100px|The Entombment
The Entombment is a glue-size painting on linen attributed to the
Early Netherlandish painter Dirk Bouts. It shows a scene from the
biblical entombment of Christ, probably completed between 1440 and 1455
as a wing panel for a large hinged polyptych altarpiece. The now lost
altarpiece is thought to have contained a central crucifixion scene
flanked by four wing panel works half its length (two either side)
depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The larger work was probably
commissioned for export, possibly to a Venetian patron whose identity
is lost. The Entombment was first recorded in a mid-19th century Milan
inventory and has been in the National Gallery, London since its
purchase on the gallery's behalf by Charles Eastlake in 1861. The
Entombment is renowned for its austere but affecting portrayal of
sorrow and grief. It shows four female and three male mourners grieving
over the body of Christ. It is one of the few surviving 15th-century
paintings created using glue-size, an extremely fragile medium lacking
durability. (more...)
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Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entombment_%28Bouts%29>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1797:
The first official Italian tricolour was adopted by the government of
the Cispadane Republic.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Italy>
1940:
Winter War: The Finnish 9th Division stopped and completely destroyed
the overwhelming Soviet forces on the Raate-Suomussalmi road.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Raate_Road>
1979:
The Vietnam People's Army captured the Cambodian capital city Phnom
Penh, deposing Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, which marked the end of
large-scale fighting in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian%E2%80%93Vietnamese_War>
1993:
The Fourth Republic of Ghana was inaugurated with Jerry Rawlings as its
president.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ghana>
2010:
Muslim gunmen opened fire on a crowd of Coptic Christians leaving
church after celebrating a midnight Christmas Mass, killing eight of
them as well as one Muslim bystander.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nag_Hammadi_massacre>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
tin ear (n):
Insensitivity to and inability to appreciate the elements of performed
music or the rhythm, elegance, or nuances of language
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tin_ear>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
We have inherited an incredibly beautiful and complex garden, but the
trouble is that we have been appallingly bad gardeners. We have not
bothered to acquaint ourselves with the simplest principles of
gardening. By neglecting our garden, we are storing up for ourselves,
in the not very distant future, a world catastrophe as bad as any
atomic war, and we are doing it with all the bland complacency of an
idiot child chopping up a Rembrandt with a pair of scissors.
--Gerald Durrell
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gerald_Durrell>
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