Painting as a Spiritual Expression
Painting as a Spiritual Expression
Is a painting no more than a piece of paper with lines and color or is it more than that? In the hands of the master painter, who is painting in the spirit; the lifeless piece of paper with its lines and colors, is transformed into a creation that has life, just as the master creator gave life to his creation. The painter transmits the essence of his spirit to his creation, the "painting."A painting is the expression of the heart and soul; it transmits cultural messages and the mysteries of the universe. It is born out of the desire of the artist to represent the forms of nature and man through the spirit of the artist as he perceives his world.An artist not only captures the forms of nature, the artist's spirit interacts with the spirit of the animals or men he is painting. His painting captures both the spirit and the message of its subject. One can see it in the expression, the eyes, and the gestalt of the painting. All good paintings communicate an emotion or message to the observer. It might be a message of love, harmony or tranquility; or it might be a message of danger, fury, or sadness. It could be a lesson, or something that all of us as humans can identify with, such as a desire to be loved.The painting as art served ancient peoples as a medium to purify and refine the human spirit. The well studied and observant artist through his own meditation gives life to the animated states, feelings, and spiritual essence of the animals and humans he paints. The purification or refinement of the observer's spirit occurs through the inspired artist's ability to communicate the subject's (man or animal): spirit, animation, feelings, thoughts, and the scene or stage of the subject, with all of its colors and form.Copyright:
Gymnastics History ? A Brief Overview
Gymnastics History ? A Brief Overview
Gymnastics, as an activity, has been around for more than
two thousand years in one form or another, from the ancient
Greek Olympics, to Roman ceremony, to today's modern meets.As an organized and truly competitive sport, gymnastics
has existed for a little more than a century. It was
introduced in the mid 1800s to the United States, where it
inexorably gained in popularity within school systems.Amateur associations gathered together by the late
nineteenth century, offering classes and opportunities for
young people to join in on the fun. Eventually, these
associations began to have their own championships.In 1896, at the first international Olympic games in Athens,
Greece, the sport we all know and love enjoyed its first
large-scale debut. Included in the Olympic tournament were
vaulting, parallel bars, pommel horse, and rings events for
men. The first women's Olympic gymnastics events were held
in 1928. After the Olympics began to officially host
gymnastics, the World Championship gymnastics meet emerged
in the early 1900s, and it is still held to this very day.Thus began a noble tradition that continues even in modern
Olympic games and in local, regional, national, and world
meets all over.If you're the parent of a young gymnast, odds are, people
are going to ask you, "Why did you choose gymnastics over
swimming, ballet, football, baseball, or soccer?" It is an
easy question to offer, but not a simple one to answer.Their curiosity is entirely understandable--to the
uninitiated, may have a lower profile than others.
However, if you are indeed very serious about your child
participating in the sport, you can tell those people, with
great authority, that gymnastics is an excellent way to
spend time. Not only does it have a long and illustrious
history, but it also requires attention and discipline on
the part of a child--more so, perhaps, than one involved in
any other sport.In order to become successful at the sport of gymnastics,
your child will have to get into a routine of practice.This type of routine is different from, say, soccer
practice or hockey practice, in that it does not involve
the concept of physical rivalry with other individuals. A
gymnast is not typically seen chasing after another
gymnastics youth with a set of rings as one might see a
hockey player attacking another person on an opposing team.Gymnastics does not encourage violence in the same way
contact sports do -- indeed, when one is part of a
gymnastics team, one has to work in synchronicity with and
have a certain trust for the other members, a valuable
lesson in this individualism-driven social environment.
This can certainly help in any future employment,
especially if your child is interested in professions that
involve lots of interpersonal communication.Beyond practice, gymnastics also requires physical
discipline. For instance, if you do not move in the way
that you are taught to move when on parallel bars, you will
have falls and disappointment--and then, of course, you
learn from the mistake, pick up, and try it again. Playing
at gymnastics braces a person for the future in that way:
it prepares them for the inevitable necessity of
determination and endurance in any of life's endeavors,
whether in business or in education. In conjunction with
school study habits, practice for gymnastics can indeed
lead a young person into a level and graceful confidence.
