New sources of life: William Butler Yeats’s “The Gyres”, “Lapis Lazuli” and “Imitated From the Japanese”

The Irish poet William Butler Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923 by the Royal Swedish Academy “for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation”1. The article focuses specifically on three poems from Yeats’s “modernist” period which he included in the cycle New Poems (1938): “The Gyres”, “Lapis Lazuli” and “Imitated from the Japanese”. These later writings emerge as a logical consequence of his previous engagement with philosophy and occultism, mythology and history, art and reality. Yeats’s strenuous efforts to forge mythopoeic stereotypes seem to transcend mere personal versions of myth in an attempt to discover deeper levels of meaning, and to complete the self-image he developed throughout his life. In his later works he managed to make meaningful pronouncements on key moral and philosophical issues relating to the human condition.

Technical Study of the Paint Layers from Buddhist Sculptures Unearthed from the Longxing Temple Site in Qingzhou, China

In 1996, more than four hundred Buddhist statues were excavated from the Hoard of Longxing Temple site in Qingzhou, Shandong Province, China. They are of great significance in the study of Buddhism history during the Northern and Southern Dynasties of China, and have attracted widespread attention since they were unearthed. In this paper, the paint layers from 14 of the Buddhist statues unearthed from the Longxing Temple site were analyzed using portable 3D microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy was used to determine the materials used in their production. Several microscopic samples were analyzed in the laboratory using scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive spectrometer, X-ray diffraction and micro-Raman spectroscopy. The combined results from the field and laboratory analyses materials used in painting layers of these statues were identified, and the technique for the production of the sculptures was studied. After the stone sculpture of Buddha was finished, a priming layer of lead white was applied over the stone body as a ground, over which pigments were applied. These include mineral pigments (cinnabar, malachite, lapis lazuli and cerussite), Chinese ink (carbon black) and gold leaf. Cinnabar was used for the outer garments, the halos and ornaments of Buddha and Bodhisattva statues; malachite, was found primarily on the Monk’s clothing; the blue pigment, lapis lazuli, was mainly used for the Buddha’s bun, halo and outer garment edges; carbon black ink was employed for drafting and sketching clothing and decorative patterns.

O azul na história da moda

Pesquisas indicam que o azul é a cor preferida de mais da metade da população ocidental. Porém, existem poucas pesquisas acerca dessa cor na indumentária dos países do ocidente. Nesse sentido, esse artigo tem como objetivo investigar o uso da cor azul na indumentária dos diferentes períodos históricos com foco nas sociedades ocidentais. Começa-se pela Antiguidade, com o lápis-lazúli, azul egípcio e índigo. Já na Idade Média, essa coloração adquiriu um significado religioso, fazendo-se presente em imagens do manto da Virgem Maria e em membros da nobreza de diversas nações. Porém, na Idade Moderna o azul ganhou diversos significados e tonalidades, passando pelos principais períodos: Renascimento, Barroco e Rococó. Já na Idade Contemporânea, com a invenção e popularização dos corantes sintéticos, essa cor pôde ser aplicada de formas completamente novas. Esse artigo também estuda os dogmas que associam o azul aos meninos, e a origem dessas ideias no período da Segunda Guerra Mundial. Essa análise do azul exige o emprego de fontes visuais que somente podem ser visualizadas no meio digital, (fato que implica em incertezas sobre o tom demonstrado na imagem, pois cada aparelho tecnológico utilizado pode exibir diferentes variantes do pigmento). Mas mesmo assim o estudo constrói um conhecimento singular e específico, que, ao trazer um novo foco de pesquisa, contribui de forma positiva para uma nova compreensão da história.

Sedimentary Aesthetics

Around 1530 artists began painting on stone. Early on artists mostly used slate, though toward the end of the sixteenth century they began painting on various kinds of semi-precious stones like lapis lazuli. Such pictures were appreciated for how the pure lithic material was augmented by the painter. In the seventeenth century, artists (especially in Florence) began painting on a particular kind of sedimentary stone known as pietra d’Arno that subverts this aesthetic. Unlike semi-precious stones whose material splendor and purity lends itself to aesthetic appreciation, this stone is unrelentingly base: pietra d’Arno is essentially solidified mud. This essay investigates how artists used this sedimentary substrate to support ethical investigations of humankind’s position as fallen beings in the created world.

Ancient tax tokens, trade licenses and metrological records?: Making sense of Indus inscribed objects through script-internal, contextual, linguistic, and ethnohistorical lenses.

