Guido Reni The Archangel Michael

Guido Reni The Archangel MichaelGuido Reni Salome with the head of St John the BaptistGuido Reni CleopatraGuido Reni Reni Charity
tiny island in the Adriatic has become a holiday hit for lovers because it is shaped like a heart.
The 130,000 square yard islet of Galesnjak came to prominence after its unusual shape was highlighted on Google Earth.
Evenso if lovers really do want to spend time alone it's the perfect desert island.
"We always thought it looked a bit like a heart but since it's been on Google Earth everyone else has seen it too and the whole world seems to want to stay here."
The island is located in Zadarski Kanal between Zadar and the Island of Pasman.
Croatia is ranked as the 18th most popular tourism destination in the world, proving especially busy during the summer months. the owner of the uninhabited island - now known as Lovers' Island - didn't realise how perfectly heart-shaped the island off the Croatian coast was until he was swamped with requests from couples to stay there.It seems many lovers from around the world consider it the ideal spot for a romantic Valentine's Day break.Vlado Juresko said: "It has been incredible. We think it is the most perfect heart-shaped island in the world. Nobody lives there

Claude Lorrain Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba

Claude Lorrain Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of ShebaFrancisco de Zurbaran The Immaculate ConceptionArthur Hughes La Belle Dame Sans MerciArthur Hughes Ophelia
beside him was much tastier than sap, and there could be absolutely no comparison between a squirrel and the girl sitting before him, clasping her knees and watching him thoughtfully, unless mention was made of certain hints of paid more attention to anthropology lectures at University.
She had said nothing. Apart from indicating the couch and offering him the wine she had done no more than sit watching him, occasionally rubbing a deep scratch on her arm.
Rincewind hurriedly recalled that a dryad was so linked to her tree that she suffered wounds in sympathy.
"Sorry about that," he said quickly. "it furriness.The room was high, wide and lit with a soft yellow light which came from no particular source that Rincewind could identify. Through gnarled and knotted archways he could see other rooms, and what looked like a very large winding staircase. And it had looked a perfectly normal tree from the outside, too.The girl was green - flesh green. Rincewind could be absolutely certain about that, because all she was wearing was a medallion around her neck. Her long hair had a faintly mossy look about it. Her eyes had no pupils and were a luminous green.Rincewind wished he had

Edward Hopper Drug Store

Edward Hopper Drug StoreEdward Hopper Conference at NightEdward Hopper City SunlightEdward Hopper Chair Car
didn't finish, because something hideous happened. A creature half the size of a man, with leathery wings and hooked . We'll bring the balloon to the ground, and then we must defend ourselves. They're-"
But Lyra didn't hear the rest of what she said, because there was a rending, ripping sound, and everything tilted sideways. Then a terrific blow hurled the three humans against the side of the balloon where lorek Byrnison's armor was stacked, lorek put out a great paw to hold them in, because the basket was jolting so violently. Serafina Pekkala had vanished.claws, was crawling over the side of the basket toward Lee Scoresby. It had a flat head, with bulging eyes and a wide frog mouth, and from it came wafts of abominable stink. Lyra had no time to scream, even, before lorek Byrnison reached up and cuffed it away. It fell out of the basket and vanished with a shriek."Cliff-ghast," said lorek briefly.The next moment Serafina Pekkala appeared, and clung to the side of the basket, speaking urgently."The cliff-ghasts are attacking

Thomas Kinkade The Good Life

Thomas Kinkade The Good LifeThomas Kinkade Stairway to ParadiseThomas Kinkade NASCAR THUNDERThomas Kinkade London
together, she choked down the sobs that still shook her chest.
Pantalaimon played the same them, fool them. He became a mouse and crept away from Lyra's hand to sniff
timidly at the drink in the monkey's clutch. It was innocuous: an infusion of chamomile, nothing more. He crept back something that was downstairs and I went to get it and they grabbed hold of me and took me in a car somewhere. But when they stopped, I ran out quick and dodged away and they never caught me. But I didn't know where I was...."
Another sob shook her briefly, but they were weaker now, and she could pretend this to Lyra's shoulder and whispered, "Drink it."She sat up and took the hot cup in both hands, alternately sipping and blowing to cool it. She kept her eyes down. She must pretend harder than she'd ever done in her , darling," Mrs. Coulter murmured, stroking her hair. "I thought we'd lost you forever! What happened? Did you get lost? Did someone take you out of the flat?""Yeah," Lyra whispered."Who was it, dear?""A man and a woman.""Guests at the party?""I think so. They said you needed

