Tag: Culture

»Full Moon Song« by Peter Bradley Adams

Peter Bradley Adams is an American singer-songwriter, who has managed amid the flood of commercial songs and loud beats, to tell his own story – with a warm voice and quiet sounds.

His song »Full Moon Song« from 2011 is one of those stories.  According to his own statement, this song came to fruition after a short stay in prison (from which he did not break out as stated in the lyrics, but was released on bail). He talks about freedom that now becomes significant to him and makes a new life possible. He wants to see the world through the eyes of a child and experience love without fear of losing something. [read more]

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Nightly paintings with Petrus van Schendel

We had already told you about the paintings of romanticism by German painters Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) and Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810). And also the English painter William Turner (1775–1851) had the moonlight in his mind. Here we are looking at the next generation and find the Dutch-Belgian artist Petrus van Schendel (1806–1870), whose speciality were the nightly moonlight sceneries. What distinguished him from his predecessors and colleagues, was that it were precisely those depictions of nightlight, which brought him fame and not an insignificant financial success (which was not a given for many painters). [read more]

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Full moon romance with »Lady and the Tramp«

»Lady and the Tramp« made in 1955, belongs to one of the most beautiful and most successful cartoons by Walt Disney. The story of the elegant female dog Lady and the fun-loving vagabond Tramp, shows how love can overcome social boundaries. In reality, this is of course a human issue and not one of our four-legged friends. However – as usual with Disney – it has been staged simply convincingly. And this is how a good acquaintance joins Lady and the Tramp in the nightly scenery: the full moon. [read more]

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The full moon and Paul Klee

Paul Klee (1879–1940) was a German painter and graphic artist, one of the biggest names of the Classic Modern Era, being the time at the beginning and first half of the 20th century, which was expressed in so many different styles and is nowadays regarded as avant-garde of that time. Paul Klee created cubistic, expressionistic and surrealistic paintings. The names of his friends read like the »who’s who« in the art scene: August Macke, Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Walter Gropius, Robert Delaunay, Lyonel Feininger, Alexej von Jawlensky, Pablo Picasso … [read more]

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Nena and the full moon

Nena and her band belong to the most successful artists in German music history. With »99 Luftballons« from 1983, she made a name for herself internationally and also reached 2nd place in the US charts with the English version »99 red balloons« [*]. This has only been accomplished by very few German musicians.

In the song »Vollmond« [full moon], also from 1983, Nena sings about the silver Moon and describes the romantic longing and restlessness, which can capture us during a full moon: [read more]

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The career of William Turner

Photography had not yet been invented when the British painter J. M. William Turner (1775–1851) created his painting »Fishermen at Sea« in 1796, where he depicts a nightly scenery at a tempestuous sea, which is lit by the full moon midst heavy clouds. This painting was the first exhibited oil painting by the then 21 year-old Turner and marked the beginning of a great career. [read more]

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The Kinks and their song »full moon«

In 1977 the English music group The Kinks, released their album »Sleepwalker«, with which they returned to the more rocky sounds of the 60s after a more conceptual and overtexted phase, and thus were at least able to resume their previous success.

The Kinks are considered to be one of the most important British rock bands of this time, next to The Beatles, Rolling Stones and The Who. [read more]

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The Chinese Lantern Festival

We are looking again at China, where next to the moon festival in autumn, an event is celebrated at the beginning of the year, which is also connected to the full moon: the Lantern Festival (»Yuanxiao«). This celebration is traditionally held on the 15th day of the first moon month of the old Chinese calendars and therefore coincides (more or less exactly) with the full moon. The Lantern Festival indicates the end of the Chinese New Year ceremonies. [read more]

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The full moon above Stonehenge

Everyone is familiar with the silhouette of the Stonehenge rocks  in the southern English county of Wiltshire, one of the truly ancient structures of human kind that continues to fascinate because of its archaic construction and mystical presence. Maybe it reminds us people of our origin and of something we often tend to forget amid our hectic everyday world: simplicity.

At the same time, the building of Stonehenge has been everything but easy back then. The age of the grounds is estimated to be more than 5000 years. Experts assume, it took many millions of working hours to dress and transport the up to 50 tons heavy rocks by hand and to erect them in the well-known formation. In particular the lintels, on top of the upright stones, leave us in awe. [read more]

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Sinatra meets Rachmaninoff

They have properly never met in person, Frank Sinatra (1915–1998), the American singer and entertainer and Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943), the Russian pianist and composer, although, mathematically it could have been possible. However, almost two generations lay between both musicians and stylistically they are probably worlds apart. But there is a meeting point indeed, that even has to do with the full moon. [read more]

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