This article argues that most of the inscribed objects (seals, miniature-tablets etc.) of ancient Indus valley civilization were essentially administrative-commercial tools (tax-tokens, trade-licences, metrological records, etc.) used for controlling the complex trading economy spread across the Indus settlements. It also argues that the inscriptions logographically encoded a commercial sublanguage to convey information about kinds of taxes/tithes, tax-receiving entities; tax-rates and modes; and activities (such as cultivation, manufacture, and trading of specific commodities) that these taxes covered and authorized. Building on the functional classification of Indus logograms performed in the author's previous structural analysis of Indus inscriptions and analysing various script-internal, archaeological, historical and linguistic evidence, this article seeks to interpret the semantic functionalities of different sign-classes. It proposes that: i) The numerical and metrological signs were used to represent certain tax-collection rates fixed for certain commodities, whereas the lexeme-signs following them ( ) represented those taxed commodities. ii) The Crop-signs ( ) represented different harvested grain-based taxes. iii) The phrase-final/terminal logograms ( ) encoded certain metrological modes (volumetric, weight-based, reed-measure-based etc.) of tax-collection, and thus metonymically encoded certain broad tax-categories. iv) The lexeme-signs appearing in the initial parts of the grammatically complex inscriptions ( ) represented the tax-collector entities and purpose of tax-payment. v) The signs mostly occurring in pre-phrase-final positions ( ) represented the mode of tax-payments through predefined equivalencies. vi) The bird-like logograms ( ) represented different precious stones including lapis lazuli, cornelian, agate etc.; while the fish-like logograms ( ) signified different apotropaic "fish-eye-beads", which were one of the most precious exported Indus commodities, coveted in ancient Near East. Analysing the related lexical roots of such commodities— e.g. ivory ("piru"); lapis lazuli whose colour was compared to the iridescent pigeon-neck ("kāsaka hya kapautaka"); and "eye-beads" (maṇi), in Mesopotamian lexicons, Amarna letters, ancient texts in Old-Persian language, BMAC languages, Sanskrit, Pali, Tamil etc. — this study claims that such words had originated in the Indus valley, and had spread to the languages of other civilizations through trade networks. Tracing out more such ancient metrological and revenue related terminologies (droṇa, bhāra, kṛṣṇala, raktikā, śara etc.) this study finally offers decipherment of a few Indus inscriptions.

The Lapis Lazuli Beads In Sapalli Culture And Ancient Near East

Lapis lazuli is one of the most attractive semi-precious stones. Due to its peculiar blue color and its rareness, it has been used since the Neolithic Period for the manufacturing of precious objects and jewels (beads, gems, seals, small decorative artworks, etc.). Scientific analysis of jewelry which was made of the lapis lazuli can help to explore deeper cultural, economic, and political relations between the ancient oases of Central Asia and the Ancient Eastern civilizations. In this article, it is cited scientific pieces of evidence about the earliest and still existing deposits of lapis lazuli sources and the ancient lapis lazuli jewelry. On top of that, it is given scientific information about the types of the lapis lazuli beads which was found from the monuments of Sapalli culture in the part of the Ancient Eastern Civilization such as Sapallitepa, Djarkutan, Mulali, Bustan VI, and also Central Asia.

Analysis of mordants, driers, and lapis lazuli using x-ray fluorescence: comparative research using reconstructed paint samples and case studies

Changes in the formulation of pigments and paint binders and the presence of additives used in the history of painting can complicate the interpretation of analytical data and may influence the characterization of the materials used in artworks. The limitations of the common analytical tools used to identify potential paint components including metallic driers, pigments, and the inorganic substrates of lake colors may also make analysis more difficult. X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy is a common non-destructive technique used to collect inorganic elemental information from artworks. Advancements in XRF technology now permit the gathering of data from multi-layered paint systems and scanning technology can help characterize pigments across the entire surface of an artwork. These tools require an even greater understanding of the potential materials in an artwork to avoid misinterpretation of the data. The authors tested XRF’s ability to characterize lead, manganese, and cobalt driers. The presence of metallic driers could have an impact on the interpretation of the inorganic components in paint films. Lake pigment substrates often contain aluminum, tin, and calcium salts. The detection of these ions was also studied. Finally, the XRF detection of aluminum in lapis lazuli samples was assessed. These three groups of materials were also mixed with driers and/or other pigments to determine whether the presence of additional metal ions inhibited the detection of the characteristic elements. The authors used a Bruker ArtTax Micro XRF and a handheld Bruker Tracer III-SD XRF unit with and without a vacuum or helium purge for these experiments.