Collected for centuries experience of old masters Russian Goldwork embroidery

Russian Goldwork embroidery
The art of embroidery with the use of metal, gold, silver, or copper threads is called Goldwork. Goldwork embroidery masters usually used imitation of gold threads, gold-coated silver, and even if they used gold, it contained a very low percent of real gold. Originated in Asia 2000 years ago, it reached a high level of skill in the Medieval England, all over Europe, and Russia. Beautiful Goldwork was used in church vestments, hangings, later in clothing and furnishings of the royalty and nobility, then – military and official regalia. In Russia, more than in any other country, Goldwork is most commonly used for the highest-quality church vestments and art embroidery, for occasional and special use, due to both the expense of the materials and the time to create the embroidery, and because the threads will not hold up to frequent laundering of any kind.
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Nikola slothful Festival of land art. Art object of ‘Nikola slothful’ park in Kaluga region

Nikola slothful Festival of land art “Archstoyanie”
The biggest in Europe and Russia Festival of land art and architectural art takes place in the Park “Nikola slothful” (Russian – Nikola Lenivets). The festival was founded in 2006 by Nikolai Polissky, the oldest member of the festival, which is held twice a year. Nikola Lenivets village is located about 200 km from Moscow – in Kaluga region, on the banks of the river Ugra. Part of its territory belongs to the national park. It is open to creative experimentation and is constantly updated with new art objects. Specially invited architects create art objects made ​​of natural materials such as wood, snow, hay, vines, etc. Some objects are functional: rafts, swing, even the toilets. Most of the objects interact with the audience – they can go, ride, climb them.
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Leonardo da Vinci the Italian Faust

Leonardo da Vinci the Italian Faust.

Leonardo da Vinci, the great Italian painter, sculptor, architect, mechanic, engineer, biologist and natural philosopher was the inventor of the plane, the tank, the submarine, more than five hundred years ago. He was the “universal man”, about whom Giorgio Vasari, the artist, said in 1550: “The heavens often rain down the richest gifts on human beings, but sometimes with lavish abundance they bestow upon a single individual beauty, grace and ability, so that, whatever he does, every action is so divine that he surpasses all other men, and clearly displays how his genius is the gift of God and not an acquirement of human art”. His contemporaries looked at him as a magician, an investigator of mysterious phenomena. The next generations called Leonardo the Italian Faust.
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The Queen of Autumn. Miniature painting artist Svetlana Belovodova

Russian craftswoman, Miniature painting artist Svetlana Belovodova lives and works in the city of Dmitrov, Moscow region. Miniature painting has became her profession since she graduated with honors from glorious Fedoskino art school in 1996. Svetlana is a Member of the Union of Artists arts and crafts of Russia (2004). Belovodova loves her profession – to create beautiful fairy tales embodied in copyright exclusive handmade jewellery, miniature lacquer caskets and small panels. She also paints portraits in her fabulous technique.
Belovodova loves working with stones, beads, combining lacquer technique with embroidery and painting. She has been a permanent participant of art exhibitions on different levels – from local to national since 2011. Her artworks were exposed in All-Russian Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art (Moscow), Central House of Artists, State Duma of the Russian Federation, Polytechnic Museum.
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Ophelia. 1852. John Everett Millais (1829-1896). Pre-Raphaelites English phenomenon

Pre-Raphaelites English phenomenon
But it is only now that we choose to call attention to the fact. For it is only in the last sixty years that Pre-Raphaelite pictures have been pulled out of cellars and greeted with cries of admiration. Until quite recently it was felt that English painting, having contributed some very remarkable achievements to the Romantic Movement, and having pointed the way towards Impressionism, drifted with the Pre-Raphaelites – whose name derives from their attention to rediscover the simplicity of Italian Pre-Raphael paintings – into a mournful backwater from which it at least emerged under French influence.
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‘Spanish Dancer’, 1941. Van Clef & Arpels ballet story

Van Clef & Arpels ballet story
Since the introduction of Claude Arpel and George Balanchine, held in 1961, resulted in the creation of the famous ballet “Jewels” by jewelry house Van Clef & Arpels. The jewelry house is strongly associated with iridescent emeralds, rubies and diamonds ballerinas. However, sparkling brooch in the form of delicate ballet dancers appeared on the shelves of boutiques much earlier – at the beginning of World War II. And since then, Van Clef & Arpels repeatedly returned to this theme. As a result, appeared the whole “ballet story” lasting more than half a century.
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High jewelry watches. Swan decor. L’Heure Envoutée de Cartier collection. Watch in rhodium-plated 18-carat white gold, pear-shaped and briolette-cut diamonds, emerald eye. Bracelet in natural pearls. Quartz movement. Unique piece

Some Time pieces have ceased to be just an instrument for measuring time. Now, High jewelry watches is a luxury item, a kind of confirmation of social status, the subject of watchmaking and sample of the unique work of the best masters. Many brands are creating not only technically complex and unique things, but also incredibly beautiful watches. Some of them can hardly be called watches at all, but rather luxury bracelets, studded with precious stones, hiding little subtle dials in the heart, for instance, this selection of the most outstanding works of watch and jewelry brands.
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Tiger Lily, 2011. Realistic flowers knitted by Tatyana Yanishevsky

Realistic flowers knitted by Tatyana Yanishevsky, talented self-taught American artist, born in the Soviet Union. Biologist by education (Brown University), Tatyana Yanishevsky reproduces anatomically correct botanical forms created out of yarn, in her studio in Providence, Rhode Island. Her featured artwork “The Knit Garden” includes hand-knitted flowers and plants, created in a variety of fibers, colors, and stitches. The reality of knitted plants is seen in various organs of the plant, and the knitting process, stitch by stitch, conceptually mimics plant growth. And, her sculptures vary – in scale and range, in form and style, and from realistic to abstract. As a matter of fact, these beautiful realistic knitted flowers is a result of the deep knowledge of the subject. Besides, the artist taught herself how to knit, dissected flowers and studied their anatomy in textbooks and greenhouses. As Tatyana Yanishevsky says, “It was a knitting challenge to create those forms, to have them be three-dimensional and puffed out where they needed to be”.
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Ophelia, 1870. Pierre Auguste Cot (1837 – 1883), French painter. Date a girl who reads

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve. It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does. Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

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