Forwards

honkeys:

still one of my favorite pictures on this site

(via the-devil-wears-acu)

darnni:

what music looks like

(Source: fu-co, via the-devil-wears-acu)

medievalpoc:

Unknown (formerly att. Johann Zoffany)

Dido Elizabeth Belle

Scotland (1779)

oil on canvas

Scone Palace, Perth (private collection of the Earl of Mansfield)

Although this painting falls outside the usual scope of this blog, it is one of my favorite historical European paintings. Dido Elizabeth Belle was the illegitimate daughter of Admiral Sir John Lindsay and enslaved African woman named Belle.

This painting was most likely commissioned by her father, the nephew of the Earl of Mansfield, and depicts the beautiful and vivacious Belle alongside her cousin, Elizabeth Murray.

The first time I saw this painting was in an art history classroom, accompanied by a story regarding the dehumanization of Africans in the Unites States, and the scores of visiting Americans who were scandalized by this painting. In America and several places in Europe, contemporaneous paintings always depicted people considered Black in subservient positions in relation to people considered White, if they bothered to paint them at all. To raise a bastard daughter of color alongside legitimate heirs was antithetical to American thought.

Dido Belle was raised and educated alongside the other highborn daughters of the household, and remained a favorite of the Earl and her father well into her thirties, after which an advantageous marriage was arranged.

Her position in the Earl’s household supervising the poultry yards was typical for any lady of high birth at the time, but her job overseeing the lord’s correspondence was usually a task reserved for a highly educated male clerk or scribe and is evidence of her importance and elevated rank. She received an allowance of £30 per year, more than any except the heiress herself and a sum unheard of at the time for any illegitimate daughter.

Upon Lord Mansfield’s death in 1788, Belle was furnished with a £500 lump sum in addition to a £100 annuity, as well as a suitable marriage to John Davinier, with whom she had three children. In Mansfield’s will, her status as a free person was carefully confirmed, since many would have been all too happy to divest her of her fortune.

Belle died in 1804 and was interred in St. George’s Fields, the parish to which she and her husband belonged.

My interest in this story was renewed recently when I learned that an upcoming film, Belle (currently in production), will be a dramatized biopic of Dido Elizabeth Belle’s life. The titular role will be played by South African actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

[x] [x] [x] [x]

(via strangeasanjles)

everybrickmatters:

Visit to Taal Volcano, 9 Jun 2013 

311 m (1,020 ft)

The Taal Volcano is a cinder cone volcano. It is located on the island of Luzon, Philippines where it lies at the middle of Lake Taal. It lies just 31 miles from Manila – the capital of the Philippines and home to 1.6 million people.

The Taal Volcano has had 33 recorded eruptions since 1572. While most of these eruptions are confined to the intracaldera area, some eruptions devastate the entire region with its fallout. Altogether, it’s estimated that 5,000-6,000 people have been killed by eruptions at Taal. Even today, the only safe way to view the active Taal Volcano is from a safe distance. Of course, that doesn’t stop adventurers from trekking on “Volcano Island”. (that’s us!)

Source: http://www.curiosityaroused.com

(via pinoy-culture)

jetiadeity:

dope 

(Source: donbroccoli, via kemetically-afrolatino)

jtotheizzoe:

fuckyeahfluiddynamics:

Underwater explosions are, in general, much more dangerous than those in air. This video shows an underwater blast at 30,000 fps. During the initial blast, a hot sphere of gas expands outward in a shock wave. In air, some of the energy of this pressure wave would be dissipated by compressing the air. Since water is incompressible, however, the blast instead moves water aside as the bubble expands. Eventually, the bubble expands to the point where its pressure is less than that of the water around it, which causes the bubble to collapse. But the collapse increases the gas pressure once more, kicking off a series of expansions and collapses. Each bubble contains less energy than the previous, thanks to the loss of pushing the water aside. (Video credit: K. Kitagawa)

If you needed something to make a science GIF out of this weekend, here’s a good subject.

Whoa.

pinoy-culture:

aineeething:

Even legends take a coffee break.

Apo Whang-Od, well known mambabatok, (tattoo artist), and the last one among the Kalinga.

However despite what everyone says of her being the last one and when she dies the Kalinga tattooing tradition dies with her, that is false.

She is currently training her young niece, Grace, whose strong interest in preserving the tattooing tradition among the Kalinga, a tradition that has died out over years of colonization among the rest of the Philippines especially among the Bisayans who were called the Pintados, “the Painted Ones”, by the Spaniards as they were known to be covered in tattoo’s all over their body, will keep the tradition alive.

(via kemetically-afrolatino)

abbyjean:

Copyrights (2011- Ongoing)

The Google Art Project (http://www.googleartproject.com/) contains several paintings which have had a blur filter applied to them so as to make them unrecognisable. Google explain this decison stating that they were, ‘required to be blurred by the museums for reasons pertaining to copyrights.’

After collecting all of these images by taking screenshots and cropping out the blurred images, they were emailed to oil painting reproduction companies in China (chosen for its own issues with internet censorship and for its ongoing difficulties with Google), where they were painted to the scale of the original painting. These reproductions were shipped back to the UK and now become the art work. (Phil Thompson)

lifeinfluxus:

Klávesy Piana Jezero [Piano Keys Lake] - František Kupka (1905)

(via coryhall)

amandaonwriting:

Literary Birthday - 7 June

Happy Birthday, Nikki Giovanni, born 7 June 1943

10 Quotes

1. I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you’d get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.
2. I’m glad I understand that while language is a gift, listening is a responsibility. 
3. We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.
4. Poetry and music are very good friends. Like mommies and daddies and strawberries and cream - they go together.
5. Art is not for the cultivated taste. It is to cultivate taste.
6. Some say we are responsible for those we love. Others know we are responsible for those who love us.
7. Nothing is easy to the unwilling.
8. If everybody became a poet the world would be much better. We would all read to each other.
9. The catchword I use with my classes is: The authority of the writer always overcomes the skepticism of the reader.
10. If you know what you’re talking about, or if you feel that you do, the reader will believe you.

Giovanni is an American writer, commentator, activist, and educator. The author of more than 30 books, she is currently a professor of English at Virginia Tech.

Source for Image

by Amanda Patterson for Writers Write

(via guerrillamamamedicine)