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Showing posts with the label Marat

Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

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A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...

Secrets of the Paintings, part II

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Today's painting also has a connection to Paris, so this will be a contribution within the   Paris in July   theme. The painting is Marat's death , painted by Jacques-Louis David. Jean Paul Marat, a newspaperman and revolutionary politician, (born 1743) was stabbed 1793 in his bath, by a 24 year old Marie-Anne-Charlotte Corday. She considered him to be crazy and a fanatic. He had split the French revolution and taken a road to destruction. The painter David, was also politically engaged and a close friend to Marat. The painting became part of a rising cult around the "revolutionary martyr". David's production mostly aimed at glorifying the republican martyrs and heros of the revolution. Some events you read or hear about, but you never really know the background. Marat's death in his bathtub is one of these things (in Sweden it appears quite often in cross words, "Who was killed in the bath?). Finally, I get to know who he was and why he was ki...