Sonora Desert Arizona in Infrared Infrared black and white image Sonora desert in central Arizona USA. Image taken with a Nikon D300 and 18-105mm Nikkor lens. All my published books, available world wide, can be viewed here:
www.amazon.com/stores/Paul-Moore/author/B0075LNIO2?ref=ap...
Cake by Moore's Custom Cakes 54228331120_dba1305159_b
YSP 6 54226861222_dacdc4f908_b
H. Texas - Moore - Sunray - 2009 54227723726_e03ebeba04_b
H. Texas - Moore - Sunray - 2009 54227964969_72dd2fa6d8_b
H. Texas - Moore - Sunray - 2009 54227964979_fb21f34872_b
H. Texas - Moore - Sunray - 2009 54227964809_ee3c6f3949_b
H. Texas - Moore - Sunray - 2009 54227956493_8c4cf04c30_b
H. Texas - Moore - Sunray - 2009 54227723456_21bd4745fb_b
Simple Simon & The Piemen (1967) - People Of Time Montreal, Quebec, Canada // Louie Legasakus (bass), Kevin Moore (vocals), David Nunns (drums), Billy Oliver (rhythm guitar), Bob "Pixie" Stanley (lead guitar)
Wes Moore gets his Bronze Star wash ing ton post.c om/dc-md-va/2024/12/21/wes-moore-bronze-star/
Sir Bobby Moore & England 1966 world cup winners statue at Wembley Stadium. 54227026379_681f1884f1_b
❤️ J U M P 5 ❤️ X - M A S ❤️ Merry Christmas 🎄🎁
.
.
.
.
.
Temblores!
2007-08 O-Pee-Chee Dominic Moore 54226947115_e62cbf3585_b
Holy Russia. The fragments of Assumption Cathedral (since 1585), Assumption Well Chapel & the Canopy above the Sacred source, Trinity Lavra of Saint Sergius, Sergiyev Posad city, Moscow region (Oblast). Православнаѧ Црковь.traveladventureeverywhere.blogspot.com/2018/05/sergiyev-p...
..
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
ALBANIA
Albanian Trilogy: A Series of Devious Stratagems
Armando Lulaj
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture. Curator: Marco Scotini. Deputy Curator: Andris Brinkmanis. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale
ANDORRA
Inner Landscapes
Roqué, Joan Xandri
Commissioner: Henry Périer. Deputy Commissioner: Joana Baygual, Sebastià Petit, Francesc Rodríguez
Curator: Paolo de Grandis, Josep M. Ubach. Venue: Spiazzi, Castello 3865
ANGOLA
On Ways of Travelling
António Ole, Binelde Hyrcan, Délio Jasse, Francisco Vidal, Nelo Teixeira
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture, Rita Guedes Tavares. Curator: António Ole. Deputy Curator: Antonia Gaeta. Venue: Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello - Palazzo Pisani, San Marco 2810
ARGENTINA
The Uprising of Form
Juan Carlos Diste´fano
Commissioner: Magdalena Faillace. Curator: Mari´a Teresa Constantin. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d’Armi
ARMENIA, Republic of
Armenity / Haiyutioun
Haig Aivazian, Lebanon; Nigol Bezjian, Syria/USA; Anna Boghiguian Egypt/Canada; Hera Büyüktasçiyan, Turkey; Silvina Der-Meguerditchian, Argentina/Germany; Rene Gabri & Ayreen Anastas, Iran/Palestine/USA; Mekhitar Garabedian, Belgium; Aikaterini Gegisian, Greece; Yervant Gianikian & Angela Ricci Lucchi, Italy; Aram Jibilian, USA; Nina Katchadourian, USA/Finland; Melik Ohanian, France; Mikayel Ohanjanyan, Armenia/Italy; Rosana Palazyan, Brazil; Sarkis, Turkey/France; Hrair Sarkissian, Syria/UK
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia. Deputy Commissioner: Art for the World, Mekhitarist Congregation of San Lazzaro Island, Embassy of the Republic of Armenia in Italy, Vartan Karapetian. Curator: Adelina Cüberyan von Fürstenberg. Venue: Monastery and Island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni
AUSTRALIA
Fiona Hall: Wrong Way Time
Fiona Hall
Commissioner: Simon Mordant AM. Deputy Commissioner: Charles Green. Curator: Linda Michael. Scientific Committee: Simon Mordant AM, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Max Delany, Rachel Kent, Danie Mellor, Suhanya Raffel, Leigh Robb. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
AUSTRIA
Heimo Zobernig
Commissioner: Yilmaz Dziewior. Curator: Yilmaz Dziewior. Scientific Committee: Friends of the Venice Biennale. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
AZERBAIJAN, Republic of
Beyond the Line
Ashraf Murad, Javad Mirjavadov, Tofik Javadov, Rasim Babayev, Fazil Najafov, Huseyn Hagverdi, Shamil Najafzada
Commissioner: Heydar Aliyev Foundation. Curators: de Pury de Pury, Emin Mammadov. Venue: Palazzo Lezze, Campo S.Stefano, San Marco 2949
Vita Vitale
Edward Burtynsky, Mircea Cantor, Loris Cecchini, Gordon Cheung, Khalil Chishtee, Tony Cragg, Laura Ford, Noemie Goudal, Siobhán Hapaska, Paul Huxley, IDEA laboratory and Leyla Aliyeva, Chris Jordan with Rebecca Clark and Helena S.Eitel, Tania Kovats, Aida Mahmudova, Sayyora Muin, Jacco Olivier, Julian Opie, Julian Perry, Mike Perry, Bas Princen, Stephanie Quayle, Ugo Rondinone, Graham Stevens, Diana Thater, Andy Warhol, Bill Woodrow, Erwin Wurm, Rose Wylie
Commissioner: Heydar Aliyev Foundation. Curators: Artwise: Susie Allen, Laura Culpan, Dea Vanagan. Venue: Ca’ Garzoni, San Marco 3416
BELARUS, Republic of
War Witness Archive
Konstantin Selikhanov
Commissioner: Natallia Sharanhovich. Deputy Commissioners: Alena Vasileuskaya, Kamilia Yanushkevich. Curators: Aleksei Shinkarenko, Olga Rybchinskaya. Scientific Committee: Dmitry Korol, Daria Amelkovich, Julia Kondratyuk, Sergei Jeihala, Sheena Macfarlane, Yuliya Heisik, Hanna Samarskaya, Taras Kaliahin, Aliaksandr Stasevich. Venue: Riva San Biagio, Castello 2145
BELGIUM
Personnes et les autres
Vincent Meessen and Guests, Mathieu K. Abonnenc, Sammy Baloji, James Beckett, Elisabetta Benassi, Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin, Tamar Guimara~es & Kasper Akhøj, Maryam Jafri, Adam Pendleton
Commissioner: Wallonia-Brussels Federation and Wallonia-Brussels International. Curator: Katerina Gregos. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
COSTA RICA
"Costa Rica, Paese di pace, invita a un linguaggio universale d'intesa tra i popoli".
Andrea Prandi, Beatrice Gallori, Beth Parin, Biagio Schembari, Carla Castaldo, Celestina Avanzini, Cesare Berlingeri, Erminio Tansini, Fabio Capitanio, Fausto Beretti, Giovan Battista Pedrazzini, Giovanni Lamberti, Giovanni Tenga, Iana Zanoskar, Jim Prescott, Leonardo Beccegato, Liliana Scocco, Lucia Bolzano, Marcela Vicuna, Marco Bellagamba, Marco Lodola, Maria Gioia dell’Aglio, Mario Bernardinello, Massimo Meucci, Nacha Piattini, Omar Ronda, Renzo Eusebi, Tita Patti, Romina Power, Rubens Fogacci, Silvio di Pietro, Stefano Sichel, Tino Stefanoni, Ufemia Ritz, Ugo Borlenghi, Umberto Mariani, Venere Chillemi, Jacqueline Gallicot Madar, Massimo Onnis, Fedora Spinelli
Commissioner: Ileana Ordonez Chacon. Curator: Gregorio Rossi. Venue: Palazzo Bollani
CROATIA
Studies on Shivering: The Third Degree
Damir Ocko
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture. Curator: Marc Bembekoff. Venue: Palazzo Pisani, S. Marina
CUBA
El artista entre la individualidad y el contexto
Lida Abdul, Celia-Yunior, Grethell Rasúa, Giuseppe Stampone, LinYilin, Luis Edgardo Gómez Armenteros, Olga Chernysheva, Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo
Commissioner: Miria Vicini. Curators: Jorge Fernández Torres, Giacomo Zaza. Venue: San Servolo Island
CYPRUS, Republic of
Two Days After Forever
Christodoulos Panayiotou
Commissioner: Louli Michaelidou. Deputy Commissioner: Angela Skordi. Curator: Omar Kholeif. Deputy Curator: Daniella Rose King. Venue: Palazzo Malipiero, Sestiere San Marco 3079
CZECH Republic and SLOVAK Republic
Apotheosis
Jirí David
Commissioner: Adam Budak. Deputy Commissioner: Barbara Holomkova. Curator: Katarina Rusnakova. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
ECUADOR
Gold Water: Apocalyptic Black Mirrors
Maria Veronica Leon Veintemilla in collaboration with Lucia Vallarino Peet
Commissioner: Andrea Gonzàlez Sanchez. Deputy Commissioner: PDG Arte Communications. Curator: Ileana Cornea. Deputy Curator: Maria Veronica Leon Veintemilla. Venue: Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà, Castello 3701
ESTONIA
NSFW. From the Abyss of History
Jaanus Samma
Commissioner: Maria Arusoo. Curator: Eugenio Viola. Venue: Palazzo Malipiero, campo San Samuele, San Marco 3199
EGYPT
CAN YOU SEE
Ahmed Abdel Fatah, Gamal Elkheshen, Maher Dawoud
Commissioner: Hany Al Ashkar. Curator: Ministry of Culture. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
FINLAND (Pavilion Alvar Aalto)
Hours, Years, Aeons
IC-98
Commissioner: Frame Visual Art Finland, Raija Koli. Curator: Taru Elfving. Deputy Curator: Anna Virtanen. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
FRANCE
revolutions
Céleste Boursier-Mougenot
Commissioner: Institut français, with Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication. Curator: Emma Lavigne. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
GEORGIA
Crawling Border
Rusudan Gobejishvili Khizanishvili, Irakli Bluishvili, Dimitri Chikvaidze, Joseph Sabia
Commissioner: Ana Riaboshenko. Curator: Nia Mgaloblishvili. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d’Armi
GERMANY
Fabrik
Jasmina Metwaly / Philip Rizk, Olaf Nicolai, Hito Steyerl, Tobias Zielony
Commissioner: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) on behalf of the Federal Foreign Office. Deputy Commissioner: Elke aus dem Moore, Nina Hülsmeier. Curator: Florian Ebner. Deputy Curator: Tanja Milewsky, Ilina Koralova. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
GREAT BRITAIN
Sarah Lucas
Commissioner: Emma Dexter. Curator: Richard Riley. Deputy Curator: Katrina Schwarz. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
GRENADA *
Present Nearness
Oliver Benoit, Maria McClafferty, Asher Mains, Francesco Bosso and Carmine Ciccarini, Guiseppe Linardi
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture. Deputy Commissioner: Susan Mains. Curator: Susan Mains. Deputy Curator: Francesco Elisei. Venue: Opera don Orione Artigianelli, Sala Tiziano, Fondamenta delle Zattere ai Gesuati, Dorsoduro 919
GREECE
Why Look at Animals? AGRIMIKÁ.
