Tina Modotti
Even though Tina Modotti is considered a Mexican photographer because her artistic career was mostly based in Mexico and the American Southwest, she was born in Undine, Italy in 1896. She moved to California in 1913 and was employed in various labor-intensive factory jobs. She was first known mainly because of her relationship with photographer Edward Weston, for whom she was a model in the 1920s; but her abstract, portrait, and still-life photographs “showed her to be an accomplished photographer in her own right” (encyclopedia).
In the 1920s, Modotti was active with Mexican revolutionaries, joining the Mexican Communist Party, and having close connections with the Mexican Artists’ Union. When her lover, Cuban revolutionary Julio Antonio Mella, was found murdered in 1928, she was accused but acquitted of complicity in his murder (encyclopedia). Modotti was eventually deported to Berlin because of her revolutionary ties when there was an assassination attempt on the Mexican president Pascal Ortiz Rubio. From Berlin, she moved to Moscow in 1931 and abandoned photography temporarily in favor of revolutionary causes there. She also lived in France and Spain before returning to Mexico clandestinely in 1939. When back in Mexico, she continued photography and political work until her death of a heart attack in 1942 (encyclopedia).
Most of her surviving famous photographs were from her period in Mexico between 1923 and 1926. The photograph entitled “Staircase, 1925” is a good example of an abstract architectural image. Composition features in this work include the use of repetition of a line pattern, and perspective. “It is a picture of space becoming a pattern – a construction of lines and triangles stretched very tightly towards two dimensions – in which depth is both precisely described and subtly denied” (Szarkowski). It bears a resemblance to the drawings of M.C. Escher, where the eye is tricked into seeing an impossibly three-dimensional object. Here, an obviously three-dimensional subject is shortened to appear flat, due to the lack of contrast between near and far distances.
The photograph “Flor de Manita, 1925” shows great equity between figure and ground shapes. It is a plant that has large sweeping curves, but because of the darkness of the subject and the lightness of the background, if viewed from a distance, the nature of the subject is obscured and one sees only white and black shapes that harmoniously coexist with one another.
I found the photography piece “From the Road to Tepeyac,” by Alinka Echeverria intriguing. This photography piece was a man kneeling down with a sculpture tied to his back. The woman in the statue had a green flag with multiple stars draped around her. This woman appeared to be the Virgin Mary. Underneath the Virgin Mary was an angel with green, white and red wings. The colors on the flag around the Virgin Mary and the angel’s wings represent Mexico. Also, the stars on the flag present the repetition constructed in this photography piece. There is no physical line for the foreground; however, this piece directs the eye from one point to another by implication. When I first saw this photography piece, I questioned why the statue of the Virgin Mary and an angel were on the man’s back. I realized the Virgin Mary and ...
Byman’s first argument is that US drone strikes are extremely efficient in their purpose: eliminating high value targets in foreign countries that pose a threat to national security. He cities a study done by the New America Foundation, which found that “U.S. drones have killed an estimated 3,300 al Qaeda, Taliban, and other jihadist operatives in Pakistan and Yemen” (Byman 1). Of these 3,300 militants, over 50 were senior leaders of either Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Additionally, drone strikes indirectly hinder communication between terrorist leaders and their operatives. In an effort to avoid detection, many foreign militants have stopped using cell phones and other electronic forms of communication. Although the elimination of technology makes it harder to find high value targets, it also significantly impacts their ability to communicate, which reduces the amount of organized attacks. Without considering the cost of civilian casualties or other negative impacts associated with the drone strikes, it is clear that UAV drones have been effective in eliminating foreign threats.
This places the reader in recognisable landscape which is brought to life and to some extent made clearer to us by the use of powerful, though by no means overly literary adjectives. Machado is concerned with presenting a picture of the Spanish landscape which is both recognisable and powerful in evoking the simple joys which it represents. Furthermore, Machado relies on what Arthur Terry describes as an `interplay between reality and meditation' in his description of landscape. The existence of reality in the text is created by the use of geographical terms and the use of real names and places such as SOrai and the Duero, while the meditation is found in...
The idea of a lasting, ideally global, peace has been present in the minds of people for centuries. The most notable formulation of this is Kant’s vision of perpetual peace. “He saw it as a condition that needed to be maintained by politics between states with governments which represented society and separation of power. From this basic framework stems the idea called “democratic peace theory” (pg. 82). Democratic Peace Theory (DPT) asserts that democracies do not generally fight other democracies because they share common norms and domestic institutions that constrain international, state actors from going to war. Sebastian Rosato states, “In practical terms democratic peace theory provides the intellectual justification for the belief that spreading democracy abroad will perform the dual task of enhancing American national security promoting world peace” (pg. 585).
There is, however, a slight opposition to this intense realism. It can be seen in Wood’s representation of foliage. The trees that appear in the upper left corner look like large green lollipops peeking over the roof of the house. The viewer knows that trees do not naturally look like that. Wood has depicted them as stylized and modern, similar to the trees seen is Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the island of La Grand Jatte. After viewing other works by Wood, it is clear that he has adopted this representation for the trees in many of his paintings.