In fact, for as physically driven as gymnastics happens to
be, it is also an extremely intellectual sport: every
motion requires forethought, for in the game, if you do not
think of what you are going to do before you do it, you'll
end up on the mat.Finally, and perhaps most obviously of all, there is the
fact that gymnastics will keep your child busy, as any
other sport might. This means that he or she won't be as
likely to slip into a pattern of slacking or of hanging out
with the wrong crowd. Quite literally, when your child is
at practice, you will know where they are -- you will not
have to worry if they have wandered off somewhere or are
unintentionally getting into trouble. This can lead to
peace of mind for you and yours, most assuredly, which,
like the skills they will learn, are absolutely invaluable.By Murray Hughes
Gymnastics Secrets Revealed
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For AOL Users - History of Gymnastics
Propaganda and American Journalism, Born Joined at Birth
Propaganda and American Journalism, Born Joined at Birth
Passion was the main stuff of journalism long before the Civil War, the birthplace of modern American journalism. The Press of the American Revolution during the War and before it, was borne of it. Newspapers then were not as we know them today. Weekly advertising mediums they were, but they were primarily opinion pieces designed to protect interests or to provoke the readership. They were propaganda organs in the truest sense. They were virtual flagpoles of ideology from which the editor could wave his political flag. As tools of political activism they often published articles of principles treating of various freedoms or governmental responsibilities, as the editors saw them to be, mostly by pseudonymous authors sometimes using names taken from the Greek or Roman classics like Cato or Ovid.What news did exist was usually a local crime graphically treated, a poem perhaps, or a reference to a literary work or some happening from Europe that occurred months previously and brought to the editor's notice by people arriving in town. Newspapers shared news too, for as fever rose in the colonies and happenings became more frequent the need to know took place and the sharing of news from paper to paper became more commonplace.But news gathering during the war coverage was not organized, newspapers relied almost wholly on the chance arrival of private letters and of official and semi-official documents. News sources were scarce, but opinion was abundant and it covered both sides. Tory and patriot presses would fire verbal broadsides at each other's interests and any newspaper hoping to maintain a dispassionate objectivity examining both sides of the issues, found themselves in a "no-man's land" and was considered "on the other side." Often the news was engineered, perhaps none so well as the 'reportage' of the Boston Massacre by the Boston Gazette.What led up to the shootings, deemed a " Boston massacre", was the business of quartering British troops in the public houses and private homes of residents in America when barracks space was not available. The additional insult to the public was that the colonial legislative body was to provide financing.This was going on for four years after the British Parliament enacted a piece of legislation called the Quartering Act in 1765 and expanded it in 1766, ostensibly to economize on troop expense. When the soldiers first appeared in Boston in 1766 resplendent in redcoats and brandishing gleaming muskets and bayonets, they were held in awe but when it was learned that they were ordered never to use force and that in order to fire a musket they would first have to seek an order from a magistrate, bellicose crowds of youth began to taunt them. A mutual dislike developed between soldier and citizen, taunts epithets and curses the main discourse. Tempers began to flare as Boston tolerance dipped to increasingly low levels. One citizen's distaste for things British turned extreme resulting in the shooting of his neighbor's son, Christopher Seider, an eleven year old Boston youngsterTension between soldier and citizen was stretched thin and snapped on March 2 after rumors were circulated through Boston that the soldiers were planning a massacre of Boston citizens following an incident in which one soldier with a broadsword, slightly injured one young man, who with three companions wished to pass in an alleyway.Later a brawl between some troops and some rope makers erupted, the latter besting the former leaving emotions in a tattered state, then on March 5th, a group of youths taunted a British sentry who took exception by beating one of them with his musket. Fire alarms sounded bringing a crowd of about four hundred to the scene, surrounding the sentry and throwing snowballs, ice and sticks at him. Seven soldiers led by Captain Thomas Preston came to the sentry's support but suffered the crowd's