Notebook

Notebook, 1993-

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"South of the dark forests of northern Russia open vast steppe lands, stretching from eastern Europe to Mongolia. Constantly varying in climate, punctuated by giant mountain chains, these steppes may support settled farming or pasturage, or --particularly towards China --degenerate into desert. North of Tibet a complex series of mountain ranges divides the steppes. Westwards lies the broad area inhabited predominantly by white races since time immemorial; to the east, the home terrain of the mongoloids, although each group interpenetrated the other. Southwards again an immense mountain zone shuts off the steppe lands from warmer climes: dividing Greece, ringing Anatolia, surrounding the great, dusty plateau of Iran as the Zagros, Elburz and other ranges, marching further east as the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan and the Himalayas of India, it severely inhibited the passage of commerce and invasion. Great rivers run down from its heights: the flat, alluvial plains of the lower Tigris and Euphrates hold the Syrian desert at bay, the Oxus and Jaxartes meander through central Asia and into the Aral Sea, while the Indus and Ganges water the Indian north [fig. 1].

Against this varied backcloth the patterns of human survival began to evolve. In western Asia particularly, the hunters and fishers began to settle down into communities practicing some agriculture and stockbreeding. Where rich alluvial soil gave abundant crops, as in Babylonia, large and eventually literate urban communities could develop. Knowledge of mixed farming spread outwards, and during the fourth and third millennia B.C. filtered north to the steppes. Here, however, the pasturing of animals tended to become a specialized activity and to involve the movement of the herdsmen from one feeding area to another. Among these wandering bands there must have been speakers of Indo-European languages, for soon after 2000 B.C. groups of these speakers were beginning to move south and west from their homeland, emerging ultimately as, for example, Celts in Europe, Latins and others in Italy, Greeks in Greece, Hittites in Anatolia, and the Aryan ancestors of the Iranians and Indians." - [Parthians]




"Nicolas) Poussin's coherent compositions and lucid color contrasts were in accord with a belief that painting, like mathematics, was governed by absolute logic. To obtain these calculated effects, Poussin often constructed a theatrical shadow box which, filled with movable wax manikins, served as a model for his final picture." (National Gallery of Art - Washington, DC




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Pacioli, Luca . . . . . Painters . . . . . Palestinian . . . . . Pallas . . . . . Pan . . . . . Arthur Panofsky . . . . . Paris . . . . . Nick Park . . . . . Pasiphae . . . . . Parson's Musings . . . . . The Parthians . . . . . Victor asmore . . . . . Paul Cézanne, 1906 . . . . . Paul Klee, 1920 . . . . . Pausanius . . . . . Pawlowsky [1923] . . . . . Pax Romana . . . . . Pegasus . . . . . I. M. Pei . . . . . Pelops . . . . . Penelope . . . . . Persian . . . . . Peseroff . . . . . Persephone [Kore] . . . . . Perseus . . . . . Peninah R. Y Petruck . . . . . Anton Pevsner [1920] . . . . . Phaedra . . . . . Phaethon . . . . . Phidias xx . . . . . Philanthropists . . . . . Philosophers . . . . . Philosophers of Ancient Greece . . . . . Philostratus . . . . . Phoenicians . . . . . Photographers . . . . . Phrygians . . . . . Phrixus . . . . . Phythagoreans . . . . . Francis Picabia . . . . . Picasso . . . . . Otto Piene . . . . . Édouard Pignon [1966] . . . . . Édouard Pignon [1985] . . . . . Horace Pippin . . . . . Andrea Pisano . . . . . Pitter . . . . . Plato . . . . . Pliny The Elder . . . . . Poets . . . . . Pol Bury, 1987 . . . . . Polycleitus of Argos . . . . . Polyclitus . . . . . Polyeuktos . . . . . Pope, Alexander . . . . . Edith Porada . . . . . Poseidon [Neptune] . . . . . Katherine Porter . . . . . Portzamparc . . . . . Nicolas Poussin . . . . . Praxiteles . . . . . Maurice Prendergast . . . . . Pre -Islamic Ancient Iran . . . . . Priam . . . . . Priapus . . . . . Richard Prince . . . . . Prometheus . . . . . Marcel Proust


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