they very likely served a practical purpose as well. When they aligned with the moon, the lines in the giant’s headdress, in conjunction with the other points on its body, the image would have been used to track the time of year, so that the ancient builders could predict the coming of the crucial rainy season.

🍀

~ Huara, Chile | One of the Largest Ancient Geoglyphs
~

08/23/2021

“I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine.”

~ William Shakespeare |

Under the greenwood treeWho loves to lie with me,And turn his merry noteUnto the sweet bird's throat,Come hither, come h...
08/19/2021

Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

Who doth ambition shun
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

🍀

~ Under the greenwood tree | William Shakespeare

"Was this the face that launched a thousand shipsAnd burned the topless towers of Illium?"🍀~ Christopher Marlowe | Sacha...
07/11/2021

"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burned the topless towers of Illium?"

🍀

~ Christopher Marlowe | Sacha Kalis

“I love how summer just wraps its arms around you like a warm blanket.” ~ Kellie Elmore |🍀
07/04/2021

“I love how summer just wraps its arms around you like a warm blanket.”

~ Kellie Elmore |

🍀

07/01/2021

▪Urk | The Netherlands

The old village of Urk still oozes the taste and feel of the fishing island of the old days. The harbour buzzes with activity. Fish is offloaded, boats are constructed and in the evenings the locals stroll the streets, some dressed proudly in their traditional costumes with their children or tour the village. Alive and kicking it definitely still is! The reason is that these entrepreneurial and resolute former islanders didn't give up after their fishing grounds were drained. They now call this 'the miracle of Urk'. They simply started building larger boats and set their sights on the North Sea. Urk's fishing industry is busier than ever. Urk now boasts the largest fish auction and market in the Netherlands as well as one of the largest following of the traditional Island dress.

🍀

~ Jimmy Nelson | Soul of Indigenous Culture

The Women of Amphissa is an oil on canvas painting by Dutch-born painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema in 1887.He spent most ...
06/24/2021

The Women of Amphissa is an oil on canvas painting by Dutch-born painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema in 1887.

He spent most of his life in England during the Victorian Era and primarily depicted Classical antiquity and the luxurious lives of the people of the Roman Empire in his paintings. This includes The Women of Amphissa. It was inspired by an historical event recorded by Plutarch, a Greek historian, biographer and essayist. This painting shows the morning after a celebration of Bacchus/Dionysus, the God of wine and ritual madness.

This celebration caused a group of women to wander into the city of Amphissa from Phocis. Despite these two cities being at war, the women of Amphissa allowed the women from Phocis to fall asleep in their marketplace and stood guard throughout the night to ensure the men of the city caused them no harm. As seen in this painting, the women of Amphissa also provided them with food and care the next morning.

While The Women of Amphissa is both ethereal and dream-like, it is also very realistic as the details created by Alma-Tadema make the painting come to life. From the hair and clothing of the women, to the flowers and sculptures in the wall, the details create the beauty of this painting. Alma-Tadema also uses a lot of white and varying shades likely representative of the peace between these groups. It is reported that Alma-Tadema used his second wife, Laura, as a model for this painting.

Many interpret this painting as a lesson in charity and humanity for the Victorian people of Alma-Tadema's time as this was an era with lots of poverty, child labour and morality standards. It has also come to represent the strength of femininity and the importance of protection because the women of the city would have stood up to soldiers if necessary.

After his death in 1912, Alma-Tadema's work was held in low esteem by the public despite his success during his life. In the 1960s, however, his body of work was re-examined and deemed very significant for art history and in particular English art of the nineteenth century. Today, The Women of Amphissa is part of the private collection of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.

🍀

~ Talisman of Hues |

Address

New York, NY
10007

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Zephyr posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Museum

Send a message to Zephyr:

Videos

Share

Category


#}