Caravaggio Madonna di Loreto

Caravaggio Madonna di LoretoThomas Moran Grand CanyonJean Francois Millet The sowerJean Francois Millet Spring
Juan Gris was a quietist, whose life was ostensibly marked by few major incidents. Though not the inventor of Cubism, he was one of its most able practitioners and evolved a very personal variety of it, combining elements which he had learned from the universally acknowledged father of Cubism: 'Cezanne made a cylinder out of a bottle. I start from the cylinder to create a special kind of individual object. I make ay Negro and Madrid Comico.
"Madrid at this time was an extremely provincial milieu, much more so than Barcelona, and as soon as he could Gris abandoned it for Paris, arriving there in 1906 at the age of nineteen. He found himself a studio at the famous Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre, and was soon in contact with his compatriot Picasso, who also lived and worked there, and bottle out of a cylinder.' A highly intelligent man, he had a marked impact on other painters - not only on the artists of the Section d'Or, the group with whom he identified himself, but also on senior members of the Ecole de Paris, with whom he spent the summer at Collioure in 1914. He had a special sympathy for poets, and collaborated with a number of distinguished writers, among them Pierre Reverdy, whose Guitare Endormie he illustrated, Gertrude Stein and Raymond Radiguet. "Gris was a pseudonym: he was born Jose Victoriano González in 1887, in Madrid, the thirteenth child of a rich Castilian merchant. He studied first to be an engineer at the School of Arts and Manufactures in Madrid, which he entered in 1902. By the time he abandoned this for an artistic career he was already contributing illustrations to the reviews Blanco

Louis Aston Knight A Riverside Cottage

Louis Aston Knight A Riverside CottageAndrea Mantegna Madonna with Sleeping ChildAlbert Bierstadt California Spring
want to go and see him."
He couldn't refuse her that, for she'd seen worse than a dead body, and it might calm her. So with Pantalaimon as a white hare bounding delicately at her side, she trudged along the line of sledges to where some men were piling brushwood.
The boy's They were marble-cold, and Farder Coram had been right; poor little Tony Makarios was no different from any other human whose daemon had departed in death. Oh, if they took Pantalaimon from her! She swept him up and hugged him as if she meant to press him right into her heart. And all little Tony had was his pitiful piece offish....
Where was it?body lay under a checkered blanket beside the path. She knelt and lifted the blanket in her mittened hands. One man was about to stop her, but the others shook their heads.Pantalaimon crept close as Lyra looked down on the poor wasted face. She slipped her hand out of the mitten and touched his eyes.

Mark Rothko Untitled 1962

Mark Rothko Untitled 1962Mark Rothko Untitled 1960Mark Rothko Untitled 1949
The financial climate, the job market, family tensions, Obama moving into the Lincoln bedroom. Even the climate’s getting in on it. Yup, change is everywhere in 2009.
Apparently some people are ‘embracing change’, but aren’t aware of the dangers inherent in changing the ways things are. you taken a chance, only for things to go wrong? How many times have you seized an opportunity only for it to slip between your fingers?
There’s always another screw-up waiting for you, so it’s better to stay right where you are. Where you are right now is a known quantity - it’s safe, warm and comfortable. Doesn’t that sound better than going out there, screwing If you’re not careful, all kinds of strange things might happen in your otherwise orderedso it’s best to work at avoiding change whenever it rears its head.Here are 5 ways to do just that:1. Ignore any opportunities.How many times have