taunts and physical assault with clubs. Daring the soldiers to fire on them, one soldier did after being hit with a club and the others followed suit. Three citizens died on the spot, another the next day and another one a few days later, five were dangerously wounded and a few slightly.One can imagine the reaction of the citizens in the tavern as they heard, through sips of ale , the report in the Boston Gazette informing its readers that the man with a broadsword,who was described as having grown "to uncommon size" and who was now accompanied by " a person of a mean countenance armed with a large cudgel," attacked two of the youths wounding them with sword punctures then reenforced by two more soldiers armed with tongs and shovel, they continued beating the boys who valiantly defended themselves."The noise bro't people together, and John Hicks, a young lad, coming up, knock'd the soldier down, but let him get up again; and more lads gathering drove them back to the barrack, where the boys stood some time as it were to keep them in. In less than a minute 10 or 12 of them came out with drawn cutlasses, clubs and bayonets, and set upon the unarmed boys and young folks, who stood them a little while, but finding the inequality of their equipment dispersed,- In hearing the noise, one Samuel Atwood, came up to see what was the matter, and entering the alley from Dock-square, heard the latter part of the combat, and when the boys had dispersed he met the 10 or 12 soldiers aforesaid rushing down the alley towards the square, and asked them if they intended to murder people? They answered 'Yes by G-d, root and branch! With that one of them struck Mr, Atwood with a club, which was repeated by another, and being unarmed he turned to go off, and received a wound on the left shoulder which reached the bone and gave him much pain.Retreating a few steps, Mr. Atwood met two officers and said, 'Gentlemen, what is the matter?' They answered, 'you'll see by and by.' Immediately after those heroes appeared in the square, asking 'where were the boogers? Where the cowards?'...Thirty or forty persons, mostly lads...gathered in Kingstreet, Capt. Preston, with a party of men with charged bayonets, came from the main guard to the Commissioners house, the soldiers pushing their bayonets, crying, 'Make way!' They took place by the custom-house, and continuing to push to drive the people off, pricked some in several places; on which they were clamorous, and ,it is said, threw snow-balls. On this, the Captain commanded them to fire, and more snowballs coming, he again said, 'Damn you, Fire, be the consequence what it will.! One soldier then fired, and a townsman with a cudgel struck him over the hands with such force that he dropt his firelock; and rushing forward aimed a blow at the Captain's head, which graz'd his hat and fell pretty heavy upon his arm; however, the soldiers continued the fire, successively, til 7 or 8, or as some say 11 guns were discharged.By this fatal maneuvre, three men were laid dead on the spot, and two more struggling for life; but what shewed a degree of cruelty unknown to British troops, at least since the house of Hanover has directed their operation, was an attempt to fire upon or push with bayonets the persons who undertook to remove the slain or wounded."Following the imputation of unusual cruelty for this final bit of brutality the Gazette went on to describe the slain and to comment on the outrage felt by the Boston citizenry, the outrage, undoubtedly, now shared by the gentry in their drawing rooms and the lads in the taverns. The flames of passions that were kindled by the outrageous Stamp Act of 1765 and the infuriating Quartering Act of the same year, had been flickering but now found new fuel and burst into the blaze of revolution. A "massacre ' had now been committed. A "massacre!" Blood had been drawn.The following week, the grand jury indicted the British soldiers for wilful murder but the court thought fit to hold trial when tempers had cooled in the following term. On October 24th, trial was held for Captain Preston and on November 12th, for the soldiers. John Adams, second U.S. President-to-be, was one of four defense lawyer for all. The captain was acquitted as were six of the eight soldiers. Two were found guilty not of murder but manslaughter. The jury was drawn from residents of towns surrounding Boston.In the courtroom, reality replaced fiction, but the impression of a massacre had not been erased. The words of the Gazette in its best fictional form were truly the words of revolution.John Adams in 1815, summarized: "What do we mean by Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington."Journalism had moved the minds of the people.Don Bracken is the author of 'Times of the Civil War', a study of the American Civil War and the coverage of it by the New York Times and the Charleston Mercury. He is Senior Editor of History Publishing Conmpany,LLC.