Word: enigmas
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There are only about 60 Watteau paintings on whose authenticity all experts agree, and his life is obscure. Since the Renaissance there have been few great artists about whom less is known than Watteau. He is almost as much of an enigma as Vermeer. He was born in Valenciennes in 1684, the son of a Flemish roof tiler. Until a few years before, Valenciennes was part of Flanders, not France; and Watteau's Flemish origins may have had more than a casual meaning to him, since the main influence on his work was Rubens. Nothing is known about...
...EXECUTIVE ENIGMA...
...nearly 20 years by an avowed Socialist. The company is Schlumberger (1983 revenues: $5.8 billion), a leading oilfield-services firm. The executive is Frenchman Jean Riboud, who is profiled in The Art of Corporate Success (Putnam; 184 pages; $15.95) by Writer Ken Auletta. Riboud, 64, is a corporate enigma. A hardheaded capitalist in business matters, he is nevertheless a confidant of Socialist French President François Mitterrand...
Stuck with a bearded enigma at the center of his tale, Vidal packs the edges with peripheral figures. Nearly everyone who was anyone during the 1860s, from Henry Adams to Walt Whitman, is given a walk-on role. This process extends to some 19th century notables already deceased. Vidal manages to insert the information that Francis Blair, an aged visitor to the Lincoln White House, knew Andrew Jackson...
...decent housing and then are denied the means to effect acceptable solutions [Feb. 13]. Meanwhile, social and political apathy at all levels of government and society provoke an attitude of "Don't bother us with the facts; just house the people." The result: today's public-housing enigma. Local public-housing authorities still represent the best approach to addressing housing issues. They remain the only entity in the residential field whose sole objective is the provision of shelter, not the accumulation of profit...