Maria Papadimitriou
Commissioner: Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs. Curator: Gabi Scardi. Deputy Curator: Alexios Papazacharias. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
BRAZIL
So much that it doesn't fit here
Antonio Manuel, André Komatsu, Berna Reale
Commissioner: Luis Terepins. Curator: Luiz Camillo Osorio. Deputy Curator: Cauê Alves. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
CANADA
Canadassimo
BGL
Commissioner: National Gallery of Canada, Marc Mayer. Deputy Commissioner: National Gallery of Canada, Yves Théoret. Curator: Marie Fraser. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
CHILE
Poéticas de la disidencia | Poetics of dissent: Paz Errázuriz - Lotty Rosenfeld
Paz Errázuriz, Lotty Rosenfeld
Commissioner: Antonio Arèvalo. Deputy Commissioner: Juan Pablo Vergara Undurraga. Curator: Nelly Richard. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale - Artiglierie
CHINA, People’s Republic of
Other Future
LIU Jiakun, LU Yang, TAN Dun, WEN Hui/Living Dance Studio, WU Wenguang/Caochangdi Work Station
Commissioner: China Arts and Entertainment Group, CAEG. Deputy Commissioners: Zhang Yu, Yan Dong. Curator: Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation. Scientific Committee: Fan Di’an, Zhang Zikang, Zhu Di, Gao Shiming, Zhu Qingsheng, Pu Tong, Shang Hui. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Giardino delle Vergini
GUATEMALA
Sweet Death
Emma Anticoli Borza, Sabrina Bertolelli, Mariadolores Castellanos, Max Leiva, Pier Domenico Magri, Adriana Montalto, Elmar Rojas (Elmar René Rojas Azurdia), Paolo Schmidlin, Mónica Serra, Elsie Wunderlich, Collettivo La Grande Bouffe
Commissioner: Daniele Radini Tedeschi. Curators: Stefania Pieralice, Carlo Marraffa, Elsie Wunderlich. Deputy Curators: Luciano Carini, Simone Pieralice. Venue: Officina delle Zattere, Dorsoduro 947, Fondamenta Nani
HOLY SEE
Commissioner: Em.mo Card. Gianfranco Ravasi, Presidente del Pontificio Consiglio della Cultura. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d’Armi
HUNGARY
Sustainable Identities
Szilárd Cseke
Commissioner: Monika Balatoni. Deputy Commissioner: István Puskás, Sándor Fodor, Anna Karády. Curator: Kinga German. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
ICELAND
Christoph Büchel
Commissioner: Björg Stefánsdóttir. Curator: Nína Magnúsdóttir. Venue: to be confirmed
INDONESIA, Republic of
Komodo Voyage
Heri Dono
Commissioner: Sapta Nirwandar. Deputy Commissioner: Soedarmadji JH Damais. Curator: Carla Bianpoen, Restu Imansari Kusumaningrum. Scientific Committee: Franco Laera, Asmudjo Jono Irianto, Watie Moerany, Elisabetta di Mambro. Venue: Venue: Arsenale
IRAN
Iranian Highlights
Samira Alikhanzaradeh, Mahmoud Bakhshi Moakhar, Jamshid Bayrami, Mohammed Ehsai
The Great Game
Lida Abdul, Bani Abidi, Adel Abidin, Amin Agheai, Ghodratollah Agheli, Shahriar Ahmadi, Parastou Ahovan, Farhad Ahrarnia, Rashad Alakbarov, Nazgol Ansarinia, Reza Aramesh, Alireza Astaneh, Sonia Balassanian, Mahmoud Bakhshi, Moakhar Wafaa Bilal, Mehdi Farhadian, Monir Farmanfarmaian, Shadi Ghadirian, Babak Golkar, Shilpa Gupta, Ghasem Hajizadeh, Shamsia Hassani, Sahand Hesamiyan, Sitara Ibrahimova, Pouran Jinchi, Amar Kanwar, Babak Kazemi, Ryas Komu, Ahmad Morshedloo, Farhad Moshiri, Mehrdad Mohebali, Huma Mulji, Azad Nanakeli, Jamal Penjweny, Imran Qureshi, Sara Rahbar, Rashid Rana, T.V. Santhosh, Walid Siti, Mohsen Taasha Wahidi, Mitra Tabrizian, Parviz Tanavoli, Newsha Tavakolian, Sadegh Tirafkan, Hema Upadhyay, Saira Wasim
Commissioner: Majid Mollanooruzi. Deputy Commissioners: Marco Meneguzzo, Mazdak Faiznia. Curators: Marco Meneguzzo, Mazdak Faiznia. Venue: Calle San Giovanni 1074/B, Cannaregio
IRAQ
Commissioner: Ruya Foundation for Contemporary Culture in Iraq (RUYA). Deputy Commissioner: Nuova Icona - Associazione Culturale per le Arti. Curator: Philippe Van Cauteren. Venue: Ca' Dandolo, San Polo 2879
IRELAND
Adventure: Capital
Sean Lynch
Commissioner: Mike Fitzpatrick. Curator: Woodrow Kernohan. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale - Artiglierie
ISRAEL
Tsibi Geva | Archeology of the Present
Tsibi Geva
Commissioner: Arad Turgem, Michael Gov. Curator: Hadas Maor. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
ITALY
Ministero dei Beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo - Direzione Generale Arte e Architettura Contemporanee e Periferie Urbane. Commissioner: Federica Galloni. Curator: Vincenzo Trione. Venue: Padiglione Italia, Tese delle Vergini at Arsenale
JAPAN
The Key in the Hand
Chiharu Shiota
Commissioner: The Japan Foundation. Deputy Commissioner: Yukihiro Ohira, Manako Kawata and Haruka Nakajima. Curator: Hitoshi Nakano. Venue : Pavilion at Giardini
KENYA
Creating Identities
Yvonne Apiyo Braendle-Amolo, Qin Feng, Shi Jinsong, Armando Tanzini, Li Zhanyang, Lan Zheng Hui, Li Gang, Double Fly Art Center
Commissioner: Paola Poponi. Curator: Sandro Orlandi Stagl. Deputy Curator: Ding Xuefeng. Venue: San Servolo Island
KOREA, Republic of
The Ways of Folding Space & Flying
MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho
Commissioner: Sook-Kyung Lee. Curator: Sook-Kyung Lee. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
KOSOVO, Republic of
Speculating on the blue
Flaka Haliti
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports. Curator: Nicolaus Schafhausen. Deputy Curator: Katharina Schendl. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale - Artiglierie
LATVIA
Armpit
Katrina Neiburga, Andris Eglitis
Commissioner: Solvita Krese (Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art). Deputy Commissioner: Kitija Vasiljeva. Curator: Kaspars Vanags. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale
LITHUANIA
Museum
Dainius Liškevicius
Commissioner: Vytautas Michelkevicius. Deputy Commissioner: Rasa Antanaviciute. Curator: Vytautas Michelkevicius. Venue: Palazzo Zenobio, Fondamenta del Soccorso 2569, Dorsoduro
LUXEMBOURG, Grand Duchy of
Paradiso Lussemburgo
Filip Markiewicz
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture. Deputy Commissioner: MUDAM Luxembourg. Curator: Paul Ardenne. Venue: Cà Del Duca, Corte del Duca Sforza, San Marco 3052
MACEDONIA, Former Yugoslavian Republic of
We are all in this alone
Hristina Ivanoska and Yane Calovski
Commissioner: Maja Nedelkoska Brzanova, National Gallery of Macedonia. Deputy Commissioner: Olivija Stoilkova. Curator: Basak Senova. Deputy Curator: Maja Cankulovska Mihajlovska. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale - Sale d’Armi
MAURITIUS *
From One Citizen You Gather an Idea
Sultana Haukim, Nirmal Hurry, Alix Le Juge, Olga Jürgenson, Helge Leiberg, Krishna Luchoomun, Neermala Luckeenarain, Kavinash Thomoo, Bik Van Der Pol, Laure Prouvost, Vitaly Pushnitsky, Römer + Römer
Commissioner: pARTage. Curators: Alfredo Cramerotti, Olga Jürgenson. Venue: Palazzo Flangini - Canareggio 252
MEXICO
Possesing Nature
Tania Candiani, Luis Felipe Ortega
Commissioner: Tomaso Radaelli. Deputy Commissioner: Magdalena Zavala Bonachea. Curator: Karla Jasso. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d’Armi
MONGOLIA *
Other Home
Enkhbold Togmidshiirev, Unen Enkh
Commissioner: Gantuya Badamgarav, MCASA. Curator: Uranchimeg Tsultemin. Scientific Committee: David A Ross, Boldbaatar Chultemin. Venue: European Cultural Centre - Palazzo Mora
MONTENEGRO
,,Ti ricordi Sjecaš li se You Remember "
Aleksandar Duravcevic
