Noteworthy Facts
20.10.24 - 05.12.24
Andre Breton was the theorist and co-founder of the surrealist movement. He didn’t like Dali.
Dadaism became surrealism.
S. Dali designed the Chupa Chups logo.
Iambic pentameter - 8/6/8/6 rhyme scheme. Example: Amazing Grace.
S. Dali wanted to create a room that could be described as ‘a dream that could be used as a living room.’
All the art created in 15th century Italy is referred to as Quattrocento.
Vincent Van Gogh could name 60 of his favorite artists at age 20.
In the 1920s, the Estonian Art Museum collected various antiquities, mostly coats of arms and interior details. At first the art collection was housed in the National Opera House, then The Kadriorg Palace, then a restaurant called ‘Linden’ on Narva highway in Tallinn.
One of the main establishments to purchase art for the Republic’s art collection during this period was the Ministry of Education. By 1914, the National Art Museum Foundation had collected over 3000 pieces of art. The current number is somewhere around 65 000.
- A noteworthy piece in the Estonian Art Museum’s collection is a number of deer leg-themed goblets gifted to the country by the Blackheads, a group of merchants who spent time around Tallinn, Tartu and Riga in the the 15th century. The main merchant Guild in the 1300s was the Great Guild. The Blackheads separated from that in 1399.
The impressionists wanted to keep their paintings realistic and observe natural light and shadows, whereas the post-impressionists took a more abstract approach, focusing more on geometrical shapes, unnatural colors and shapes.
After impressionism and post-impressionism, there was fovism.
Cezanne is often referred to as the father of post-impressionism.
During the Livonian Crusade, estonians fled to the forests.
The Latgals became the Latvians.
Leonora Carrington had a fling with Max Ernst.
Hieronymus Bosch was born in 1450 as Hieronymus Van Aken and died in 1516. He changed his name to Bosch to protect his family. Dürer was a contemporary of his, which is super fascinating given how different their stuff is. Bosch was more influenced by the gothic.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder worked for Bosch (probably).
The Smurfs are created by Peyo.
Leonardo Da Vinci’s compiled notes are called the Codex Atlanticus - a 2238 page book.
The color ‘orange’ was created in the 16th century, when they first started bringing oranges to Europe from China.
Chirico’s ‘The Song of Love’ is considered an example of surrealism before it was called surrealism.
A Luthier is someone who makes stringed instruments.
Tallinn’s current Freedom Square was once a seaside fish market.
King Valdemar and the Danish arrived in Tallinn in 1219.
Tallinn was sold to the germans in 1346 for 4 tonnes of silver.
Tallinn-Brugge-London-Novgorod was the main route for merchants during the heyday of the merchant’s guild in Europe.
Tallinn was renovated and got a complete makeover in 1857.
The Livonian war happened when Ivan the Terrible attacked Tallinn. After that, the Swedes were in charge around these parts.
Tallinn boomed in 1890 when it got its railorad track.
Hypnagogia is a state of being half-awake, half-asleep.
Genetics play way too big role in a person’s brain’s development for it to be true that ‘you can be whoever you want to be.’ For instance, if you eat too little protein as a kid, you’re very unlikely to get to become a doctor as an adult.
A huge part of all claims made in the psychologial field in the 20th century have now been exposed as lies.
Many animals are prone to decide to cheat in games and other situations when presented with the opportunity.
When Warhol gave Dali a painting of his as a gift, Dali peed on it right there and then in front of tons of people.
Isaac Newton was really into alchemy but asked his assistants to burn all of his alchemical research, because he was afraid he wouldn’t be taken seriously as a scientist if someone were to read it.
Ignotum per ignotius is a latin expression when for a situation where something confusing is explained by something even more confusing.
Carl Gustaf Jung believed that the human subconcsious ‘has to have a physical manifestation because it is aware of matter.’
Estonia’s most famous surrealist Ülo Sooster was sent to Kazakhstan for trying out modernist art.
Medieval christian writings claim that Hell was created on the 13th of February.
Hinduism has a belief that our entire universe is a single dream that Brahma once had.
Quantum physics claims that the entire universe is constantly being created and destroyed.
The Golden Age of alchemy is thought to be 16th century Prague. King Rudolf II was very into alchemy.
The modern depiction of hell is based on the works of Hieronymus Bosch. Hell isn’t described as a physical place in the christian bible ONCE.
In Zoroastrism, it is believed that after you die, you have to make amends to every situation where you strayed from following God’s big plan. Once you’re done, you gain entrance to heaven. They also call heaven ‘The House of Song.’
Henry III had three things he deemed his proudest of possessions: a piece of metorite, a really big bed and Bosch’s ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights.’
In medieval art, a hunched person is a symbol of someone being a loner.
The word ‘sinister’ comes from the latin word for ‘left’. ‘Right’ is ‘dexter’.
In Hinduism, hell is basically a correction phase between a person’s two lives.
Agnosticisim has 365 different heavens.
Ancient hindu writings about the religions basics are called Puranas and Vedas.
In Ancient Greeze, there’s a special afterworld for people who have wasted their lives in the name of unanswered love.
Emanuel Swedenborg was a theologist who claimed write his books with the help of angelic visions. The angels supposedly told him what to write.
Schizophrenic delusions come from where the dopamine receptors are.(Same area of the human brain.)
In the japanese belief Shintoism, it is thought that every object has a soul (a kami), which means that we should always treat all objects around us with a sense of respect.
Pan-psychism is the belief that awareness and thought is all around us: the mind is a part of the universe, not something inside our heads. Plato subscribed to this idea. The mainstream way of thinking in the western world in the 19th century, apparently.
The dragon is a symbol of creativity in chinese mythology.
Sound is the air vibrating and music is the air vibrating symmetrically.
Duchamp’s ‘Urinal’ was a comment on the world being insincere in modernist times post WW1.
Eddie Lenihan is an irishman who has deticated his life to preserving ancient irish folklore and traditions.
Writing is 10 000 years old, telling stories is 100 000 years old.
Whales and crows are both rare examples of animals or birds that have ‘culture’ the same way as humans.
Irish monks taught the italians latin in the year 600 after having preserved it since the Roman Empire fell.
‘Druid’ is a portmanteau of ‘oak’ and ‘knowledge’ in celtic.
Every hour of the day was a different length until the 13th century.
The Pre-Raphaelites were set on reviving Quattrocento traditions.
