Mahmoud Said

I am putting some beautiful paintings by Mahmoud Said, who modernized the art in Egypt with his depth of feeling and colour.

Apsara

Apsara's are divine dancers. They are mentioned in Hindu and Buddhist mythology. In Hindu puranas they are beautiful charmer who dance in the court of Indra, the king of the heaven. Apsaras are so full of eternal beauty that they are often sent to seduce people on earth who are trying to gain power by doing rigorous penance.


The beauty of apsaras have become a regular subject of Hindu art and architecture. Rambha, Menaka, Tilottama and Urvashi are a few famous names in Hindu scripts. Among all apsaras Urvashi is known to be most beautiful. Menaka is famous for her success in seducing Rishi (saint) Vishwamitra. It is said that while Menaka was bathing, Vishwamitra got arrested by her naked beauty. Artist Raja Ravi Varma painted a few Vis



Also in the Khmer Temple of Angkor Wat, Combodia, inscriptions of beautiful apsaras have been found. These apsaras are well-ornamented with a skirt and bare breasts. The apsara dnace is a part of Combodian traditional dances.

Many beautiful apsara paintings have been done by Combodian artist Reahu. However, the govt. banned his artwork in the country with the charge of obscenity to deities.

Mariette Lydis

Mariette, Comtesse Govone, lived an extraordinary life of adventure and sexual intrigue. She was born Marietta Ronsperger in Vienna in 1887 (or, depending on which source you believe, 1890, 1892, or 1894). She married Jean Lydis in 1922, but left him for the Italian writer Massimo Bontempelli, who took her to Paris. In 1928 Mariette Lydis married the art publisher Comte Giuseppi Govone. Lydis had a great artistic success in 30s Paris, starting with a solo show at the Galerie Bernheim Jeune, after which she became a member and a juror at the Salon de Automne. Mariette Lydis fled the Nazis invasion of France with her lover Erica Marx, taking refuge in the sleepy Cotswold town of Winchcombe, before making a perilous voyage to Buenos Aires. Lydis was also close to the aviator Amelia Earhart. Mariette Lydis lived in Argentina for the rest of her life. Her style was influenced by that of the Japanese artist Tsuguharu Foujita, whom she knew in Montmartre. There is always an edge of ambiguous sexuality and danger in the art of Mariette Lydis, well-represented in our prints, hand-coloured drypoints for Verlaine's Parallelement and etchings and aquatints illustrating the poetry of Baudelaire and Rimbaud. Her work is in many major museums and collections worldwide.


Mariette Lydis working with a model

Minoan Women's Costume

Lilith

According to midrashic literature, Adam's first wife was not Eve but a woman named Lilith, who was created in the first Genesis account.

When God created Adam, he was lonely, so God created Lilith from the same dust from which Adam was molded. But they quarreled; Adam [the proverbial domineering male] wished to rule over Lilith. But Lilith [a militant feminist] was also proud and willful, claiming equality with Adam because she was created from the same dust.

One day Adam commanded Lilith to lay beneath him, she refused. She left Adam and fled the Garden. God sent three angels in pursuit of Lilith. They caught her and ordered her to return to Adam. She refused again.

They let her go, and God created Eve to be Adam's mate [created from Adam's rib, so that she couldn't claim equality]. Lilith was banished from the world of Adam and Eve but she occasionally managed to sneak back. She became Adam's forbidden fruit or the evil serpent, someone he could not forget about.

Who was she? Was there another woman that God created before Eve that rebelled? Was she an ancient Sumerian demon? Was she a counterpart to Lucifer? Was she the originator of demons and vampires? These questions and many others have been theorized and studied for centuries. One thing all accounts seem to agree upon... Lilith was a force to be reckoned with.

http://www.trueghosttales.com/who-was-lilith.php

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/eve-women/7evelilith.html

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/eve-women/lilithimages.html

Lady Godiva

Godiva was the wife of Leofric (968–1057), Earl of Mercia. was an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to legend, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in England in order to gain a remission of the oppressive toll imposed by her husband on his tenants. (People of Coventry, who were suffering grievously under her husband’s oppressive taxation.) Lady Godiva appealed again and again to her husband, who obstinately refused to remit the tolls. At last, weary of her entreaties, he said he would grant her request if she would ride naked through the streets of the town. Lady Godiva took him at his word. Another theory has it that Lady Godiva’s “nakedness” may refer to her riding through the streets stripped of her jewellery, the trademark of her upper class rank.