Commissioner/Curator: Anastazija Miranovic. Deputy Commissioner: Danica Bogojevic. Venue: Palazzo Malipiero (piano terra), San Marco 3078-3079/A, Ramo Malipiero
MOZAMBIQUE, Republic of *
Theme: Coexistence of Tradition and Modernity in Contemporary Mozambique
Mozambique Artists
Commissioner: Joel Matias Libombo. Deputy Commissioner: Gilberto Paulino Cossa. Curator: Comissariado-Geral para a Expo Milano 2015. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale
NETHERLANDS, The
herman de vries - to be all ways to be
herman de vries
Commissioner: Mondriaan Fund. Curators: Colin Huizing, Cees de Boer. Venue: Pavilion ar Giardini
NEW ZEALAND
Secret Power
Simon Denny
Commissioner: Heather Galbraith. Curator: Robert Leonard. Venue: Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Marco Polo Airport
NORDIC PAVILION (NORWAY)
Camille Norment
Commissioner: OCA, Office for Contemporary Art Norway. Curator: Katya García-Antón. Deputy Curator: Antonio Cataldo. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
PERU
Misplaced Ruins
Gilda Mantilla and Raimond Chaves
Commissioner: Armando Andrade de Lucio. Curator: Max Hernández-Calvo. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d’Armi
PHILIPPINES
Tie a String Around the World
Manuel Conde, Carlos Francisco, Manny Montelibano, Jose Tence Ruiz
Commissioner: National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), Felipe M. de Leon Jr. Curator: Patrick D. Flores. Venue: European Cultural Centre - Palazzo Mora
POLAND
Halka/Haiti. 18°48’05”N 72°23’01”W
C.T. Jasper, Joanna Malinowska
Commissioner: Hanna Wróblewska. Deputy Commissioner: Joanna Wasko. Curator: Magdalena Moskalewicz. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
PORTUGAL
I Will Be Your Mirror / poems and problems
João Louro
Commissioner/Curator: María de Corral. Venue: Palazzo Loredan, campo S. Stefano
ROMANIA
Adrian Ghenie: Darwin’s Room
Adrian Ghenie
Commissioner: Monica Morariu. Deputy Commissioner: Alexandru Damian. Curator: Mihai Pop. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
Inventing the Truth. On Fiction and Reality
Michele Bressan, Carmen Dobre-Hametner, Alex Mirutziu, Lea Rasovszky, Stefan Sava, Larisa Sitar
Commissioner: Monica Morariu. Deputy Commissioner: Alexandru Damian. Curator: Diana Marincu. Deputy Curators: Ephemair Association (Suzana Dan and Silvia Rogozea). Venue: New Gallery of the Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice
RUSSIA
The Green Pavilion
Irina Nakhova
Commissioner: Stella Kesaeva. Curator: Margarita Tupitsyn. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
SERBIA
United Dead Nations
Ivan Grubanov
Commissioner: Lidija Merenik. Deputy Commissioner: Ana Bogdanovic. Curator: Lidija Merenik. Deputy Curator: Ana Bogdanovic. Scientific Committee: Jovan Despotovic. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
SAN MARINO
Repubblica di San Marino “ Friendship Project “ China
Xu De Qi, Liu Dawei, Liu Ruo Wang, Ma Yuan, Li Lei, Zhang Hong Mei, Eleonora Mazza, Giuliano Giulianelli, Giancarlo Frisoni, Tony Margiotta, Elisa Monaldi, Valentina Pazzini
Commissioner: Istituti Culturali della Repubblica di San Marino. Curator: Vincenzo Sanfo. Venue: TBC
SEYCHELLES, Republic of *
A Clockwork Sunset
George Camille, Léon Wilma Loïs Radegonde
Commissioner: Seychelles Art Projects Foundation. Curators: Sarah J. McDonald, Victor Schaub Wong. Venue: European Cultural Centre - Palazzo Mora
SINGAPORE
Sea State
Charles Lim Yi Yong
Commissioner: Paul Tan, National Arts Council, Singapore. Curator: Shabbir Hussain Mustafa. Scientific Committee: Eugene Tan, Kathy Lai, Ahmad Bin Mashadi, June Yap, Emi Eu, Susie Lingham, Charles Merewether, Randy Chan. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d’Armi
SLOVENIA, Republic of
UTTER / The violent necessity for the embodied presence of hope
JAŠA
Commissioner: Simona Vidmar. Deputy Commissioner: Jure Kirbiš. Curators: Michele Drascek and Aurora Fonda. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale - Artiglierie
SPAIN
Los Sujetos (The Subjects)
Pepo Salazar, Cabello/Carceller, Francesc Ruiz, + Salvador Dalí
Commissioner: Ministerio Asuntos Exteriores. Gobierno de España. Curator: Marti Manen. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC
Origini della civiltà
Narine Ali, Ehsan Alar, Felipe Cardeña, Fouad Dahdouh, Aldo Damioli, Svitlana Grebenyuk, Mauro Reggio, Liu Shuishi, Nass ouh Zaghlouleh, Andrea Zucchi, Helidon Xhixha
Commissioner: Christian Maretti. Curator: Duccio Trombadori. Venue: Redentore – Giudecca, San Servolo Island
SWEDEN
Excavation of the Image: Imprint, Shadow, Spectre, Thought
Lina Selander
Commissioner: Ann-Sofi Noring. Curator: Lena Essling. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale
SWITZERLAND
Our Product
Pamela Rosenkranz
Commissioner: Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Sandi Paucic and Marianne Burki. Deputy-Commissioner: Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Rachele Giudici Legittimo. Curator: Susanne Pfeffer. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
THAILAND
Earth, Air, Fire & Water
Kamol Tassananchalee
Commissioner: Chai Nakhonchai, Office of Contemporary Art and Culture (OCAC), Ministry of Culture. Curator: Richard David Garst. Deputy Curator: Pongdej Chaiyakut. Venue: Paradiso Gallerie, Giardini della Biennale, Castello 1260
TURKEY
Respiro
Sarkis
Commissioner: Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts. Curator: Defne Ayas. Deputy Curator: Ozge Ersoy. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d’Armi
TUVALU
Crossing the Tide
Vincent J.F. Huang
Commissioner: Taukelina Finikaso. Deputy Commissioner: Temate Melitiana. Curator: Thomas J. Berghuis. Scientific Committee: Andrea Bonifacio. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale
UKRAINE
Hope!
Yevgenia Belorusets, Nikita Kadan, Zhanna Kadyrova, Mykola Ridnyi & SerhiyZhadan, Anna Zvyagintseva, Open Group, Artem Volokitin
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture. Curator: Björn Geldhof. Venue: Riva dei Sette Martiri
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
1980 – Today: Exhibitions in the United Arab Emirates
Abdullah Al Saadi, Abdul Qader Al Rais, Abdulraheem Salim, Abdulrahman Zainal, Ahmed Al Ansari, Ahmed Sharif, Hassan Sharif, Mohamed Yousif, Mohammed Abdullah Bulhiah, Mohammed Al Qassab, Mohammed Kazem, Moosa Al Halyan, Najat Meky, Obaid Suroor, Salem Jawhar
Commissioner: Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation. Curator: Hoor Al Qasimi. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d'Armi
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Joan Jonas: They Come to Us Without a Word
Joan Jonas
Commissioner: Paul C. Ha. Deputy Commissioner: MIT List Visual Arts Center. Curators: Ute Meta Bauer, Paul C. Ha. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
URUGUAY
Global Myopia II (Pencil & Paper)
Marco Maggi
Commissioner: Ricardo Pascale. Curator: Patricia Bentancour. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
VENEZUELA, Bolivarian Republic of
Te doy mi palabra (I give you my word)
Argelia Bravo, Félix Molina (Flix)
Commissioner: Oscar Sotillo Meneses. Deputy Commissioner: Reinaldo Landaeta Díaz. Curator: Oscar Sotillo Meneses. Deputy Curator: Morella Jurado. Scientific Committee: Carlos Pou Ruan. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
ZIMBABWE, Republic of
Pixels of Ubuntu/Unhu: - Exploring the social and cultural identities of the 21st century.
