Portrait of a Lady is a small oil-on-oak panel executed around 1460 by the Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. The composition is built from underlying geometric shapes that form the lines of the woman's veil, neckline, face and arms, and by the fall of the light that illuminates her face and headdress. Van der Weyden was preoccupied by portraiture towards the end of his life and was highly regarded by later generations of painters for his penetrating evocations of character. In this work, the woman's humility and reserved demeanour are conveyed through her fragile physique, lowered eyes and tightly grasped fingers. She is slender and depicted according to the Gothic ideal of elongated features, indicated by her narrow shoulders, tightly pinned hair, long forehead and the elaborate frame set the headdress. It is the only known portrait of a woman signed by van der Weyden, yet the sitter's name is not recorded and he did not title the work. Although van der Weyden did not adhere to the conventions of idealisation, he generally sought to flatter his sitters. He depicted his models in highly fashionable clothing, often with rounded—almost sculpted—facial features, some of which deviated from natural representation. He adapted his own aesthetic, and his portraits of women often bear a striking resemblance to each other. Since 1937, the painting has been held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. It has been described as "famous among all portraits of women of all schools".

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_a_Lady_%28van_der_Weyden%29

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1776:

American Revolutionary War: British forces defeated the Continental Army at the Battle of Trois-Rivières, the last major battle fought on Quebec soil that was part of the American colonists' invasion of Quebec. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trois-Rivi%C3%A8res

1783:

Iceland's Laki craters began an eight-month eruption, triggering major famine and massive fluorine poisoning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki

1950:

Thomas Blamey became Australia's first, and currently only, Field Marshal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Blamey

1967:

The Israeli Air Force attacked the U.S. Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty in international waters, killing 34 and wounding at least 173. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident

1995:

Danish-Greenlandic programmer Rasmus Lerdorf released the first public version of the scripting language PHP for producing dynamic web pages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

isometric (adj): 1. Of, or exhibiting equality in dimensions. 2. Of, or being a geometric system of three equal axes lying at right angles to each other. 3. (physiology) Of or involving muscular contraction against resistance in which the length of the muscle remains the same. 4. (physics, of a thermodynamic process) Taking place at constant volume as a result of being confined by rigid boundaries http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/isometric

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The scientist has marched in and taken the place of the poet. But one day somebody will find the solution to the problems of the world and remember, it will be a poet, not a scientist. --Frank Lloyd Wright http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wright