“Art expert Jean-Jacques Fernier, who has studied the works of Gustave Courbet for years, told Reuters he believed an unsigned painting of a woman’s head, featured in this week’s Paris Match magazine, had been cut off” of the painting, notorious for 147 years for its portrayal of a nude female model with legs splayed.
Category: today’s top story
The Things We Vividly Remember (Sometimes We Don’t)
“It is startling to realize that some of our most cherished memories may never have happened–or may have happened to someone else.”
Bolshoi’s Boss Publicly Blames Dancer For Poisonous Atmosphere At Ballet
The theater’s general manager, Anatoly Iksanov, “told Snob magazine the [acid] attack [on ballet chief Sergei Filin] was the ‘natural consequence’ of a chaotic situation created by dancer Nikolai Tsiskaridze. He also accused Tsiskaridze of helping to bring down former ballet director Gennady Yanin in 2011.”
How Creativity Is Being Debased By Our Language About It
“The specific meaning of creativity being a gift granted to artists – a composer such as Brett Dean or a writer such as Anna Funder – has been diluted by banality. Creativity is not a byword for innovation, lateral thinking or business solutions, but the rare spark of artistic imagination.”
Chinese Art Auction Sales Down By 50 Percent In 2012
” Both the Chinese auction houses attributed the reversal of this upward sales trend to the weaker economic environment in the country in 2012.”
Timbuktu Residents Hid Priceless Relics When Invaders Came
“Their survival is a testament to the habit of Timbuktu’s families of hiding away their valuable relics whenever danger is near, burying them deep in the desert.”
Health Troubles Cause Trisha Brown To Leave Her Dance Company
“Ms. Brown, 76, had a series of mini-strokes in the past several years, although she was choreographing as recently as the fall of 2011 and was active at the company until last summer … But she has had increased difficulty communicating recently and is relinquishing the title of artistic director of the company that bears her name.”
Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up The Bodies Wins Costa Prize By Unanimous Vote
Jury chair Dame Jenni Murray: “One book simply stood head and shoulders, more than head and shoulders … on stilts, above the rest. We had a really good discussion, like being at a high-powered book club, and I said, ‘OK, let’s have a vote on Bring Up the Bodies and every hand went up.”
Not All Of Timbuktu’s Ancient Manuscripts Were Burned, It Seems
Researcher Jean-Michel Dijan: “The great majority of the manuscripts, about fifty thousand, are actually housed in the thirty-two family libraries of the ‘City of 333 Saints.’ Those are to this day protected.” Many other documents (though not all) may have been hidden by the families who originally possessed them before the rebels arrived.
Retreating Rebels Burn Priceless Timbuktu Archives
“Islamist insurgents retreating from Timbuktu set fire to a library containing thousands of priceless historic manuscripts, according to the Saharan town’s mayor.”