Chikonzero Chazunguza, Masimba Hwati, Gareth Nyandoro
Commissioner: Doreen Sibanda. Curator: Raphael Chikukwa. Deputy Curator: Tafadzwa Gwetai. Scientific Committee: Saki Mafundikwa, Biggie Samwanda, Fabian Kangai, Reverend Paul Damasane, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Stephen Garan'anga, Dominic Benhura. Venue: Santa Maria della Pieta
ITALO-LATIN AMERICAN INSTITUTE
Voces Indígenas
Commissioner: Sylvia Irrazábal. Curator: Alfons Hug. Deputy Curator: Alberto Saraiva. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale
ARGENTINA
Sofia Medici and Laura Kalauz
PLURINATIONAL STATE OF BOLIVIA
Sonia Falcone and José Laura Yapita
BRAZIL
Adriana Barreto
Paulo Nazareth
CHILE
Rainer Krause
COLOMBIA
León David Cobo,
María Cristina Rincón and Claudia Rodríguez
COSTA RICA
Priscilla Monge
ECUADOR
Fabiano Kueva
EL SALVADOR
Mauricio Kabistan
GUATEMALA
Sandra Monterroso
HAITI
Barbara Prézeau Stephenson
HONDURAS
Leonardo González
PANAMA
Humberto Vélez
NICARAGUA
Raúl Quintanilla
PARAGUAY
Erika Meza
Javier López
PERU
José Huamán Turpo
URUGUAY
Gustavo Tabares
Ellen Slegers
001 Inverso Mundus. AES+F
Magazzino del Sale n. 5, Dorsoduro, 265 (Fondamenta delle Zattere ai Saloni); Palazzo Nani Mocenigo, Dorsoduro, 960
May 9th – October 31st
Organization: VITRARIA Glass + A Museum
www.vitraria.com
www.inversomundus.com
Catalonia in Venice: Singularity
Cantieri Navali, Castello, 40 (Calle Quintavalle)
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: Institut Ramon Llull
www.llull.cat
venezia2015.llull.cat
Conversion. Recycle Group
Chiesa di Sant’Antonin, Castello (Campo Sant’Antonin)
May 6th - October 31st
Organization: Moscow Museum of Modern Art
www.mmoma.ru/
Dansaekhwa
Palazzo Contarini-Polignac, Dorsoduro, 874 (Accademia)
May 7th – August 15th
Organization: The Boghossian Foundation
www.villaempain.com
Dispossession
Palazzo Donà Brusa, Campo San Polo, 2177
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: European Capital of Culture Wroclaw 2016
wroclaw2016.pl/biennale/
EM15 presents Doug Fishbone’s Leisure Land Golf
Arsenale Docks, Castello, 40A, 40B, 41C
May 6th - July 26th
Organization: EM15
www.em15venice.co.uk
Eredità e Sperimentazione
Grand Hotel Hungaria & Ausonia, Viale Santa Maria Elisabetta, 28, Lido di Venezia
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: Istituto Nazionale di BioArchitettura - Sezione di Padova
www.bioarchitettura.it
Frontiers Reimagined
Palazzo Grimani, Castello, 4858 (Ramo Grimani)
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: Tagore Foundation International; Polo museale del Veneto
www.frontiersreimagined.org
Glasstress 2015 Gotika
Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti, Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti, San Marco, 2847 (Campo Santo Stefano); Chiesa di Santa Maria della Visitazione, Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli, Dorsoduro, 919 (Zattere); Fondazione Berengo, Campiello della Pescheria, 15, Murano;
May 9th — November 22nd
Organization: The State Hermitage Museum
www.hermitagemuseum.org
Graham Fagen: Scotland + Venice 2015
Palazzo Fontana, Cannaregio, 3829 (Strada Nova)
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: Scotland + Venice
www.scotlandandvenice.com
Grisha Bruskin. An Archaeologist’s Collection
Former Chiesa di Santa Caterina, Cannaregio, 4941-4942
May 6th – November 22nd
Organization: Centro Studi sulle Arti della Russia (CSAR), Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
www.unive.it/csar
Helen Sear, ... The Rest Is Smoke
Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, Castello, 450 (Fondamenta San Gioacchin)
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice
www.walesinvenice.org.uk
Highway to Hell
Palazzo Michiel, Cannaregio, 4391/A (Strada Nova)
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: Hubei Museum of Art
www.hbmoa.com
Humanistic Nature and Society (Shan-Shui) – An Insight into the Future
Palazzo Faccanon, San Marco, 5016 (Mercerie)
May 7th – August 4th
Organization: Shanghai Himalayas Museum
www.himalayasmuseum.org
In the Eye of the Thunderstorm: Effervescent Practices from the Arab World & South Asia
Dorsoduro, 417 (Zattere)
May 6th - November 15th
Organization: ArsCulture
www.arsculture.org/
www.eyeofthunderstorm.com
Italia Docet | Laboratorium- Artists, Participants, Testimonials and Activated Spectators
Palazzo Barbarigo Minotto, San Marco, 2504 (Fondamenta Duodo o Barbarigo)
May 9th – June 30th; September 11st – October 31st
Organization: Italian Art Motherboard Foundation (i-AM Foundation)
www.i-amfoundation.org
www.venicebiennale-italiadocet.org
Jaume Plensa: Together
Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore, Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore
May 6th – November 22nd
Organization: Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore Benedicti Claustra Onlus
www.praglia.it
Jenny Holzer "War Paintings"
Museo Correr, San Marco, 52 (Piazza San Marco)
May 6th – November 22nd
Organization: The Written Art Foundation; Museo Correr, Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia
www.writtenartfoundation.com
correr.visitmuve.it
Jump into the Unknown
Palazzo Loredan dell’Ambasciatore, Dorsoduro, 1261-1262
May 9th – June 18th
Organization: Nine Dragon Heads
9dh-venice.com
Learn from Masters
Palazzo Bembo, San Marco, 4793 (Riva del Carbon)
May 9th – November 22nd
Organization: Pan Tianshou Foundation
pantianshou.caa.edu.cn/foundation_en
My East is Your West
Palazzo Benzon, San Marco, 3927
May 6th – October 31st
Organization: The Gujral Foundation
www.gujralfoundation.org
Ornamentalism. The Purvitis Prize
Arsenale Nord, Tesa 99
May 9th – November 22nd
Organization: The Secretariat of the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2015
www.purvisabalva.lv/en/ornamentalism
Path and Adventure
Arsenale, Castello, 2126/A (Campo della Tana)
May 9th – November 22nd
Organization: The Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau; The Macao Museum of Art; The Cultural Affairs Bureau
www.iacm.gov.mo
www.mam.gov.mo
www.icm.gov.mo
Patricia Cronin: Shrine for Girls, Venice
Chiesa di San Gallo, San Marco, 1103 (Campo San Gallo)
May 9th – November 22nd
Organization: Brooklyn Rail Curatorial Projects
curatorialprojects.brooklynrail.org
Roberto Sebastian Matta. Sculture
Giardino di Palazzo Soranzo Cappello, Soprintendenza BAP per le Province di Venezia, Belluno, Padova e Treviso, Santa Croce, 770 (Fondamenta Rio Marin)
May 9th – November 22nd
Organization: Fondazione Echaurren Salaris
www.fondazioneechaurrensalaris.it
www.maggioregam.com/56Biennale_Matta
Salon Suisse: S.O.S. Dada - The World Is A Mess
Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi, Dorsoduro, 810 (Campo Sant'Agnese)
May 9th; June 4th - 6th; September 10th - 12th; October 15th - 17th; November 19th – 21st
Organization: Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia
www.prohelvetia.ch
www.biennials.ch
Sean Scully: Land Sea
Palazzo Falier, San Marco, 2906
May 9th – November 22nd
Organization: Fondazione Volume!
www.fondazionevolume.com
Sepphoris. Alessandro Valeri
Molino Stucky, interior atrium, Giudecca, 812
May 9th – November 22nd
Organization: Assessorato alla Cultura del Comune di Narni(TR); a Sidereal Space of Art; Satellite Berlin
www.sepphorisproject.org
Tesla Revisited
Palazzo Nani Mocenigo, Dorsoduro, 960
May 9th – October 18th
Organization: VITRARIA Glass + A Museum
www.vitraria.com/
The Bridges of Graffiti
Arterminal c/o Terminal San Basilio, Dorsoduro (Fondamenta Zattere al Ponte Lungo)
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: Associazione Culturale Inossidabile
www.inossidabileac.com
The Dialogue of Fire. Ceramic and Glass Masters from Barcelona to Venice
Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, San Polo, 2774
May 6th - November 22nd
Organization: Fundaciò Artigas; ArsCulture
www.fundacio-artigas.com/
www.arsculture.org/
www.dialogueoffire.org
The Question of Beings
Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà, Castello, 3701
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MoCA, Taipei)
www.mocataipei.org.tw
The Revenge of the Common Place
Università Ca' Foscari, Ca' Bernardo, Dorsoduro, 3199 (Calle Bernardo)
May 9th – September 30th
Organization: Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University Brussels-VUB)
www.vub.ac.be/
The Silver Lining. Contemporary Art from Liechtenstein and other Microstates
Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi, Dorsoduro, 810 (Campo Sant'Agnese)
October 24th – November 1st
Organization: Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein
www.kunstmuseum.li
www.silverlining.li
The Sound of Creation. Paintings + Music by Beezy Bailey and Brian Eno
Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello, Palazzo Pisani, San Marco, 2810 (Campo Santo Stefano)
May 7th - November 22nd
Organization: ArsCulture
www.arsculture.org/
The Union of Fire and Water
Palazzo Barbaro, San Marco, 2840
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: YARAT Contemporary Art Organisation
www.yarat.az
www.bakuvenice2015.com
Thirty Light Years - Theatre of Chinese Art
Palazzo Rossini, San Marco, 4013 (Campo Manin)
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: GAC Global Art Center Foundation; The Guangdong Museum of Art
www.globalartcenter.org
www.gdmoa.org
Tsang Kin-Wah: The Infinite Nothing, Hong Kong in Venice
Arsenale, Castello, 2126 (Campo della Tana)
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: M+, West Kowloon Cultural District; Hong Kong Arts Development Council
www.westkowloon.hk/en/mplus
www.hkadc.org.hk
www.venicebiennale.hk
Under the Surface, Newfoundland and Labrador at Venice
Galleria Ca' Rezzonico, Dorsoduro, 2793
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: Terra Nova Art Foundation
tnaf.ca
Ursula von Rydingsvard
Giardino della Marinaressa, Castello (Riva dei Sette Martiri)
May 6th - November 22nd
Organization:Yorkshire Sculpture Park
www.ysp.co.uk
We Must Risk Delight: Twenty Artists from Los Angeles
Magazzino del Sale n. 3, Dorsoduro, 264 (Zattere)
May 7th - November 22nd
Organization: bardoLA
www.bardoLA.org
Wu Tien-Chang: Never Say Goodbye
Palazzo delle Prigioni, Castello, 4209 (San Marco)
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: Taipei Fine Arts Museum of Taiwan
www.tfam.museum
Reindeer This reindeer is part of a small herd that lives at Jimmy's Farm at Wherstead in Suffolk.
