Raja Ravi Varma

Lately the painter Raja Ravi Varma has been in news since 2 movie makers have been showing keen interest in his life and past to be captured on-screen.

A few facts about the life of the famous painter :
Born in 1848 in Killimanor Palace to Umamba and Neelakandan Bhattathiripad
A scion of the royal family in Kerala
Since the age of seven he showed keen interest in art and was tutored in water painting by Ramaswamy Naidu, then oil painting by Theodor Jenson - a british painter
Left his family, wife and children in Kerala and came to settle in Mumbai where he met Sugunabai - a marathi lady who became his muse and his love interest
mostly painted mythological characters, goddesses
came to be acknowledged globally when he won the Vienna Exhibition in 1873
passed away in 1906

Art Auctions : Picasso or Gustav ?

A recent auction by Sotheby's sold more of Gustav Klimdt and not Picasso. Is the Spanish artist losing out to the Austrian one? The highest a Picasso had been sold for was ~USD 100 mn, way back in 2004. Whoa! this amount seems large.This time round, the highest bid was ~USD 8mn. I hope the reporting agency has got their facts right.

Another interesting - to put up a painting for auction, an auction house first ties up with the owner of the piece. The auction house signs on an assured guarantee, an amount that is predecided on consulting owner of the piece. If the painting does not get sold at the auction or soon after it, the auction house needs to pay the amount to the owner. However, what I am not sure of is whether the painting needs to be returned to the owner along with the amount or does it remain with the auction house until they are able to find a suitable buyer.

Amrita Sher-Gil

Few know that the eminent artist passed away in her flat in Lahore in Dec, 1941, few weeks short of her 29th birthday. Some myths relating to her death are; she suffered from indigestion after having some pakoras, had an abortion which was not properly executed, succumbed to syphilis of which she suffered since many years. It left many taking a wild guess about how.

She was married to Victor Egan, a distant cousin, who was a doctor by profession. Although her works sell for a few millions today, it was not so a few decades back while she still lived.Her art sold poorly in her lifetime and she had trouble making a living. She was quite tactless as a sales person or as a propagator of her own art, mentions an art collector.

However she was a prolific writer like she was an artist. She once wrote to Victor, her husband, "I have to work hard, I have to work fast, because my time is very short". Did she have a premonition, did she know she was dying.

Her dad, Umrao Sher-Gil was an aristocrat married to a Hungarian pianist, a pioneer of early photography in India. He was a Persian and Sanskrit scholar, a yoga practitioner and a Tolstoyian figure.

Recently her nephew Vivan Sundaram displayed digital pictures of his aunt, her works and Umrao's early photographs at Munich. Some of her popular works include 'Hill men', 'Hill women', 'South Indian villagers going to the market', 'Self portrait of Tahitian', 'Two girls'.

Buy,Sell and Collect

In the words of Larry Gagosian "Art is not tradeable, like an asset". Larry is one of the most astute dealers in the art world. He started off as a small time poster vendor on the streets of California, LA, but moved on to become a key dealer in art.

I quite agree when he says that Art is not meant for investment by hedge funds (primarily because of lack of expertise), and nor is it meant to be a part of a diverse investment portfolio. One can't flip it around like stocks or real estate, which is picked up one month and a whooping profit made when it is sold after a couple more. It is meant for "long term investment". Like wine, art becomes more expensive as it matures. A Picaaso would be a better investment than a Chevrolet!

When one buys art, one should buy what "one likes" and not what "others like". Chances are that the art may not appreciate as you hoped it would and eventually, you wouldn't want it on your wall as well if you hadn't liked it in the first place.

Another interesting fact about artists and art dealers(who act as commission agents/ brokers) is that the collections are split usually in the 50/50 ratio, unless ofcourse the artist is a highly regarded and popular one.

The art business, as Larry mentions, "has a special quality to it because people care about art. There is a social dimension. And the art business can be very entrepreneurial. You don't need a lot of capital to get into it."

