Caravaggio- Bacchus

            Caravaggio was a painter during the late renaissance, which in my opinion did a great job in creating 3 dimensional paintings. Caravaggio is also known for his amazing contrast and background skills.

            This painting is his interpretation of the ancient Roman god Bacchus drawn in 1595, which is the god of wine and celebration. Caravaggio is very different from the other artists during the renaissance because of his amazing skill of showing different emotions in paintings. This certain piece was drawn in Uffizi, Florence, by oil on canvas.

In this piece everything seems very proportional in contrast to the other renaissance painters, but if we look into detail we can see that in this painting the head or the face of Bacchus doesn’t seem to match his body, because at first if you look at his face it seems like it should belong to a frail teenage boy rather than to a powerful ancient Roman god. Also there is some curving going in his torso since he is supposed to be leaning against his hand. If the painting were to be drawn fully then the arms of Bacchus would probably be too short for his body. In this painting Bacchus was drawn as he is giving someone his glass of wine in his left hand, If the painting were to be looked at closely it doesn’t really show that his arm is fully stretched nor that is slightly bent, it just looks like his arm is too short for his body. The most obvious and the biggest error in this painting that I noticed, is that the wine looks like it’s floating on air and isn’t contained in anything.

This painting is quite a good example of a renaissance drawing, and Caravaggio was an amazing painter. 

Image: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/caravaggio/bacchus.jpg

Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacchus_(Caravaggio)

Victim

Victim

            Hello to anyone who is reading this. Today my little village was attacked by a whole group of vandals. I never knew that would happen, I was sure that our village could defend itself from any kind of danger.

 At the moment of the attack I was on the farm gathering supplies in order to live. I heard the village bell ring to signal all of us that an attack is going to happen. Everyone hurried off the field, all my friends, everyone I knew. My job was hard and besides I was on a huge field behind our village so I had no intention of stopping and running back only to hear that they defeated some attackers while we were running back, so I continued to work. I was the only one working and that was a great chance to gather the most and be praised by our emperor. It took some time before I heard the yells of the raiders and my fellow villagers. At first I froze on the spot, I didn’t know what I had to do, I felt like I forgot how to run. I stood on the spot for some time and then finally when I actually started seeing smoke and saw them running towards me I decided to run into the woods.

I didn’t know who were these raiders. Where they Vikings? Where they from another kingdom? If I knew who these men were I could at least somehow figure out where to run. At the end of the forest there was the seashore and at that moment I thought that I could run and hide there for a while until the fighting stops. Suddenly I heard voices from the side of the sea. I stopped and realized that these raiders were actually Vikings, I was paralyzed with the idea that I was completely surrounded by 50 Vikings from both sides. All the stories I heard about them made my legs shake even more. The voices were getting closer to me and soon I started getting dizzy, everything started spinning and I fell to the ground. I lay there for a while thinking that I shouldn’t even try running away because it would still be hopeless. Suddenly I realized that there was a huge tree a couple of meters away from me just standing there ready for me to climb. I was a master of climbing trees when I was little and right now the only thing I hoped for is for those skills to still be in me. The voices of the Vikings were getting louder and louder around me. I hopped on the trunk and started climbing as fast as I could. At that point I realized that I was safe and nothing else could hurt me. I was right, when I got down no-one was around. My village stood silent not so far away and I could hear every little noise and animal in the woods. 

9/11

9/11

            Today we remember the horrible event that has happened on September 11 2001. On that day it had taken and even changed so many lives of families. The victims of the 9/11 weren’t only the people who died in that incident but also the families and those who helped clean the whole mess up. Now hundreds of fire men and people surrounding the building have either horrible lung problems or even lung cancer. 9/11 has not even affected us directly but made us more aware and scared or terrorist attacks. 