Reindeer became inexorably linked to Christmas in 1823 when a poem called 'A Visit from Saint Nicholas' by Clement Clarke Moore was published in a New York newspaper. Readers were introduced to Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer, was added in 1939 by Robert L. May for a colouring-in book.
Some scientists think that around 2,000 years ago, reindeer, also called caribou, were one of the first animals domesticated, and many Arctic societies still rely on this animal for food, clothing and materials for shelter.
Male (bull) reindeer grow between 28 to 53 in. (71 to 134 cm) tall from hooves to shoulder, and around 71 to 81 in. (1.8 to 2.07 m) long. Female (cow) reindeer are typically smaller, around 67 to 74 in. (1.7 to 1.89 m) long. Males weigh 143 to 530 lb. (65 to 240 kg) with females weighing 121 to 310 lb. (55 to 140 kg).
These are the only deer species in which both males and females grow antlers. Each antler grows from a stub called a pedicle on the skull’s frontal bone. These bony antlers are covered by a furry skin, called velvet, which is equipped with blood vessels that provide oxygen to the growing bone.
A male's antlers can grow up to 51 in. (130 cm) long and weigh up to 33 lb. (15 kg), making them significantly bigger and heavier than a female’s antlers, which can grow up to 20 in. (51 cm). Adult males drop their antlers in November, while adult females keep their antlers until April or May.
Reindeer have 25% more capillaries carrying red, oxygen-rich blood in their noses than humans do. In colder climates the increase in blood flow in the nose will help keep the nose's surface warm. The dense network of blood vessels is also essential for regulating the animal's internal body temperature, because like many mammals, reindeer don't sweat.
Reindeer are found in tundra, mountains and woodland over a large polar region of northern Europe and northern Asia. Their home ranges can be as big as 190 square miles (500 km2). The Svalbard reindeer subspecies can exist as far north as 80 degrees north latitude.
Reindeer are very social creatures. They feed, travel and rest in groups called herds. These herds can include from 10 animals to a few hundred. In the spring, herds can get even bigger, from 50,000 to 500,000 members. In winter herds often travel around 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to 3,000 m (5,000 km) south to find food.
One of the biggest and most studied herds lives on the Taimyr Peninsula, in the northernmost part of Russia. Monitoring showed that the Taimyr herd reached a peak of 1 million individuals in 2000, which took a plunge to 600,000 by 2016. Climate change could be part of the problem. Every year in the spring and autumn, this herd migrates from calving ranges on the peninsula to their winter haven in boreal forests. However climate change has changed the timing of this trek, meaning young calves are still too small to make the journey.
Reindeer are herbivores and their diet can include herbs, ferns, mosses, grasses, shoots, fungi and leaves. On average, an adult reindeer eats around 9 to 18 lb. (4 to 8 kg) of vegetation a day. In the winter, reindeer must dig through the snow to find food. They dig using their antlers and munch on energy-packed lichens called reindeer moss.
The breeding season lasts from August through to September. Gestation lasts for about 30 weeks resulting typically to the birth of one calf. At birth the calf, weighs between 13 and 17.5 lb. (6 and 8 kg). Calves are able to stand after their first hour of life and within a week they start eating solid food in addition to their mother's milk. They are weaned completely within six months and start growing their first set of antlers around 24 months. After a year the calf weighs 145 to 165 lb. (65 to 75 kg). Reindeers become mature at 4 to 6 years old and live up to 17 years, with females tending to live for longer than males.
Brown bears and polar bears prey on reindeer of all ages, but like wolverines they are moor likely to attack sick animals and calves. Grey wolves are the most effective natural predator of adult reindeer, especially during the winter. As carrion, reindeer are fed on by foxes, ravens and hawks.
Reindeer are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The species has experienced a 40% decline in population over the past 21 to 27 years. There are currently around around 1 million wild reindeer in Eurasia and around 3 million domestic reindeer in northern Europe.
Merry Christmas 2024 Redo.
San Xavier Mission Tucson Arizona On monochrome Film Black and white film Image of Spanish mission San Xavier del Bac started in 1692 by Spanish missionaries in the Americas. Image taken with a Mamiya 645e 6x4.5 film camera and 80mm Sekor lens on Ilford Delta 100 film.. All my published books, available world wide, can be viewed here:
www.amazon.com/stores/Paul-Moore/author/B0075LNIO2?ref=ap...
Oscar Wilde...The Importance of Being Earnest, the tangled affairs of two young men about town who lead double lives to evade unwanted social obligations. Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde[a] (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.
Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art" and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel.[3] The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897.[4] During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.
Early life
The Wilde family home on Merrion Square
Oscar Wilde was born[5] at 21 Westland Row, Dublin (now home of the Oscar Wilde Centre, Trinity College), the second of three children born to an Anglo-Irish couple: Jane, née Elgee, and Sir William Wilde. Oscar was two years younger than his brother, William (Willie) Wilde.
Jane Wilde was a niece (by marriage) of the novelist, playwright and clergyman Charles Maturin, who may have influenced her own literary career. She believed, mistakenly, that she was of Italian ancestry,[6] and under the pseudonym "Speranza" (the Italian word for 'hope'), she wrote poetry for the revolutionary Young Irelanders in 1848; she was a lifelong Irish nationalist.[7] Jane Wilde read the Young Irelanders' poetry to Willie and Oscar, inculcating a love of these poets in her sons.[8] Her interest in the neo-classical revival showed in the paintings and busts of ancient Greece and Rome in her home.[8]
Sir William Wilde was Ireland's leading oto-ophthalmologic (ear and eye) surgeon and was knighted in 1864 for his services as medical adviser and assistant commissioner to the censuses of Ireland.[9] He also wrote books about Irish archaeology and peasant folklore. A renowned philanthropist, his dispensary for the care of the city's poor at the rear of Trinity College Dublin (TCD), was the forerunner of the Dublin Eye and Ear Hospital, now located at Adelaide Road.[9] On his father's side Wilde was descended from a Dutch soldier, Colonel de Wilde, who came to Ireland with King William of Orange's invading army in 1690, and numerous Anglo-Irish ancestors. On his mother's side, Wilde's ancestors included a bricklayer from County Durham, who emigrated to Ireland sometime in the 1770s.[10][11]
Wilde was baptised as an infant in St. Mark's Church, Dublin, the local Church of Ireland (Anglican) church. When the church was closed, the records were moved to the nearby St. Ann's Church, Dawson Street.[12] A Catholic priest in Glencree, County Wicklow, also claimed to have baptised Wilde and his brother Willie.[13]
In addition to his two full siblings, Wilde had three paternal half-siblings, who were born out of wedlock before the marriage of his father: Henry Wilson, born in 1838 to one woman, and Emily and Mary Wilde, born in 1847 and 1849, respectively, to a second woman. Sir William acknowledged paternity of his children and provided for their education, arranging for them to be raised by his relatives.[14]
The family moved to No 1 Merrion Square in 1855. With both Sir William and Lady Wilde's success and delight in social life, the home soon became the site of a "unique medical and cultural milieu". Guests at their salon included Sheridan Le Fanu, Charles Lever, George Petrie, Isaac Butt, William Rowan Hamilton and Samuel Ferguson.[8]
Wilde's sister, Isola Francesca Emily Wilde, was born on 2 April 1857. She was named in tribute to Iseult of Ireland, wife of Mark of Cornwall and lover of the Cornish knight, Sir Tristan. She shared the name Francesca with her mother, while Emily was the name of her maternal aunt. Oscar would later describe how his sister was like "a golden ray of sunshine dancing about our home"[15] and he was grief stricken when she died at the age of nine of a febrile illness.[16][17] His poem "Requiescat" was written in her memory; the first stanza reads:[18]
Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.
Until he was nine Wilde was educated at home, where a French nursemaid and a German governess taught him their languages.[19] He joined his brother Willie at Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, which he attended from 1864 to 1871.[20] At Portora, although he was not as popular as his older brother, Wilde impressed his peers with the humorous and inventive school stories he told. Later in life, he claimed that his fellow students had regarded him as a prodigy for his ability to speed read, claiming that he could read two facing pages simultaneously and consume a three-volume book in half an hour, retaining enough information to give a basic account of the plot.[21] He excelled academically, particularly in the subject of classics, in which he ranked fourth in the school in 1869. His aptitude for giving oral translations of Greek and Latin texts won him multiple prizes, including the Carpenter Prize for Greek Testament.[22] He was one of only three students at Portora to win a Royal School scholarship to Trinity in 1871.[23]
In 1871, when Wilde was seventeen, his elder half-sisters Mary and Emily died aged 22 and 24, fatally burned at a dance in their home at Drumacon, Co Cavan. One of the sisters had brushed against the flames of a fire or a candelabra and her dress caught fire; in various versions, the man she was dancing with carried her and her sister down to douse the flames in the snow, or her sister ran her down the stairs and rolled her in the snow, causing her own muslin dress to catch fire too.[24]
Until his early twenties, Wilde summered at Moytura House, a villa his father had built in Cong, County Mayo.[25] There the young Wilde and his brother Willie played with George Moore.[26]
University education: 1870s
Trinity College Dublin
Wilde left Portora with a royal scholarship to read classics at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), from 1871 to 1874,[27] sharing rooms with his older brother Willie Wilde. Trinity, one of the leading classical schools, placed him with scholars such as R. Y. Tyrell, Arthur Palmer, Edward Dowden and his tutor, Professor J. P. Mahaffy, who inspired his interest in Greek literature. As a student, Wilde worked with Mahaffy on the latter's book Social Life in Greece.[28] Wilde, despite later reservations, called Mahaffy "my first and best teacher" and "the scholar who showed me how to love Greek things".[23] For his part, Mahaffy boasted of having created Wilde; later, he said Wilde was "the only blot on my tutorship".[29]
The University Philosophical Society also provided an education, as members discussed intellectual and artistic subjects such as the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne weekly. Wilde quickly became an established member – the members' suggestion book for 1874 contains two pages of banter sportingly mocking Wilde's emergent aestheticism. He presented a paper titled Aesthetic Morality.[29] At Trinity, Wilde established himself as an outstanding student: he came first in his class in his first year, won a scholarship by competitive examination in his second and, in his finals, won the Berkeley Gold Medal in Greek, the university's highest academic award.[30] He was encouraged to compete for a demyship (a half-scholarship worth £95 (£11,100 today) per year)[31] to Magdalen College, Oxford – which he won easily.[32]
Magdalen College, Oxford
At Magdalen, he read Greats from 1874 to 1878. He applied to join the Oxford Union, but failed to be elected.[33]
Oscar Wilde posing for a photograph, looking at the camera. He is wearing a checked suit and a bowler hat. His right foot is resting on a knee-high bench, and his right hand, holding gloves, is on it. The left hand is in the pocket.
