2024年1月12日 星期五

damask, retrenchment, porcelains, lacquerware,

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.’ - John Singer Sargent, born on this day 1856. 🎨 🖌️
This is one of a series of portraits Sargent was commissioned to make of the family of the art dealer Asher Wertheimer, and shows Wertheimer’s eldest daughters, Betty (on the left) and Ena (on the right).
Sargent was attracted by the charm of the Wertheimer family, especially the energy of Ena, something which is clearly revealed in this portrait. The different textures of the sisters’ dresses are skilfully brought to life, with the rich depth of Betty’s red velvet contrasting elegantly with the shine of Ena’s white damask.
Currently on show in Boston, the painting will be joining us for our upcoming exhibition Sargent and Fashion, opening 22 February at Tate Britain. https://bit.ly/3RTc3iA
🎨 John Singer Sargent, Ena and Betty, Daughters of Asher and Mrs Wertheimer, 1901
A three-quarter length portrait painting of two women, one in a red red, the other in white.

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"At a time of mass unemployment, it's clear, the economics textbooks tell us, that this is not the right time for fiscal retrenchment. To watch it be ignored like this is exasperating, horrifying, disheartening."
JUSTIN WOLFERS, an economics professor at the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.


Carrefour CEO Offers Fixes
Carrefour's new CEO said he would reduce debt, cut overhead costs and give more autonomy to stores in France, as part of a turnaround that will take three years. He also hinted at a retrenchment in some overseas markets.

A hundred years before Columbus and his fellow Europeans began making their way to the New World, fleets of giant Chinese junks commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He and filled with the empire's finest porcelains, lacquerware, and silk ventured to the edge of the world's "four corners." It was a time of exploration and conquest, but it ended in a retrenchment so complete that less than a century later, it was a crime to go to sea in a multimasted ship. In When China Ruled the Seas , Louise Levathes takes a fascinating and unprecedented look at this dynamic period in China's enigmatic history, focusing on China's rise as a naval power that literally could have ruled the world and at its precipitious plunge into isolation when a new emperor ascended the Dragon Throne.




Thy gracious ways,
O lady of my heart, have
O'er all my thought their golden glamour cast;
As amber torch-flames, where strange men-at-arms
Tread softly 'neath the damask shield of night,
Rise from the flowing steel in part reflected,
So on my mailed thought that with thee goeth,
Though dark the way, a golden glamour falleth.


damask
(dăm'əsk) pronunciation
n.
  1. A rich patterned fabric of cotton, linen, silk, or wool.
  2. A fine, twilled table linen.
  3. Damascus steel.
  4. The wavy pattern on Damascus steel.
tr.v., -asked, -ask·ing, -asks.
  1. To damascene.
  2. To decorate or weave with rich patterns.
[Middle English, Damascus, damask, from Latin Damascus, from Greek Damaskos.]
damask dam'ask adj.

retrench

Pronunciation: /rɪˈtrɛn(t)ʃ/
Translate retrench | into Italian

verb

[no object]
  • (of an organization or individual) reduce costs or spending in response to economic difficulty:as a result of the recession the company retrenched [with object]:if people are forced to retrench their expenditure trade will suffer
  • [with object] Australian & South African make (an employee) redundant:if there are excess staff they should be retrenched
  • [with object] formal reduce (something) in extent or quantity:right-wing parties which seek to retrench the welfare state


Derivatives




retrenchment

noun

Origin:

late 16th century (in the now formal usage): from obsolete French retrencher, variant of retrancher, from re- (expressing reversal) + trancher 'to cut, slice'

retrenchment[re・trench・ment]

[名]((形式))[U][C]短縮, 縮小, 減少;(費用の)切り詰め, 削減, 節約;((豪))人員整理, 解雇.

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