Andy Warhol Fiesta Pig

Andy Warhol Fiesta PigAndy Warhol dollar sign black and yellow on redAndy Warhol Diamond Dust Shoes Lilac Blue Green
led her over a little wooden bridge into the heart of the canal basin. The other two men were padding silently after them. We killed two men out in the basin. We thought they was Gobblers, but I reckon they were Turk traders. They'd caught Lyra. Never mind talk-we'll do that on the move."
"Come here, child," said Ma Costa.
Lyra obeyed, half happy, half apprehensive, for Ma Costa had hands like bludgeons, and now she was sure: it was their boat she had captured with Roger and the other . Tony turned along the waterfront and out onto a wooden jetty, from which he stepped on board a narrowboat and swung open the door to the cabin."Get in," he said. "Quick now."Lyra did so, patting her bag (which she had never let go of, even in the net) to make sure the alethiometer was still there. In the long narrow cabin, by the light of a lantern on a hook, she saw a stout powerful woman with gray hair, sitting at a table with a paper. Lyra recognized her as Billy's mother."Who's this?" the woman said. "That's never Lyra?""That's right. Ma, we got to move

Henri Rousseau The Repast of the Lion

Henri Rousseau The Repast of the LionHenri Rousseau The Merry JestersHenri Rousseau The Flamingos
And now she was on her way to London: sitting next to the window in a zeppelin, no less, with Pantalaimon's sharp little ermine paws digging into her thigh while his front paws rested against the glass he gazed through. On Lyra's stout commissionaire (a sort of porter with medals) saluted Mrs. Coulter and winked at Lyra, who sized him up expressionlessly.
And then the flat...other side Mrs. Coulter sat working through some papers, but she soon put them away and talked. Such brilliant talk! Lyra was intoxicated; not about the North this time, but about London, and the restaurants and ballrooms, the soirees at embassies or ministries, the intrigues between White Hall and Westminster. Lyra was almost more fascinated by this than by the changing landscape below the airship. What Mrs. Coulter was saying seemed to be accompanied by a scent of grownupness, something disturbing but enticing at the same time: it was the smell of glamour. * * * The landing in , the boat ride across the wide brown river, the grand mansion block on the Embankment where a

Gustav Klimt Death and Life

Gustav Klimt Death and LifeGustav Klimt Beethoven FriezeGustav Klimt Apple Tree I
decanter of Tokay off the table, and made it look as if the Porter had done it. The old man put the box down carefully and began to apologize.
"I'm truly sorry, my lord-I must have been closer than I thought-"
"Get something to clear this mess up. Go on, before it soaks into the carpet!"
The Porter I won't help you. You're on your own."
He moved away and stood with his back to the fire again as the Porter came back with a brush and dustpan for the glass and a bowl and cloth.
"I can only say once again, my lord, I do most earnestly beg hurried out. Lord Asriel moved closer to the wardrobe and spoke in an undertone."Since you're in there, you can make yourself useful. Watch the Master closely when he comes in. If you tell me something interesting about him, I'll keep you from getting further into the trouble you're already in. Understand?""Yes, Uncle.""Make a noise in there andyour pardon; I don't know what-"

George Frederick Watts Watts Choosing

George Frederick Watts Watts ChoosingFrancisco de Zurbaran Rest on the flight to EgyptClaude Lorrain Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba
Father," he said, "Dad, Daddy… Father… I don't understand why she did that. It's too strange for me. But whatever you wanted me to do, I promise, I swear I'll do it. I'll fight. I'll be a warrior. I will. This knife, I'll take it to Lord Asriel, wherever he is, and I'll help him fight that enemy. I'll do it. You can rest now. It's all right. You can with whispers, and in the tearing of the wind Will could hear other sounds, too: confused echoes of cries and chanting, the clash of metal on metal, pounding wingbeats that one moment sounded so close they might actually be inside his head, and the next so far away they might have been on another planet. The rocks underfoot were slippery and sleep now."Beside the dead man lay his deerskin pack with the oilskin and the lantern and the little horn box of bloodmoss ointment. Will picked them up, and then he noticed his father's feather-trimmed cloak trailing behind his body on the ground, heavy and sodden but warm. His father had no more use for it, and Will was shaking with cold. He unfastened the bronze buckle at the dead man's throat and swung the canvas pack over his shoulder before wrapping the cloak around himself.He blew out the lantern and looked back at the dim shapes of his father, of the witch, of his father again before turning to go down the mountain. The stormy air was electric

