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Three Ways to Discover New Music From NPR

March 28, 2014 by

National Public Radio is a wonderful resource for music from every type of genre, as well as all over the world. The station features both undiscovered talent and acclaimed, award-winning musicians in a variety of different formats. Check out these NPR music shows and you just may find your new favorite artist.

Mountain Stage
Broadcasted from West Virginia’s beautiful Mountain Stage, a beloved venue for over 25 years, this show features some of the best modern singers and songwriters in a great live setting. It offers performances from acts like Paula Cole, Billy Bragg, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and many more.

World Café
World Café, one of NPR’s most popular music shows, aims to feature the best essential and emerging artists. Hosted by the knowledgeable David Dye and recorded in Philadelphia, the World Café offers interviews and in-studio performances online and on NPR affiliates across the country.

JazzSet
If you’re a fan of the jazz, you’ll look forward to JazzSet every week. Offering performances from today’s best jazz performers from all around the world, this show will help you discover new artists each time you tune in. The NPR website also features full video recordings of each performance.

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Five Interesting Facts About Pierre-Auguste Renoir

February 21, 2014 by

One of the most prolific painters of his time, Pierre-Auguste Renoir made his mark in the art world during his life and beyond. This famous impressionist painter also experimented with other styles that contributed to the uniqueness of his work. Read on to find out more about this extraordinary artist.

He painted a portrait in 35 minutes.
Renoir went to visit the German composer Richard Wagner at his home in 1882 after many attempts to meet the musician he greatly admired. 35 minutes later, Wagner had his likeness recreated by a master who was inspired and motivated by the greatness he had encountered.

He was well-traveled.
Renoir spent much of his time traveling around the world to view work by artists from all cultures. He ventured all over Europe and northern Africa, spending time looking at pieces from Velasquez and Raphael, among others.

He influenced the modern film industry.
Two of Renoir’s children went on to become well-known in the film industry.  His son Jean Renoir became an award-winning director and while his other son, Pierre, became an sought after actor.

He saw his own work at the Louvre.
A truly honorable experience for any living artist, Renoir was able to see one of his works on display at the prestigious Louvre museum in Paris, France. In 1919, he visited the museum to see it hung amongst the other master of Impressionism.

His painting sold for $7 in 2012.
Unexpectedly, a Renoir painting entitled Paysage Bords de Seine was bought by an American woman in a box of other items at a flea market for $7. When it was discovered to be an original Renoir, it was valued at almost $100,000. It was also found to be stolen and the new owner was forced to return it without compensation.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Biography [Biography]
10 Things You Didn’t Know About French Painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir [Huffington Post]
Ten Facts About Pierre-Auguste Renoir [Surf Net Kids]

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Most Important Philosophers of All Time

March 8, 2013 by

Philosophy is, in a nutshell, the study of the human experience – how we understand and react to the world. There have been a number of important thinkers who developed the discipline, but these five philosophers are the ones that you need to know.

Plato
The founder of the first school of higher education in the Western world, Plato’s teachings inspired virtually every future thinker in Western philosophy. His theories of forms, immaterial abstractions that possess the true nature of their material counterparts, is vital for study of philosophy.

Aristotle
Without Aristotle’s development of written systems to analyze and criticize, the development of philosophy would have been very different. His teachings covered an incredibly broad spectrum of subjects.

Rene Descartes
Widely regarded as the father of modern philosophy, Descartes was not only a great thinker who advanced the concept of dualism, he also developed Cartesian geometry, one of the most important mathematical breakthroughs of the 17th century.

Confucius
The central thinker of Eastern philosophy, Master Kong Qiu, who we know as Confucius, was born in 551 BC and helped make the empires of China some of the most robust on Earth. His systems of morals and ethics paralleled and even surpassed the ones being developed in Greece at the same time.

John Locke
Regarded as the “Father of Liberalism,” philosopher John Locke brought concepts of humanism and universal freedom into the arena of thought. He was a huge influence on the framers of the Constitution and the first Presidents of the United States.

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Five of History’s Most Eccentric Artists

November 30, 2012 by
A high degree of creativity has frequently been known to bring with it an ample dose of eccentricity. History is full of artists and other extremely innovative thinkers whose behavior fell outside the realm of the status quo. Read on to learn about some of the most idiosyncratic artistic figures that ever existed: 
 
Vincent Van Gogh, 1853 – 1890
Van Gogh was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose originality and brilliance made a huge impact on the visual arts. His eccentricities displayed themselves from an early age. He was unable to hold a job due to his wild emotional swerves and unusual behavior, and his personal life was a roller coaster as well – at one point, he stuck his hand in a flaming lamp in order to get the attention of a woman who had rejected his marriage proposal. His most iconic and famous act of eccentricity is an incident in which he cut off part of his ear.
 
Andy Warhol, 1928 – 1987
Andy Warhol was a major figure in the American pop art movement, creating works that explored the interactions between advertisement, capitalism, celebrity culture, and artistic expression. His public persona was noted for its unpredictability and eccentricity, and this way of acting (behavior focused on challenging social norms) added to his cache as an artist. 
 
Salvador Dali, 1904 – 1989
Salvador Dali was a Spanish surrealist painter whose highly innovative, imaginative, and vivid work continues to yield a huge impact on the visual arts today. He was famous for living entirely on his own terms, never concerned about fitting into the norms of mainstream society. He wore a dramatic fake mustache, kept an exotic ocelot as a pet, donned elaborate capes and walking ticks, and referred to himself in the third person during interviews, among many other eccentric tendencies. 
 
Henry Darger, 1892 – 1973
Henry Darger was an American writer and artist who became famous after death when his 15, 145 page manuscript was found, along with hundreds of drawings and paintings illustrating the book. He has become celebrated as a symbol of the “Outsider Artist” in American culture – that is, an artist who has not been formally trained and does not have any involvement with the art world. Darger lived a reclusive and eccentric existence as a menial worker at a hospital, befriending very few people and spending his spare time compulsively collecting bits of trash. 
 
Michelangelo
Michelangelo was a celebrated Italian painter and sculptor during the Renaissance period. His stunningly ingenious works and polymathic mind made him a major artistic figure of his time and long afterwards. He was also well known for his personality quirks and unusual tics – for example, there are many stories of him having temper flare-ups and screaming at statues. Michelangelo also distributed lifestyle eccentricities, living in squalor like a pauper despite his financial successes as an artist. His assistants claimed that he often slept with his shoes up and rarely changed his clothes. 
 
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