Oscar Wilde at Oxford in 1876
Attracted by its dress, secrecy and ritual, Wilde petitioned the Apollo Masonic Lodge at Oxford, and was soon raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason.[34] During a resurgent interest in Freemasonry in his third year, he commented he "would be awfully sorry to give it up if I secede from the Protestant Heresy".[35] Wilde's active involvement in Freemasonry lasted only for the time he spent at Oxford; he allowed his membership of the Apollo University Lodge to lapse after failing to pay subscriptions.[36]
Catholicism deeply appealed to him, especially its rich liturgy, and he discussed converting to it with clergy several times. In 1877, Wilde was left speechless after an audience with Pope Pius IX in Rome.[37] He eagerly read the books of Cardinal Newman, a noted Anglican priest who had converted to Catholicism and risen in the church hierarchy. He became more serious in 1878, when he met the Reverend Sebastian Bowden, a priest in the Brompton Oratory who had received some high-profile converts. Neither Mahaffy nor Sir William, who threatened to cut off his son's funding, thought much of the plan; but Wilde, the supreme individualist, balked at the last minute from pledging himself to any formal creed, and on the appointed day of his baptism into Catholicism, he sent Father Bowden a bunch of altar lilies instead. Wilde did retain a lifelong interest in Catholic theology and liturgy.[38]
While at Magdalen College, Wilde became well known for his role in the aesthetic and decadent movements. He wore his hair long, openly scorned "manly" sports—though he occasionally boxed[34]—and decorated his rooms with peacock feathers, lilies, sunflowers, blue china and other objets d'art. He entertained lavishly, and once remarked to some friends, "I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china."[39] The line spread famously; aesthetes adopted it as a slogan, but it was criticized as being terribly vacuous.[39] Some elements disdained the aesthetes, but their languorous attitudes and showy costumes became a recognisable pose.[40] When four of his fellow students physically assaulted Wilde, he fended them off single-handedly, to the surprise of his detractors.[41] By his third year Wilde had truly begun to develop himself and his myth, and considered his learning to be more expansive than what was within the prescribed texts. He was rusticated for one term, after he had returned late to a college term from a trip to Greece with Mahaffy.[42]
Wilde did not meet Walter Pater until his third year, but had been enthralled by his Studies in the History of the Renaissance, published during Wilde's final year in Trinity.[43] Pater argued that man's sensibility to beauty should be refined above all else, and that each moment should be felt to its fullest extent. Years later, in De Profundis, Wilde described Pater's Studies... as "that book that has had such a strange influence over my life".[44] He learned tracts of the book by heart, and carried it with him on travels in later years. Pater gave Wilde his sense of almost flippant devotion to art, though he gained a purpose for it through the lectures and writings of critic John Ruskin.[45] Ruskin despaired at the self-validating aestheticism of Pater, arguing that the importance of art lies in its potential for the betterment of society. Ruskin admired beauty, but believed it must be allied with, and applied to, moral good. When Wilde eagerly attended Ruskin's lecture series The Aesthetic and Mathematic Schools of Art in Florence, he learned about aesthetics as the non-mathematical elements of painting. Despite being given to neither early rising nor manual labour, Wilde volunteered for Ruskin's project to convert a swampy country lane into a smart road neatly edged with flowers.[45]
Wilde won the 1878 Newdigate Prize for his poem "Ravenna", which reflected on his visit there in the previous year, and he duly read it at Encaenia.[46] In November 1878, he graduated Bachelor of Arts with a double first, having been placed in the first class in Classical Moderations (the first part of the course) and then again in the final examination in Literae Humaniores (Greats). Wilde wrote to a friend, "The dons are 'astonied' beyond words – the Bad Boy doing so well in the end!"[47][48]
Apprenticeship of an aesthete: 1880s
Debut in society
Photograph by Elliott & Fry of Baker Street, London, 1881
A hand-drawn cartoon of Wilde, he face depicted in a wilted sunflower standing in a vase. His face is sad and inclined towards a letter on the floor. A larger china vase, inscribed "Waste..." is placed behind him, and an open cigarette case to his left.
1881 caricature in Punch, the caption reads: "O.W.", "O, I feel just as happy as a bright sunflower!", Lays of Christy Minstrelsy, "Æsthete of Æsthetes!/What's in a name?/The poet is Wilde/But his poetry's tame."
After graduation from Oxford, Wilde returned to Dublin, where he met again Florence Balcombe, a childhood sweetheart. She became engaged to Bram Stoker and they married in 1878.[49] Wilde was disappointed but stoic. He wrote to Balcombe remembering; "the two sweet years – the sweetest years of all my youth" during which they had been close.[50] He also stated his intention to "return to England, probably for good". This he did in 1878, only briefly visiting Ireland twice after that.[50][51]
Unsure of his next step, Wilde wrote to various acquaintances enquiring about Classics positions at Oxford or Cambridge.[52] The Rise of Historical Criticism was his submission for the Chancellor's Essay prize of 1879, which, though no longer a student, he was still eligible to enter. Its subject, "Historical Criticism among the Ancients" seemed ready-made for Wilde – with both his skill in composition and ancient learning – but he struggled to find his voice in the long, flat, scholarly style.[53] Unusually, no prize was awarded that year.[53][b]
With the last of his inheritance from the sale of his father's houses, he set himself up as a bachelor in London.[55] The 1881 British Census listed Wilde as a boarder at 1 (now 44) Tite Street, Chelsea, where Frank Miles, a society painter, was the head of the household.[56][57]
Lillie Langtry was introduced to Wilde at Frank Miles' studio in 1877. The most glamorous woman in England, Langtry assumed great importance to Wilde during his early years in London, and they remained close friends for many years; he tutored her in Latin and later encouraged her to pursue acting.[58] She wrote in her autobiography that he "possessed a remarkably fascinating and compelling personality", and "the cleverness of his remarks received added value from his manner of delivering them."[59]
Wilde regularly attended the theatre and was especially taken with star actresses such as Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt.[60] In 1880 he completed his first play, Vera; or, The Nihilists, a tragic melodrama about Russian nihilism, and distributed privately printed copies to various actresses whom he hoped to interest in its sole female role.[61] A one-off performance in London was advertised in November 1881 with Mrs. Bernard Beere as Vera, but withdrawn by Wilde for what was claimed to be consideration for political feeling in England.[62]
He had been publishing lyrics and poems in magazines since entering Trinity College, especially in Kottabos and the Dublin University Magazine. In mid-1881, at 27 years old, he published Poems, which collected, revised and expanded his poems.[63]
Though the book sold out its first print run of 750 copies, it was not generally well received by the critics: Punch, for example, said that "The poet is Wilde, but his poetry's tame".[64][65][66] By a tight vote, the Oxford Union condemned the book for alleged plagiarism. The librarian, who had requested the book for the library, returned the presentation copy to Wilde with a note of apology.[67][68] Biographer Richard Ellmann argues that Wilde's poem "Hélas!" was a sincere, though flamboyant, attempt to explain the dichotomies the poet saw in himself; one line reads: "To drift with every passion till my soul / Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play".[69]
The book had further printings in 1882. It was bound in a rich, enamel parchment cover (embossed with gilt blossom) and printed on hand-made Dutch paper; over the next few years, Wilde presented many copies to the dignitaries and writers who received him during his lecture tours.[70]
North America: 1882
Wilde lectured on the "English Renaissance in Art" during his US and Canada tour in 1882.
Aestheticism was sufficiently in vogue to be caricatured by Gilbert and Sullivan in Patience (1881). Richard D'Oyly Carte, an English impresario, invited Wilde to make a lecture tour of North America, simultaneously priming the pump for the US tour of Patience and selling this most charming aesthete to the American public. Wilde journeyed on the SS Arizona, arriving on 2 January 1882, and disembarking the following day.[71]© Originally planned to last four months, the tour continued for almost a year owing to its commercial success.[73] Wilde sought to transpose the beauty he saw in art into daily life.[74] This was a practical as well as philosophical project: in Oxford he had surrounded himself with blue china and lilies, and now one of his lectures was on interior design. In a British Library article on aestheticism and decadence, Carolyn Burdett writes,
"Wilde teased his readers with the claim that life imitates art rather than the other way round. His point was a serious one: we notice London fogs, he argued, because art and literature has taught us to do so. Wilde, among others, 'performed' these maxims. He presented himself as the impeccably dressed and mannered dandy figure whose life was a work of art."[75]
When asked to explain reports that he had paraded down Piccadilly in London carrying a lily, long hair flowing, Wilde replied, "It's not whether I did it or not that's important, but whether people believed I did it".[74] Wilde believed that the artist should hold forth higher ideals, and that pleasure and beauty would replace utilitarian ethics.[76]
A Satirical cartoon shows a dandy figure, fancily dressed in a long coat and breeches, floating across the crowd in a tightly packed ballroom.
