10 Comments

Thanks for the heads up on this documentary. I will look it up and let you know what I think. As a visual artist, I’d like to see what happened in our history and to see images that I have not seen before.

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I would REALLY like to get your .02 on this one. You will feel it as much as I ever did.

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Sure, art is just "pretty things" to some, and "in the eye of the beholder" to others, but art is a representation of who and what we are at a moment in time. It represents the vision of one person at one moment in time, based on that person's experience, intellect, prejudices, opinions, dreams...and so much more.

Certainly, we could live without art, but we would be much poorer for it, for art is equal parts beauty, soul, and emotion. All of those things, when combined by people who can do so with skill, talent, and vision, enrich our existence and as well as those of generations yet to come.

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Ooooosh! "Art is a representation of who and what we are at a moment in time." Boom diggy boom boom. That right there.

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Many of the soldiers in the "Monuments Men" were actual artists and historians who recruited into the army specifically for this purpose.

By the bye, the Nike (Greek for "victory" -- "winged" is actually a tad redundant) or something very similar to it, rested in the palm of the hand of the statue of Athena on the Acropolis (before it was all looted and all blown to Zeus in the wars of the 16th -- 17th C.)

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WOW. I did not know that. So, too, the Library of Alexandria, that is something I would have loved to see. Why won't someone legitimately invent a time machine? Hello? HELLO?

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The Library of Alexandria was actually burned multiple times, so you almost have to stipulate which iteration you want to see.

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The first burning! Could you set me down about ten years before that? Thanks.

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There is actually a movie called "The Monuments Men." It was actually nominated for best picture (I believe), though myself I don't think it was quite that good. Still, it is worth seeing once. One of the things I liked about it was that it made some effort to point out the intelligence work going on behind the lines in places like liberated Paris to figure out what had been looted, where it had gone, and when.

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I saw it once, but was actually burning up with fever at the time. I'm guessing I should probably see it again, this time less...deliriously.

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