General Awareness

ART AND CULTURE - March 2020

Mar 2020

Dec 07, 2020

Rio Museum Recovers Afro-Brazilian Art Works Confiscated more than a Century Ago

After almost three years of negotiations, an art collection of more than 500 pieces connected to Afro-Brazilian religions and confiscated between the years 1889 and 1945 by police forces have been returned to the Museu da Republica in Rio de Janeiro.
The art objects were seized in Candomblé and Umbanda terreiros (places of worship) during the country's First Republic and Vargas Era, and were stored in police headquarters for decades. At that time, the Brazil's penal code prohibited the practice of Afro-Brazilian culture and religions, vilifying such beliefs as shamanism and black magic.

Indian-American Run NGO Launches Virtual Art Gallery on Disability

A US-based global NGO run by an Indian-American has launched a virtual art gallery on the theme of disability that aims at colouring the world with the inclusion of specially-abled people through the creative expression of artwork.
The launch of the virtual art gallery by Voice of Specially Abled People (VOSAP) follows the successful VOSAP Art From Heart Contest, which was participated by more than 4,200 artists from 53 countries.
An international panel of eight judges declared 50 winners from 24 countries using the online platform of VOSAP. This is the first international online art contest on the theme of disability with this huge response.
VOSAP said this unique initiative to spread awareness on skills, a talent of specially-abled people by virtue of powerful tool of visual art and using technology is now taken to the next level with the launch of virtual VOSAP Art Gallery of selected 250 artwork of 250 artists.

Dec 04, 2020

Amazon Rainforest Rock Art Depicts Giant Ice Age Creatures

According to researchers, rock art found in the Amazon rainforest carries images of the area's earliest inhabitants living alongside giant Ice Age creatures.
The paintings are estimated to have been made between 11,800 and 12,600 years ago, towards the end of the last Ice Age.
The thousands of paintings were found on three rock shelters on the northern edge of the Colombian Amazon.
The excavations took place in 2017 and 2018, but the study is only now being released.
The paintings include depictions of what appear to be now-extinct animals, such as the mastodon, a prehistoric relative of the elephant, and giant sloths and Ice Age horses.
There are also paintings of geometric shapes, human figures, handprints and hunting scenes, as well as animals like snakes and birds.
Researchers say that the red paintings, made using pigments extracted from scraped ochre, make up one of the largest collections of rock art ever found in South America.

Norway Excavates a Viking Long ship Fit for a King

Pyramids, castles, palaces: symbols of power and status have taken many forms down the ages, and for the Vikings what really counted was the longship.
This month Norwegian archaeologists hope to complete their excavation of a rare, buried longship at Gjellestad, an ancient site south-east of Oslo. It is the first such excavation in Norway for about a century.
Most of the ocean-going ship has rotted away over the centuries, but archaeologist Dr. Knut Paasche believes the layout of the iron nails will still enable a replica to be built eventually.
Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) revealed it to be about 19m (62ft) long and 5m (16ft) wide - putting it on a par with the well-preserved Oseberg and Gokstad Viking ships on display in Oslo.

Dec 02, 2020

Looted Horse Head Returns to Beijing's Old Summer Palace

A horse head sculpture looted from China's Old Summer Palace 160 years ago has become the first of its kind to be restored to its original home.
It is one of 12 famous bronze animal head sculptures stolen from Beijing when British and French troops invaded China during the Second Opium War.
More than half of the pieces have already been found and returned to China, but are currently on display in other museums.
The horse head was donated by the late Macau tycoon Stanley Ho, who bought the artefact for US$8.9m (£6.63m) at a Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong in 2007 and later donated it to the Chinese government in 2019.
The Chinese government then spent a year refurbishing a temple in the Old Summer Palace grounds and turned it into an exhibition venue.

Nov 29, 2020

Netherlands Returns Nigeria's 600-year Old Ife Artefact

The Netherlands returned to Nigeria a terracotta head, thought to be at least 600 years old, after it was intercepted at the Schiphol airport, in Amsterdam, in 2019.
The artefact from the ancient Ife city in south-western Nigeria was smuggled to Netherlands through Ghana using a forged document.
The Nigerian government won a case in Netherlands against the suspected smuggler and was allowed to regain possession of the artefact.
The Netherlands ambassador to Nigeria attended the handover ceremony.

Nov 27, 2020

Museum of the Bible Returns Hand-written Gospels Looted from Greece during the First World War

The Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, will return a rare 10th-11th-century hand-written gospel manuscript to the monastery of the Virgin Eikossifinissa (also known as the Kosinitza Monastery) on Mt. Pangeon in northern Greece. The historic document was among hundreds of objects looted from the site by Bulgarian troops in 1917.
In January, the Museum of the Bible informed the office of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the world leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church that it held one of the world's oldest hand-lettered gospels, and subsequently offered to return it. According to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, the patriarch has permitted the museum to display the work until October 2021, and loaned it three more manuscripts as a gesture of gratitude for the gospels' return.
In recent years, the Museum of the Bible's collection, originally owned by the Green family in Oklahoma City, founders of the arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby, has been found to hold many objects that were smuggled out of their countries of origin or brought into the US improperly.

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