...s means the drone is capable of attacking anything and anywhere at any time. The drone is able to patrol areas in Afghanistan and when a threat is identified it can either send in a combat drone or if the combat drone is already on patrol it is able to eliminate the target. The drone is equipped with hellfire missiles that is an air to surface missile that can decimate any land target. (E-IR) Examples of the Strategic Stealth Tactical Striking is in February 7th, 2002, when the CIA used a Predator drone to attack a convoy of SUV’s full of al Qaeda terrorists. Another Example is November 3, 2002, The CIA used a predator Drone to fire a hellfire missile into a car killing an al Qaeda leader. Both these attacks aren’t capable of being carried out without risking many lives but thanks to the drone we are able to carry out such task without the potential of an injury.
Discoveries relating to the human lineage are extremely exciting and often baffling. This is the case with the recent discovery of what seems to be the oldest member of the human family. A skull found in northern Chad in 2001, has been deemed the earliest relative to the human ever found. Nicknamed Toumai, and discovered by Michel Brunet and his paleontology team, this new category of human has been given the scientific name, Sahelanthropus tchaensis. What makes this skull so definitive is the fact that it dates back approximately 6-7 million years in the earth’s history (Whitfield 2002). Since the discovery there have been anthropologists and paleontologists that have disputed the hominid status of Toumai (Evans 2002), but many, especially those involved in the finding of the skull still believe that they have the oldest relative to the human race we know today.
Williams, Bruce. "The Reflection of a Blind Gaze: Maria Luisa Bemberg, Filmmaker." A Woman's Gaze: Latin American Women Artists. Ed. Marjorie Agosin. New York; White Pine Press, 1998. 171-90.
The Renaissance produced a wealth of great skill and craftsmanship. Describe in detail the work of one of its great artists or architects.
The theory of democratic peace is a classical idea that has been cited repeatedly by scholars. While Kant was not a darling of democracy, he wrote about perpetual peace, which he describes would only happen if states achieve a form of civil constitution. To him, perpetual peace exists when a regime honors property owned by citizens and when citizens live equally being the subjects based on a representative government that is built on the premise of separation of powers. The theory of democratic peace is therefore built on the proposition that some negative elements of government can be disabled to make a nation thrive in an international arena. This majorly entails elements of war. This idea is strengthened by the fact that relations between states in an international setting are not provoked by benefits of one nation being a burden to another. Instead, these relations are based on a mutual benefit and togetherness. If that proposition is anything to go by, it loses it meaning when states behave contrary to what they suggest on an international platform. The internal structures of a state are paramount to such an atmosphere and when they lead a different style of relationship with other states, the theory of perpetual peace fails to hold any water. The behavior of states can only be explained...
This book is a note written by Roland Barthes to record the dialectical way he thought about the eidos(form, essence, type, species) of Photographs. Roland Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, linguist in his lifetime, but surprisingly he was not a photographer. As Barthes had a belief that art works consists with signs and structures, he had investigated semiotics and structuralism. However, through Camera Lucida, he realized the limitation of structuralism and the impression to analyze Photography with only semiotics and structuralism. Barthes concludes with talking about unclassifiable aspects of Photography. I could sense the direction Barthes wanted to go through the first chapter ‘Specialty of the Photograph’. He tried to define something by phenomenology
Light plays a very important role in this painting both in what it illuminates, and in what it does not. Light enters through a hole in the dense canopy of the forest highlighting mainly the woman and the tree from which she swings. Also illuminated, but less than the woman, is the man in the bushes and the cupid on the left. Although the man on the bench pulling the swing is cast in shadow, he is brought to our attention by the illuminated tree that is directly next to him. This play on light is highly symbolic of the relationships at wo...
The background of the painting is composed an arrangement of alluring shape, movement, contrast, lines, scale and texture. The variety of direction in the brush strokes of color is present and it contributes the flowing movement of the piece. Each line in the painting is thick and bold, which dramatizes its rough and uneven texture. There is a contrast of geometric shapes surrounding the background of the woman. The piece of art was crafted on a 21 ¼ x 11 inch scale making it an intimate viewing experience. The composition of the work adds to the feeling of the artwork by pleasing the visual senses of the viewer.
One of the most appealing sides of democratic peace theory is its simplicity. This is favored both by the public and the academic, because it gives a clear explanation of the statement that democracies don’t fight each other. In the world of politics and international relations having a clear cut idea is valuable and that is why this theory gains a large number of popularity in this field. This may be considered as the first strength of democratic ...
Some authors and theorists have strived to explain the democratic peace by drawing attention to the role of public opinion. They witness that democratic leaders are beholden to voters, and claim that voters reject war because of its human and financial costs. This altercation, which dates to Immanuel Kant, predicts that democracies will react peacefully in general—avoiding war not only against democracies, but also against autocracies. Hist...