Word: 16th
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...second thing is, obviously, that he could draw like an angel. The idea that he was "the greatest" Italian draftsman of his time (born in 1452, he died at a considerable age in exile in France in 1519) is essentially meaningless, because the late 15th and early 16th centuries were full of astonishing performers on paper. But not even contemporaries like Michelangelo were able to exceed, or regularly rival, him as a master of the kind of expressive and descriptive line that one sees in such drawings of his as the studies for equestrian sculpture or in his astounding anatomical...
...subjects, like the imaginary Bust of Grotesque Man in Profile Facing to the Right. Leonardo delighted in these. The pleasure that he took in human ugliness was almost as intense as the delight afforded him by the spectacle of beauty. Granted, cosmetic considerations were less to the fore in 16th century Europe than they would be four centuries later. Granted, social attitudes toward the repellent aspects of old age were different. And yet it is difficult to look at his numerous drawings of horribly, freakishly ugly old people--which would be assiduously copied by other artists (As comic emblems...
...EXILED. FANG JUE, 47, former Chinese bureaucrat and prominent dissident, who was sentenced to prison in 1998 after calling for free elections; to the U.S. Although Fang was released from prison last July, he was detained again in November as part of a government crackdown prior to the 16th Party Congress. His expulsion comes a month after pro-democracy activist Xu Wenli was released and exiled, also...
...Rajasthan. The great, golden sand castle shimmering across the Thar Desert is on the brink of collapse. For centuries its sandstone walls have housed what is still one of the world's few inhabited forts, and is home to some 2,000 people. But since its heyday in the 16th and 17th centuries, when it was the last filling station for colossal caravans traveling the Silk Route, Jaisalmer has been in decline. And over the past two decades, the decay has accelerated. Hundreds of historic buildings have crumbled like shortbread and dozens more are rapidly deteriorating. The arrival of thousands...
...dusty parcel with a ground-penetrating-radar magnometer capable of detecting a buried foundation and other subsurface ruins. Hindus hope the machine will bolster their claim that an ancient temple marking the birthplace of the god Ram once stood there?superseding the Muslim claim that dates back to the 16th century, when Mughal invaders erected a mosque on the site...