            When I was first saw the event on TV I was only 5 years old, my mom just brought me home from the kindergarten and my dad was watching the news. I remember him being depressed since he has lived in New York for about 40 years and it has become a second home to him. I didn’t think what it was serious, I thought it was a movie, or just some everyday news since back then I thought everything on the news was about destruction. Back then the only death I was in contact with was the death of birds. I had no idea that there actually could be an event that could have killed thousands of people. I remember these news being the only news they were showing 24/7. Since I was 5 years old and living in a complete other country I had no intention of doing anything or worry about that event.

            Later in life when I just entered 8^th grade I realized how important and horrible this event actually was.

            The good side is that since the 9/11 incident there was more security and everyone became more aware of terrorists. People starting taking security checks more seriously hence airports became safer. One the other things got more complicated in the airport with the passport checks and the nationality or the country you came from.

I don’t think anything has changed about preventing the terrorism. Because one of us can prevent something completely, there is always a percent that something can happen. The lesson that we should all learn from this is that we can’t take everything for granted and we should always keep in our mind that anything can happen at any moment. 

Opinion on the Dark Ages

Opinion on the dark ages

            The Dark ages (also referred as to the Middle Ages) not only destroyed and ruined many things and lives but also helped to create new things that were used throughout the society for many years after. Some things from the Dark Ages were even used until recently but improved and changed to best fit to our environment now.  Some things that came out of the Dark Ages were: New ways of torture, people got a better understanding of the plague and how to escape it, church became more popular than ever. Not all of those things helped the society but some were spread throughout the society until the Dark Ages ended.

            During the Dark Ages there were a lot of new ways of torture were created.  Also during that time period a lot of new devices for torture came out, some of these thing were mostly created by rulers, church and people in power to torture innocent men and women accused of being a with or practicing “black magic”, prisoners, or enemies. Some of the torture devices and techniques were using the stretching machine to stretch and disconnect their muscles and or bones. Another technique was to put heavy stones on people so basically by the end of the torture they would just die of being crushed by stone.  Another way of torture was made up by one of the rulers during the Dark Ages and that technique was one of the cruelest ones. He made it up for his prisoners, and inspired so much by Church after the torture they would either get killed or they would continue to be his prisoner. The torture was to find a pebble in a cattle full of boiling water. If their third degree burns started to heal up in less than 3 days than they would be innocent and clear off bad thoughts, if the burns wouldn’t start healing than they have sinned and they are not clear therefore they would have to get executed. Other techniques would be boiling water, whipping and other things similar to that.

            The second most important thing during the Dark Ages/Middle Ages was the Church. It was one of the most important things in peoples lives and helped keep them motivated. The church was the only power they trusted and listened besides the King and other different royalty.  Church/Religion was one of the best and the worst things that has happened at that time. The good thing was that it could keep anyone motivated; the rich and the poor. The bad thing was that it has motivated a lot of kings and conquerors to do things that were so horrible that no-one themselves would ever think about. The Church soon  became the source of ideas for Kings and other people in power.

Since the Dark Ages was the time period when different plagues were spread (including the deadliest plague of that time; the bubonic plague) people learned a lot about hiding from it and avoiding getting sick. During the Dark Ages the majority of people weren’t that educated and thought that everything was linked through religion and god.  Since that was the case many people stuck to saving themselves by whipping and beating themselves so god would have mercy and stop the plague from spreading. Some people got that by torturing themselves it would get them no-where and tried to cure themselves by gathering different herbs and eating them hoping to get better. There was also some percent of people who thought none of this would work and decided that the best thing to do was to move or isolate themselves from the infected. The majority of people who have done that were lucky survivors of the plagues that was brought upon their homeland. Those people who did survive were mostly the people who wanted a new start and helped with the creation of Renaissance.

            The Dark Ages (also known as the Middle Ages) have brought a lot of good and bad things. It was a horrible and terrifying time for most people but all those horrid events that have happened were also the ones that made people realize all their mistakes and give them a reason to start to rebuild and create something new in their lives.