Keller cartoon from the Wasp of San Francisco depicting Wilde on the occasion of his visit there in 1882
Wilde and aestheticism were both mercilessly caricatured and criticised in the press: the Springfield Republican, for instance, commented on Wilde's behaviour during his visit to Boston to lecture on aestheticism, suggesting that Wilde's conduct was more a bid for notoriety rather than devotion to beauty and the aesthetic. T. W. Higginson, a cleric and abolitionist, wrote in "Unmanly Manhood" of his general concern that Wilde, "whose only distinction is that he has written a thin volume of very mediocre verse", would improperly influence the behaviour of men and women.[77]
According to biographer Michèle Mendelssohn, Wilde was the subject of anti-Irish caricature and was portrayed as a monkey, a blackface performer and a Christy's Minstrel throughout his career.[74] "Harper's Weekly put a sunflower-worshipping monkey dressed as Wilde on the front of the January 1882 issue. The drawing stimulated other American maligners and, in England, had a full-page reprint in the Lady's Pictorial. ... When the National Republican discussed Wilde, it was to explain 'a few items as to the animal's pedigree.' And on 22 January 1882, the Washington Post illustrated the Wild Man of Borneo alongside Oscar Wilde of England and asked 'How far is it from this to this?'"[74] When he visited San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, "The city is divided into two camps, those who thought Wilde was an engaging speaker and an original thinker, and those who thought he was the most pretentious fraud ever perpetrated on a groaning public."[78] Though his press reception was hostile, Wilde was well received in diverse settings across America: he drank whiskey with miners in Leadville, Colorado, and was fêted at the most fashionable salons in many cities he visited.[79]
London life and marriage
Caricature of Wilde in the London magazine Vanity Fair, 24 April 1884
His earnings, plus expected income from The Duchess of Padua, allowed him to move to Paris between February and mid-May 1883. While there he met Robert Sherard, whom he entertained constantly. "We are dining on the Duchess tonight", Wilde would declare before taking him to an expensive restaurant.[80] In August he briefly returned to New York for the production of Vera, the rights of which he had sold to the American actress Marie Prescott. The play was initially well received by the audience, but when the critics wrote lukewarm reviews, attendance fell sharply and the play closed a week after it had opened.[81]
Left: No. 34 Tite Street, Chelsea, the Wilde family home from 1884 to his arrest in 1895. Right: close up of the commemorative blue plaque on the outer wall. In Wilde's time this was No. 16 – the houses have been renumbered.[82]
In London, he had been introduced in 1881 to Constance Lloyd, daughter of Horace Lloyd, a wealthy Queen's Counsel (lawyer). She happened to be visiting Dublin in 1884 when Wilde was lecturing at the Gaiety Theatre. He proposed to her, and they married on 29 May 1884 at the Anglican St James's Church, Paddington, in London.[83][84] Although Constance had an annual allowance of £250, which was generous for a young woman (equivalent to £32,900 in 2023), the Wildes had relatively luxurious tastes. They had preached to others for so long on the subject of design that people expected their home to set new standards.[31] No 16 Tite Street was duly renovated in seven months at considerable expense. The couple had two sons, Cyril (1885) and Vyvyan (1886). Wilde became the sole literary signatory of George Bernard Shaw's petition for a pardon of the anarchists arrested (and later executed) after the Haymarket massacre in Chicago in 1886.[85]
A small head-portrait of a young, pale man with dark hair.
Robert Ross at twenty-four
In 1886, while at Oxford, Wilde met Robert Ross. Ross, who had read Wilde's poems before they met, seemed unrestrained by the Victorian prohibition against homosexuality. By Richard Ellmann's account, he was a precocious seventeen-year-old who "so young and yet so knowing, was determined to seduce Wilde".[86] According to Daniel Mendelsohn, Wilde, who had long alluded to Greek love, was "initiated into homosexual sex" by Ross, while his "marriage had begun to unravel after his wife's second pregnancy, which left him physically repelled".[87]
Wilde had a number of favourite haunts in London. These included the Café Royal in Piccadilly, Hatchards bookstore in Piccadilly,[88] and the department stores Liberty & Co. on Great Marlborough Street and Harrods in Knightsbridge; Wilde was among Harrods' first selected customers who were granted extended credit.[89]
Prose writing: 1886–1891
Journalism and editorship: 1886–1889
A tall man rests on a chaise longue, facing the camera. On his knees, which are held together, he holds a slim, richly bound book. He wears knee breeches which feature prominently in the photograph's foreground.
Wilde reclining with Poems, by Napoleon Sarony in New York in 1882. Wilde often liked to appear idle, though in fact he worked hard; by the late 1880s he was a father, an editor and a writer.[90]
Criticism over artistic matters in The Pall Mall Gazette provoked a letter of self-defence, and soon Wilde was a contributor to that and other journals during 1885–87. Although Richard Ellmann has claimed that Wilde enjoyed reviewing,[91] Wilde's wife would tell friends that "Mr Wilde hates journalism".[92] Like his parents before him, Wilde supported Ireland's cause, and when Charles Stewart Parnell was falsely accused of inciting murder, he wrote a series of astute columns defending the politician in the Daily Chronicle.[85]
His flair, having previously been put mainly into socialising, suited journalism and rapidly attracted notice. With his youth nearly over and a family to support, in mid-1887 Wilde became the editor of The Lady's World magazine, his name prominent on the cover.[93] He promptly renamed it as The Woman's World and raised its tone, adding serious articles on parenting, culture, and politics, while keeping discussions of fashion and arts. Two pieces of fiction were usually included, one to be read to children, the other for adult readers. Wilde worked hard to solicit good contributions from his wide artistic acquaintance, including those of Lady Wilde and his wife, Constance, while his own "Literary and Other Notes" were themselves popular and amusing.[94]
The initial vigour and excitement which he brought to the job began to fade as administration, commuting and office life became tedious.[95] At the same time as Wilde's interest flagged, the publishers became concerned about circulation: sales, at the relatively high price of one shilling, remained low.[96] Increasingly sending instructions to the magazine by letter, Wilde began a new period of creative work and his own column appeared less regularly.[97][98] In October 1889, Wilde had finally found his voice in prose and, at the end of the second volume, Wilde left The Woman's World.[99] The magazine outlasted him by only a year.[100] Wilde's period at the helm of the magazine played a pivotal role in his development as a writer and facilitated his ascent to fame. Whilst Wilde the journalist supplied articles under the guidance of his editors, Wilde the editor was forced to learn to manipulate the literary marketplace on his own terms.[101]
During the 1880s, Wilde was a close friend of the artist James McNeill Whistler and they dined together on many occasions. At one of these dinners, Whistler produced a bon mot that Wilde found particularly witty, Wilde exclaimed that he wished that he had said it. Whistler retorted "You will, Oscar, you will."[102] Herbert Vivian—a mutual friend of Wilde and Whistler—attended the dinner and recorded it in his article The Reminiscences of a Short Life, which appeared in The Sun in 1889. The article alleged that Wilde had a habit of passing off other people's witticisms as his own—especially Whistler's. Wilde considered Vivian's article to be a scurrilous betrayal, and it directly caused the broken friendship between Wilde and Whistler.[103] The Reminiscences also caused great acrimony between Wilde and Vivian, Wilde accusing Vivian of "the inaccuracy of an eavesdropper with the method of a blackmailer"[104] and banishing Vivian from his circle.[103] Vivian's allegations did not diminish Wilde's reputation as an epigrammatist. London theatre director Luther Munday recounted some of Wilde's typical quips: Wilde said of Whistler that "he had no enemies but was intensely disliked by his friends", of Hall Caine that "he wrote at the top of his voice", of Rudyard Kipling that "he revealed life by splendid flashes of vulgarity", of Henry James that "he wrote fiction as if it were a painful duty", and of Marion Crawford that "he immolated himself on the altar of local colour".[105]
Shorter fiction
A photograph of Oscar Wilde, dated to 23 May 1889.
Wilde by W. & D. Downey of Ebury Street, London, 1889
Wilde had been regularly writing fairy stories for magazines. He published The Happy Prince and Other Tales in 1888. In 1891 he published two more collections, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories, and in September A House of Pomegranates was dedicated "To Constance Mary Wilde".[106] "The Portrait of Mr. W. H.", which Wilde had begun in 1887, was first published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in July 1889.[107] It is a short story which reports a conversation in which the theory that Shakespeare's sonnets were written out of the poet's love of the boy actor "Willie Hughes", is advanced, retracted, and then propounded again. The only evidence for this is two supposed puns within the sonnets themselves.[108]
The anonymous narrator is at first sceptical, then believing, and finally flirtatious with the reader: he concludes that "there is really a great deal to be said of the Willie Hughes theory of Shakespeare's sonnets."[109] By the end fact and fiction have melded together.[110] Arthur Ransome wrote that Wilde "read something of himself into Shakespeare's sonnets" and became fascinated with the "Willie Hughes theory" despite the lack of biographical evidence for the historical William Hughes' existence.[111] Instead of writing a short but serious essay on the question, Wilde tossed the theory to the three characters of the story, allowing it to unfold as background to the plot — an early masterpiece of Wilde's combining many elements that interested him: conversation, literature and the idea that to shed oneself of an idea one must first convince another of its truth.[112] Ransome concludes that Wilde succeeds precisely because the literary criticism is unveiled with such a deft touch.