Opinions sourced from Knowledge@Wharton.
Tnx GS

A few of my favorite poems

Daffodils by William Wordsworth (1804)

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:

I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Chanting Nam Myoho Renge kyo

Topics in this section :
How do I chant? | What should I think about? | How long should I chant for?

How do you chant? Don't worry, it's simple, really. Try to find somewhere where you won't be disturbed for a little while, or have to worry about disturbing others. Sit on an upright chair, facing a blank spot on a wall - so there are no distractions.. Keep your eyes open, and your back as straight as you can - but don't be uncomfortable. Hold your hands together, so as to keep them still - you may wish to hold them as in prayer - again, don't be uncomfortable. Set yourself a time for how long you will chant, and stick to it. Remember, it doesn't really matter whether it's 2 minutes, 10 or twenty, the point is to set a time and stick to it. Just be determined to keep chanting till the time is up - at first, you might find that this takes quite a lot of determination! Repeat the phrase NAM-MYOHO-RENGE-KYO over and over rythmically, until the time limit you have set is up. For a guide to how to pronounce the words, click here. When you first begin to chant you will probably want to chant quite slowly but this will naturally speed up as you become more familiar with it. If you would like to hear what it sounds like when people are chanting a little faster click here for an audio file.

What should you think about when you chant? There is no special recommendation - just whatever comes. Just keep steadily chanting, try not to get so lost in your thoughts that you stop! Before you begin to chant, you might like to take a moment to fix a thought in your mind - something you want to change or achieve. This can be anything you like, from the smallest to the biggest thing you can imagine. Often, when people start to chant, they want to set a specific goal, and see if chanting helps them achieve it - "I want to buy a new car by next Tuesday" - for example! Don't be afraid to test the practice in this way - nothing says that your aims have to be "spiritual" or noble - just chant for whatever is important to you - to improve your material circumstances, your relationships, whatever. Don't expect miracles overnight - a situation that's taken years to build up might take a while to change. However, be prepared to be surprised by how quickly you can make a difference to some things! The whole point is to be guided by your own wisdom - right now you may not believe you have any, but chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo will help you realise that you do, and that you can trust the decisions you come to when chanting. To sum up: a number of possible subjects might act as the focus for your thoughts whilst chanting - a particular problem to be resolved; a difficult decision to make; or the best course of action to follow in a given situation. Likewise, you could be focused on emotional situations, and look for ways of coping with them; or thinking of the well- being of another individual. Or your thoughts might be on personal wishes and wants, goals or determinations.

How long you should chant for? This is up to each person but as a guide people are often recommended to chant for about 15 minutes morning or evening (though of course you are free to chant less or more as you wish). It is however a good idea to try to get into a regular rhythm of chanting a little in the morning and evening rather than chanting a lot one day and none the next. Once again, it doesn't really matter whether it's 2 minutes, 10 or twenty, the point is to set a time limit and stick to it. Just keep on chanting till the time is up.

Nam rhymes with Pam and jam! It's pronounced just as the last part of the word Vietnam. To hear a recording of how Nam is pronounced, click here.

Myoho comes in two parts. Myo rhymes with go, and is pronounced m' o. Ho also rhymes with go. The whole word sounds like m' o-ho. To hear a recording of how Myoho is pronounced, click here.

Renge also is a two-part word. The first part, Ren, rhymes with hen and sounds just like the last part of the word children. Ge is pronounced exactly like the word gay, and rhymes with hay and stay. The whole word sounds like ren-gay. To hear a recording of how Renge is pronounced, click here.

Kyo also rhymes with go, and sounds just like the last part of Tokyo. To hear a recording of how Kyo is pronounced, click here.

The whole phrase, NAM-MYOHO-RENGE-KYO is pronounced nam-m' o-ho-ren-gay-kyo. To hear a recording of how Nam Myoho Renge Kyo is pronounced, click here.

Karma as defined by Buddhism

Unlike some other philosophies, Buddhism does not consider one's karma or destiny to be fixed; since our minds change from moment to moment, even the habitual and destructive tendencies we all possess to varying degrees can be altered. In other words, Buddhism teaches that individuals have within themselves the potential to change their own karma. -