may 22
RICHARD WAGNER (May 22, 1813)
May 22 is birthday of German composer RICHARD WAGNER (1813-1883).
"I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Thought vibrating the ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired."
Wagner "was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ('total work of art'), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)." (Wikipedia)
MARY CASSATT (May 22, 1844)
May 22 is the birthday of American painter MARY CASSATT (1844-1926).
"If painting is no longer needed, it seems a pity that some of us are born into the world with such a passion for line and color."
Cassatt "was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children." (Wikipedia)
Mother and Child
Little Girl in a Blue Armchair
Girl Arranging Her Hair
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (May 22, 1859)
May 22 is the birthday of ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (1859-1930).
"My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation."
Doyle "was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction.
Doyle was a prolific writer; other than Holmes stories, his works include fantasy and science fiction stories about Professor Challenger, and humorous stories about the Napoleonic soldier Brigadier Gerard, as well as plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels. One of Doyle's early short stories, 'J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement' (1884), helped to popularise the mystery of the Mary Celeste." (Wikipedia)
JULIUS KLINGER (May 22, 1876)
May 22 is the birthday of Austrian painter, draftsman, illustrator, commercial graphic artist, typographer and writer JULIUS KLINGER (1876-1942).
"Being of Jewish descent, he suffered from national socialist harassment. According to Viennese police records, he was registered as moved to Minsk on 2 June 1942, i.e. deported. Presumably, he was killed the same year." (Wikipedia)
Poster for "Tabu"-cigarette paper (1919).
Cravates Hermanns & Froitzheim (1911).
poster
HERGÉ (May 22, 1907)
May 22 is the birthday of Belgian cartoonist HERGÉ (1907-1983).
"Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles in a thundering typhoon!"
Hergé is best know for the "Adventures of Tintin" series, "set during a largely realistic 20th century. Its protagonist is Tintin, a courageous young Belgian reporter and adventurer aided by his faithful dog Snowy (Milou in the original French edition). Other allies include the brash and cynical Captain Haddock, the intelligent but hearing-impaired Professor Calculus (French: Professeur Tournesol), incompetent detectives Thomson and Thompson (French: Dupont et Dupond), and the opera diva Bianca Castafiore." (Wikipedia)
Tintin and Friends
In the Moonlight
Tintin and Snowy
SIR LAURENCE OLIVIER (May 22, 1907)
May 22 is the birthday of SIR LAURENCE OLIVIER (1907-1989).
"I often think that could we creep behind the actor's eyes, we would find an attic of forgotten toys and a copy of the Domesday Book"
Among Olivier's films are "Wuthering Heights (1939), Rebecca (1940) and a trilogy of Shakespeare films as actor/director: Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1948) and Richard III (1955). His later films included Spartacus (1960), The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), Sleuth (1972), Marathon Man (1976) and The Boys from Brazil (1978). His television appearances included an adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence (1960), Long Day's Journey into Night (1973), Love Among the Ruins (1975), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976), Brideshead Revisited (1981) and King Lear (1983).
SUN RA (May 22, 1914)
May 22 is the birthday of pianist, bandleader, composer and poet SUN RA (1914-1993). Ra was born on Saturn of the Angel Race and was the foremost proponent of Afrofuturism.
"I never wanted to be a part of planet Earth, but I am compelled to be here, so anything I do for this planet is because the Master-Creator of the Universe is making me do it. I am of another dimension. I am on this planet because people need me.”
"Well, actually, I'm a psychic being, and you know, we don't concern ourselves with being born; we concern ourselves with being eternal; we deal with the spirit.”
"What I'm dealing with is so vast and great that it can't be called the truth. It's above the truth."
HIDEAKI ANNO (b. May 22, 1960)
May 22 is the birthday of HIDEAKI ANNO. The Japanese anime master and animator is 64-years-old today.
Anno " is best known for creating the popular anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, as well as its theatrical ending film The End of Evangelion. His style has become defined by his incorporation of postmodernism and the extensive portrayal of characters' thoughts and emotions, often through unconventional scenes presenting the mental deconstruction of those characters ...
Evangelion is set fifteen years after a worldwide cataclysm, particularly in the futuristic fortified city of Tokyo-3. The protagonist is Shinji, a teenage boy who was recruited by his father Gendo to the shadowy organization Nerv to pilot a giant bio-machine mecha called an "Evangelion" into combat with alien beings called "Angels". The series explores the experiences and emotions of Evangelion pilots and members of Nerv as they try to prevent Angels from causing more cataclysms. In the process they are called upon to understand the ultimate causes of events and the motives for human action. The series features archetypal imagery derived from Shinto cosmology as well as Jewish and Christian mystical traditions, including Midrashic tales, Kabbalah and Gnosticism. The psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Jung also feature prominently." (Wikipedia)
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
VERDI REQUIEM
On May 22, 1874, Verdi's Requiem was was first performed at San Marco in Milan on the first anniversary of the death of Alessandro Manzoni, the Italian poet, novelist and philosopher.