Word: mother-of-pearl
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Paris paintings are depressing studies in black, grey and various shades of brown. Others are shrill compositions of hard whites and yellows, oranges and blues, set against a frame of green that is liberally sprinkled with scarlet and purple dots. In one, the colors blend into something resembling mother-of-pearl; another was obviously begun by rubbing together two pieces of cardboard wet with color to make what Strindberg called "automatic painting." The show is about to take the grand tour: when it closes in Ulm, it will move to the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the Palais...
...hailed by the critics as "the greatest sculptor since Rodin." The fact was that he loathed Rodin. "Since photography," he said, "representation is unnecessary." His sculpto-paintings-many-colored shapes arranged, friezelike, upon a flat plane -were pioneer constructions. He boldly used glass, wood, clay, metal or mother-of-pearl to achieve new effects, often allowing the materials to shape their own destinies, much as today's abstractionists let their work grow out of itself. Long before the younger Henry Moore, he gouged holes in his sculpture to turn space inside out; often he would make concave what nature...
Mistresses & Madonnas. Twice daily after she arrived in Paris, Alexandre went to Jackie's apartments on the Quai d'Orsay, brushing and shaping her hair in a huge silvery, mother-of-pearl bathroom. For a formal reception at the Elysee Palace, Alexandre, declaring himself inspired by pictures of Gothic Madonnas, thickened Jackie's bangs and "dressed her cheeks" with two sweeping waves. Anticipating complaints that the style hid too much of Jackie's face, Alexandre said: "A beautiful face needs foliage around it." For a ball next night at Versailles, Alexandre moved on from the Madonnas...
...anyone familiar with the Costa Brava of northeastern Spain, the first impression the picture makes is its truth to nature. The dawn light of Cadaques, where Dali spends six months of the year, shines through every part of the vast canvas, and the Santa Maria floats on a mother-of-pearl sea precisely like a Cadaques fishing boat at dawn. Her sails, however, are inventions. The transparent topsail shows the silhouette of a combined crow's-nest and Holy Grail...
Buttons & Pearls. Pearlers have long known about Australia's big shells. Before World War II, Japanese divers worked the beds, and the export of pearl shells reached $1,000,000 annually. The war wrecked the industry. Though the Australian government tried promoting the shells, the diving is dangerous (five divers were killed in one null bed alone last year), and cheap plastic buttons have all but ruined the market for those of expensive (up to $2 for a set of six nickel-sized buttons) mother-of-pearl...