Edward Hopper Morning in a City

Edward Hopper Morning in a CityEdward Hopper High NoonEdward Hopper Four Lane Road
could almost see the bond between them, the daemon tugging and the girl responding. He stumbled through the thick grass with Lyra running ahead to see, and then back to help, and then ahead again, until they reached the stone pavement around the temple.
The door under the little portico was unlocked, and they ran inside to find themselves in a bare circular room with several statues of goddesses in niches around the wall. In the very center a spiral staircase of wrought iron led up through an tiled roof ran down in a gentle slope all around to the gutter.
As they looked .
But there was no time to take in the view; first they had to deal with the children, who were racing up toward the temple, screaming with rage and excitement. The leading boy slowed down and held up his pistol and fired two or three wild shots toward the temple. Then opening to the floor above. There was no key to lock the door, out, they could see the forest behind, tantalizingly close; and the villa below them, and beyond that the open park, and then the red-brown roofs of the city, with the tower rising to the left. There were carrion crows wheeling in the air above the gray battlements, and Will felt a jolt of sickness as he realized what had drawn them thereso they clambered up the staircase and onto the floorboards of an upper level that was really a viewing place, where people could come to take the air and look out over the city; for there were no windows or walls, simply a series of open arches all the way around supporting the roof. In each archway a windowsill at waist height was broad enough to lean on, and below them the

Edgar Degas dance class

Edgar Degas dance classEdgar Degas Ballet RehearsalEdgar Degas Absinthe
The study, published in Poetics, analyzed 683 prayers written in a public prayer book placed in the rotunda of the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore from 1999 to 2005.
The study found that prayer writers seek general strength, support and blessing from their prayers, rather than explicit solutions to life's difficult situations.Key to 'curing' obesity may lie in worms that destroy their own fat: McGill researchersUsual metabolic process goes awry in recently discovered mutation, burning lipids instead of storing them
A previously unknown mutation discovered in a common roundworm holds the promise of new treatments for
"If researchers studying religion and health take seriously even the possibility that prayer may influence health, they need to learn more about what people pray for, how they pray, and what they hope will result from their prayers," Cadge said in a statement.

Henri Rousseau Surprise

Henri Rousseau SurpriseHenri Rousseau Sleeping GypsyHenri Rousseau Scout Attacked by a Tiger
Will tried to do it. But his head was buzzing, and his left hand throbbed horribly, and he saw his two fingers again, lying on the roof, and then he thought of his mother, his poor mother… What would she say? How would she comfort him? How could he ever comfort her? And he put the knife down on the table and crouched low, hugging his wounded hand, and cried. It was all too much to bear. The sobs racked his throat and his chest and the tears before, it was politeness that had held him back and not knowledge. Lyra, in fact, was breath-taken. Her daemon had done it on his own initiative, and now he withdrew and fluttered to her shoulder as the smallest of moths. The old man was watching with interest but not incredulity. He'd seen daemons before, somehow; he'd traveled to other worlds too.dazzled him, and he should be crying for her, the poor frightened unhappy dear beloved—he'd left her, he'd left her…He was desolate. But then he felt the strangest thing, and brushed the back of his right wrist across his eyes to find Pantalaimon's head on his knee. The daemon, in the form of a wolfhound, was gazing up at him with melting, sorrowing eyes, and then he gently licked Will's wounded hand again and again, and laid his head on Will's knee once more.Will had no idea of the taboo in Lyra's world preventing one person from touching another's daemon, and if he hadn't touched Pantalaimon

