Well Done


Well Done

Originally shared by Susanne Ramharter

Good Morning Google+  your daily story about art:
Last night we had a truly wonderful display of the Perseis meteor showers. Because these showers usually occur around August 10th, which is the Name-day of St. Laurentius, the showers are often referred to as the "Tears of Laurentius".  St. Laurentius was treasurer for the Church of Rome in the 3rd century, under Pope Sixtus II and in the reign of the Emperor Valerian.  In 257, Valerian began a wave of persecution against Christians, including the beheading of Sixtus II.

It is still not really clear whether Valerian acted thusly from purely religious motivation - he did believe that it was important to keep up worship of the old Gods. However, financial reasons probably played a role as well. It is said that after the death of Sixtus II, Valerian ordered Laurentius to hand over the treasure of the Church of Rome. Laurentius instead distributed the treasure among the populace and then gathered the poor, sick and needy, which he presented as the 'true treasure of the Church'.

Valerian was having none of it and had Laurentius roasted alive on an iron grill on August 10 in 258. Thus the connection to fiery showers and the 'tears of Laurentius'.

The showers and the story reminded me of this image, called Representation of Strange Occurrences seen in connection with two comets in 1456 in an illuminated manuscript called the Lucerne Chronicle by Diebold Schilling.  The image is a combination of gore and (to us) humor, and, seen in our day, is rather whimsical and quaint.

Have some whimsy in your day, and tread lightly

Image from wikimedia here: https://goo.gl/Bl48Sa 

More info about the Perseis Meteor Showers here: 
http://goo.gl/BrdGQx  or here: https://goo.gl/fs55bw 
dates for future meteor showers this year are here: http://goo.gl/6U8N8f 

#art  #treadlightly  #artandclassontheplus  #EuropeanHistory  #europeanpainting #yourdailyartstory #arthistory

Comments

  1. Susanne RamharterAugust 13, 2015 at 12:44 PM

    Thanks Drew McCarthy​!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Drew McCarthyAugust 13, 2015 at 5:44 PM

    You are welcome, Susanne Ramharter!
    Your posts are always interesting and well written. And, of course, I was quoting St. Lawrence's quip whilst suffering on the gridiron...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Entremet

Entremet Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh "“Like most people in the US, I grew up knowing the words to this carol and even (shudder) singing them occasionally (singing is not a strong point of mine), but never really thought about what they meant, how the carol originated, or what birds were involved”, says Dr Rasmussen in email. So she decided to figure it out. Dr Rasmussen, who’s tied for third for the most bird discoveries in the world, is probably also the world’s foremost avian sleuth, due to her meticulous detective work a few years ago that uncovered the many ornithological thefts and records frauds in museums that were committed by eminent British ornithologist, Richard Meinertzhagen. But who would ever have thought that an old Christmas carol might also hold an avian mystery? “After all, it’s just a Christmas carol!” Dr Rasmussen points out." https://medium.com/@GrrlScientist/meet-the-real-birds-of-the-twelve-days-of-christmas-fame-grrlscientist-5a8bc09350c9
Read more

Flushbunkingly Gloriumptious

Flushbunkingly Gloriumptious Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh "Renowned children's author and occasional spy, Roald Dahl spent the last years of his life in a home located in the small English village of Great Missenden, and now his beloved village is home to an attractive museum devoted to his life and works.  [...] Today the museum holds all of Dahl's original manuscripts, as well as his "Idea Books" where he would jot down his nascent creations. In addition to celebrating his writing career, there are also displays covering his service in the RAF. However, the crown jewel of the museum is the recreation of Dahl's purpose built "Writing Hut," complete with the arm chair he had customized to write in." http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-roald-dahl-museum
Read more

Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh

Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh So Labradors tend to overeat. Now it has been traced to genetic differences. "Dr Eleanor Raffan, a veterinary surgeon and geneticist who studies how genes influence metabolism at the Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge recently published a study that examines the genetics that underlie food motivation and obesity in Labrador retrievers. [...] When Dr Raffan and her team carefully examined this POMC gene variant, they found that a small 14-basepair section a little more than halfway down the gene’s length was missing. This deletion creates a frameshift mutation that results in the production of an abnormal protein where the last half is scrambled into a blob of nonsense [...]. Normally, the POMC is translated into the POMC pro-peptide, which is cleaved at precise sites to give rise to number of smaller peptides, including the appetite suppressing neuropeptides, ß-MSH & ß-endorphin, but the abnormal POMC pro-peptide do...
Read more