Though containing nothing but "special pleading" – it would not, he says "be possible to build an airier castle in Spain than this of the imaginary William Hughes" – we continue listening nonetheless to be charmed by the telling.[113] "You must believe in Willie Hughes," Wilde told an acquaintance, "I almost do, myself."[110]
Essays and dialogues
Main articles: The Soul of Man under Socialism, The Decay of Lying, and The Critic as Artist
Sheet music cover, 1880s
Wilde, having tired of journalism, had been busy setting out his aesthetic ideas more fully in a series of longer prose pieces which were published in the major literary-intellectual journals of the day. In January 1889, The Decay of Lying: A Dialogue appeared in The Nineteenth Century, and Pen, Pencil and Poison, a satirical biography of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, in The Fortnightly Review, edited by Wilde's friend Frank Harris.[114] Two of Wilde's four writings on aesthetics are dialogues: though Wilde had evolved professionally from lecturer to writer, he retained an oral tradition of sorts. Having always excelled as a wit and raconteur, he often composed by assembling phrases, bons mots and witticisms into a longer, cohesive work.[115]
Wilde was concerned about the effect of moralising on art; he believed in art's redemptive, developmental powers: "Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks is to disturb monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine."[116] In his only political text, The Soul of Man Under Socialism, he argued political conditions should establish this primacy – private property should be abolished, and cooperation should be substituted for competition. He wrote "Socialism, Communism, or whatever one chooses to call it, by converting private property into public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, will restore society to its proper condition of a thoroughly healthy organism, and insure the material well-being of each member of the community. It will, in fact, give Life its proper basis and its proper environment". At the same time, he stressed that the government most amenable to artists was no government at all. Wilde envisioned a society where mechanisation has freed human effort from the burden of necessity, effort which can instead be expended on artistic creation. George Orwell summarised, "In effect, the world will be populated by artists, each striving after perfection in the way that seems best to him."[117][118]
This point of view did not align him with the Fabians, intellectual socialists who advocated using state apparatus to change social conditions, nor did it endear him to the monied classes whom he had previously entertained.[119][120] Hesketh Pearson, introducing a collection of Wilde's essays in 1950, remarked how The Soul of Man Under Socialism had been an inspirational text for revolutionaries in Tsarist Russia but laments that in the Stalinist era "it is doubtful whether there are any uninspected places in which it could now be hidden".[120]
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
—From "The Critic as Artist" published in Intentions (1891)[121]
Wilde considered including this pamphlet and "The Portrait of Mr. W. H.", his essay-story on Shakespeare's sonnets, in a new anthology in 1891, but eventually decided to limit it to purely aesthetic subjects. Intentions packaged revisions of four essays: The Decay of Lying; Pen, Pencil and Poison; The Truth of Masks (first published 1885); and The Critic as Artist in two parts.[122] For Pearson the biographer, the essays and dialogues exhibit every aspect of Wilde's genius and character: wit, romancer, talker, lecturer, humanist and scholar and concludes that "no other productions of his have as varied an appeal".[123] 1891 turned out to be Wilde's annus mirabilis; apart from his three collections he also produced his only novel.[124]
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Main article: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Plaque commemorating the dinner between Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle and the publisher of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 30 August 1889 at the Langham Hotel, London, that led to Wilde writing The Picture of Dorian Gray
The first version of The Picture of Dorian Gray was published as the lead story in the July 1890 edition of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, along with five others.[125] The story begins with a man painting a picture of Gray. When Gray, who has a "face like ivory and rose leaves", sees his finished portrait, he breaks down. Distraught that his beauty will fade while the portrait stays beautiful, he inadvertently makes a Faustian bargain in which only the painted image grows old while he stays beautiful and young. For Wilde, the purpose of art would be to guide life as if beauty alone were its object. As Gray's portrait allows him to escape the corporeal ravages of his hedonism, Wilde sought to juxtapose the beauty he saw in art with daily life.[126]
Reviewers immediately criticised the novel's decadence and homosexual allusions; the Daily Chronicle for example, called it "unclean", "poisonous", and "heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction".[127] Wilde vigorously responded, writing to the editor of the Scots Observer, in which he clarified his stance on ethics and aesthetics in art – "If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly will see its moral lesson."[128] He nevertheless revised it extensively for book publication in 1891: six new chapters were added, some overtly decadent passages and homo-eroticism excised, and a preface was included consisting of twenty-two epigrams, such as "Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."[129][130]
Contemporary reviewers and modern critics have postulated numerous possible sources of the story, a search Jershua McCormack argues is futile because Wilde "has tapped a root of Western folklore so deep and ubiquitous that the story has escaped its origins and returned to the oral tradition".[131] Wilde claimed the plot was "an idea that is as old as the history of literature but to which I have given a new form".[132] Modern critic Robin McKie considered the novel to be technically mediocre, saying that the conceit of the plot had guaranteed its fame, but the device is never pushed to its full.[133] On the other hand, Robert McCrum of The Guardian lists it among the 100 best novels ever written in English, calling it "an arresting, and slightly camp, exercise in late-Victorian gothic".[134] The novel has been the subject of many adaptations to film and stage, and one of its most quoted lines, "there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about", features in Monty Python's "Oscar Wilde sketch" in an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.[135]
Theatrical career: 1892–1895
Salomé
Main article: Salome (play)
A stylistically androgynous Jokanaan, with Salome. Illustration by Aubrey Beardsley for the 1894 English edition of Salome
The 1891 census records the Wildes' residence at 16 Tite Street,[136] where Oscar lived with his wife Constance and two sons. Not content with being better known than ever in London, though, he returned to Paris in October 1891, this time as a respected writer. He was received at the salons littéraires, including the famous mardis of Stéphane Mallarmé, a renowned symbolist poet of the time.[137] Wilde's two plays during the 1880s, Vera; or, The Nihilists and The Duchess of Padua, had not met with much success. He had continued his interest in the theatre and now, after finding his voice in prose, his thoughts turned again to the dramatic form as the biblical iconography of Salome filled his mind.[138] One evening, after discussing depictions of Salome throughout history, he returned to his hotel and noticed a blank copybook lying on the desk, and it occurred to him to write in it what he had been saying. The result was a new play, Salomé, written rapidly and in French.[139]
A tragedy, it tells the story of Salome, the stepdaughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, who, to her stepfather's dismay but mother's delight, requests the head of Jokanaan (John the Baptist) on a silver platter as a reward for dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils. When Wilde returned to London just before Christmas the Paris Echo referred to him as "le great event" of the season.[140] Rehearsals of the play, starring Sarah Bernhardt, began but the play was refused a licence by the Lord Chamberlain since it depicted biblical characters.[141] Salome was published jointly in Paris and London in 1893 in the original French, and in London a year later in Lord Alfred Douglas's English translation with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley, though it was not performed until 1896 in Paris, during Wilde's incarceration.[142]
Comedies of society
Main articles: Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and An Ideal Husband
Lake Windermere in northern England where Wilde began working on his first hit play, Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), during a summer visit in 1891[143]
Wilde, who had first set out to irritate Victorian society with his dress and talking points, then to outrage it with Dorian Gray, his novel of vice hidden beneath art, finally found a way to critique society on its own terms. Lady Windermere's Fan was first performed on 20 February 1892 at St James's Theatre, packed with the cream of society. On the surface a witty comedy, there is subtle subversion underneath: "it concludes with collusive concealment rather than collective disclosure".[144] The audience, like Lady Windermere, are forced to soften harsh social codes in favour of a more nuanced view. The play was enormously popular, touring the country for months, but largely trashed by conservative critics.[145] The success of the play saw Wilde earn £7,000 in the first year alone (worth £961,500 as of June 2022).[31][146]
His first hit play was followed by A Woman of No Importance in 1893, another Victorian comedy, revolving around the spectre of illegitimate births, mistaken identities and late revelations.[147] Wilde was commissioned to write two more plays and An Ideal Husband, written in 1894,[148] followed in January 1895.[149]
Peter Raby said these essentially English plays were well-pitched: "Wilde, with one eye on the dramatic genius of Ibsen, and the other on the commercial competition in London's West End, targeted his audience with adroit precision".[150]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde
The Importance of Being Earnest, a Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde, the last of his four drawing-room plays, following Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893) and An Ideal Husband (1895). First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy depicting the tangled affairs of two young men about town who lead double lives to evade unwanted social obligations, both assuming the name Ernest while wooing the two young women of their affections.
The play, celebrated for its wit and repartee, parodies contemporary dramatic norms, gently satirises late Victorian manners, and introduces – in addition to the two pairs of young lovers – the formidable Lady Bracknell, the fussy governess Miss Prism and the benign and scholarly Canon Chasuble. Contemporary reviews in Britain and overseas praised the play's humour, although some critics had reservations about its lack of social messages.
The successful opening night marked the climax of Wilde's career but was followed within weeks by his downfall. The Marquess of Queensberry, whose son Lord Alfred Douglas was Wilde's lover, unsuccessfully schemed to throw a bouquet of rotten vegetables at the playwright at the end of the performance. This feud led to a series of legal trials from March to May 1895 which resulted in Wilde's conviction and imprisonment for homosexual acts. Despite the play's early success, Wilde's disgrace caused it to be closed in May after 86 performances. After his release from prison in 1897 he published the play from exile in Paris, but he wrote no more comic or dramatic works.
Since the premiere, the play has been revived frequently in English-speaking countries and elsewhere. After the first production, which featured George Alexander, Allan Aynesworth and Irene Vanbrugh among others, many actors have been associated with the play, including Mabel Terry-Lewis, John Gielgud, Edith Evans, Margaret Rutherford, Martin Jarvis, Nigel Havers and Judi Dench. The role of the redoubtable Lady Bracknell has sometimes been played by men. The Importance of Being Earnest has been adapted for radio from the 1920s onwards and for television since the 1930s, filmed for the cinema on three occasions (directed by Anthony Asquith in 1952, Kurt Baker in 1992 and Oliver Parker in 2002) and turned into operas and musicals.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest
SXL 6107 Strauss R. - Leider - Hermann Prey, Gerald Moore - DECCA 54224732832_4b55e1993c_b
Christmas eCard: Terry Moore How long is your list?
Elliott Moore squares the ball for Greg Leigh to score #1 54224335202_b990da52a6_b
Elliott Moore squares the ball for Greg Leigh to score #2 54225641580_77847e321f_b
Elliott Moore squares the ball for Greg Leigh to score #3 54225641565_8d4965faed_b
Elliott Moore 54225243091_eb65ec1759_b