Leroy Neiman French Connection

Leroy Neiman French ConnectionLeroy Neiman Washington Square ParkLeroy Neiman The Brooklyn Bridge
Malone was fully awake now. Lyra picked up the alethiometer and folded its velvet cloth over it, like a mother protecting her child, before putting it back in her rucksack.
"So anyway," she said, "you could make this screen so it could talk to you in words, if you wanted. Then you could talk to the and such. And it said you got to, remember. You can't refuse. When are they going to close this place downShadows like I talk to the alethiometer. But what I want to know is, why do the people in my world hate it? Dust, I mean, Shadows. Dark matter. They want to destroy it. They think it's evil. But I think what they do is evil. I seen them do it. So what is it, Shadows? Is it good or evil, or what?"Dr. Malone rubbed her face and turned her cheeks red again. "Everything about this is embarrassing" she said. "D'you know how embarrassing it is to mention good and evil in a scientific laboratory? Have you any idea? One of the reasons I became a scientist was not to have to think about that kind of thing.""You got to think about it," said Lyra severely. "You can't investigate Shadows, Dust, whatever it is, without thinking about that kind of thing, good and evil

Rene Magritte The Dangerous Liaison

Rene Magritte The Dangerous LiaisonRene Magritte HomesicknessRene Magritte High Society
Scoresby, the Texan aeronaut, but Serafina herself was tossed high into the banks of fog that soon came rolling in from the gap that Lord Asriel's experiment had torn in the sky.
When she found , flying through the cloudy gold-tinged air on her branch of cloud-pine, accompanied by her daemon, Kaisa the snow goose. They moved back toward Svalbard and south a little, soaring for several hours under a sky turbulent with strange lights and shadows. Serafina Pekkala knew from the unsettling tingle of the light on her skin that it came from another world.
After some time had passed, Kaisa said, "Look! A witch's daemon, lost…"
Serafina Pekkala looked through the fog banks and saw herself able to control her flight once more, her first thought was of Lyra; for she knew nothing of the fight between the false bear-king and the true one, Iorek Byrnison, nor of what had happened to Lyra after that.So she began to search for her

Vincent van Gogh Still Life with Open Bible

Vincent van Gogh Still Life with Open BibleVincent van Gogh Still Life with IrisVincent van Gogh Harvest Landscape
Sept: 14 babies reported ill in Gansu province
15 Sept: Beijing confirms first deaths from the contamination
22 Sept: firm involved, Sanlu, is declared bankrupt
31 Dec: Four senior Sanlu executives go on trial
2 Jan:Firms involved ask for forgiveness in a mass New Year text message
22 Jan: A court in China begins handing down sentences
Two men have been given the death penalty for their involvement in China's contaminated milk scandal.
The former boss of the Sanlu dairy at the centre of the scandal was given.
They were among several sentences handed down Toll of ill babies rises to tens of thousands - and eventually will rise to almost 300,00023 Sept: Other countries start to test Chinese dairy products or remove them from shops31 Oct: Chinese media suggest melamine is routinely added to animal feed24 Dec: The main dairy

John William Waterhouse Hylas and the Nymphs

John William Waterhouse Hylas and the NymphsJohn William Waterhouse Waterhouse OpheliaLeonardo da Vinci Portrait of Ginevra Benci
there'll be something to tell the harpies about as well. We've got to tell people that, Lyra."
"The true stories, yes," she said, "the true stories the harpies want to hear in exchange. Yes. So if people live their whole lives and they've got nothing to tell about it when they've finished, then they'll never leave the world of alone."
And at the word alone, Will felt a great wave of rage and despair moving outward from a place deep within him, as if his mind were an ocean that some profound convulsion had disturbed. All his life he'd been alone, and now he must be alone again, and this infinitely precious blessing that had come to him must be taken away almost at once. He felt the wave build higher and steeper to darken the sky, he felt the crest tremble and begin to the dead. We've got to tell them that, Will.""Alone, though...""Yes," she said, "