The Wrestlers is an oil painting by English artist William Etty, painted
around 1840 in the life class of the Royal Academy. It depicts a
wrestling match between a black man and a white man, both glistening
with sweat and under an intense light that emphasises their musculature.
Etty was best known for his paintings of nude or near-nude women in
historical and mythological settings but had also painted men involved
in various forms of combat. At that time, sports were becoming
increasingly popular, and the painting is both a reflection of this
trend and a part of the English tradition of copying poses from
classical Hellenistic works. It was also a time of change in the British
attitude to race relations. In this period Etty often made a conscious
effort to illustrate moral lessons in his work, and it is not clear
whether he chose the topic as a form of social commentary or simply
because the contrast between the dark and pale flesh tones was visually
striking. The Wrestlers, as part of a private collection, was not seen
publicly from about 1849 until 1947, when it was put on sale and
purchased by the York Art Gallery, where it remains.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrestlers_(Etty)>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1860:
South Carolina became the first of eleven slave states to
secede from the United States, leading to the eventual creation of the
Confederate States of America and later the American Civil War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America>
1955:
Cardiff (Cardiff City Hall pictured) was proclaimed as the
capital of Wales.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff>
1957:
The first flight of the Boeing 707, the first commercially
successful jet airliner, took place.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_707>
1995:
As per the Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian War, the
NATO-led IFOR began peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implementation_Force>
2005:
US district court Judge John E. Jones III ruled against
mandating the teaching of "intelligent design" in his ruling of
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District>
2007:
Pablo Picasso's Portrait of Suzanne Bloch was stolen from the
São Paulo Museum of Art.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Suzanne_Bloch>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
apeirogon:
(mathematics, geometry) A polygon having an infinite number of sides and
vertices.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apeirogon>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
I see a fulfilment of the great Law of all worlds, that while the
wisdom of Man thinks it is working one thing, the wisdom of Nature
constrains it to work another, and quite a different and far better
thing.
--Edwin Abbott Abbott
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edwin_Abbott_Abbott>