Dr Francesca Santoro

Painted in late 19th-century Jamaica by Mrs. Lionel Lee, a woman artist known only through her married name, this portrait holds two kinds of partial record: the sitter is identified as “Fatima,” while the painter remains otherwise undocumented. A young woman is depicted from the chest up against a shallow, softly mottled beige background. Her broad shoulders sit almost parallel to the picture plane as her head turns to our left in three-quarter profile. She has honey-brown, sun-warmed skin, dark eyes, and an alert, steady expression that stays private rather than inviting our attention. Her hair is gathered back, with loose curls escaping as long the back of the neck. A muted red head tie wraps her head high at the crown, banded with a pale strip of cloth that catches the light. A small gold hoop earring glints at her left ear. She wears an almost collarless blue-green striped tunic, slightly open at the neck, where a crisp white undergarment shows through. The paint is most finely blended in her face, while the background remains undifferentiated, keeping attention on her features and posture. This portrait is often analyzed through what it withholds as much as what it reveals. Fatima does not meet us directly. Her averted gaze can signal period ideas of feminine modesty, but it also frames the image as observational and closer to an ethnographic “study” than a society portrait. The tunic’s stripes appear irregular, as if the garment were pieced together, and scholars connect such fabric to indigo-dyed Guinée cloth, linked to laboring lives and African diasporic trade networks. Her head tie is notable for its simplicity. Instead of sharply articulated folds pictured elsewhere in Caribbean art, it works as protection: holding hair, shielding from sun and dust, and helping preserve styles made during limited free time.

“Fatima” by Mrs. Lionel Lee (Nationality unknown) - Oil on canvas / c. 1886 - National Gallery of Jamaica (Kingston) #WomenInArt #MrsLionelLee #NationalGalleryofJamaica #PortraitofaWoman #arte #CaribbeanArt #BlueskyArt #ArtOfTheDay #CaribbeanArt #JamaicanArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists

Painted in 1979, this work is often discussed as a turning point in Chinese artist Jin Shangyi’s (靳尚谊) portrait practice when he moved from straightforward studies toward a more fully composed, self-directed image with an intentional atmosphere. Rather than depicting performance, Jin treats musicianship as character where restraint, training, and inner focus become the subject. A pared-down setting and withheld spectacle (no dramatic gesture, no bright color) shift attention to dignity and presence showing how a person carries a life of practice in the body. A poised Chinese woman sits with her face turned slightly as if listening inward. She wears a high-collared, solemn black dress like velvet, with cool blue-violet notes catching the light along the folds. Her hands are carefully modeled holding a violin bow horizontally, not in motion, as though the moment is just before (or just after) sound. The background is quiet and spare with warm gray shifting toward brown, so the her calm presence becomes the whole event. A brown violin sits on a ledge next to an elbow atop a muted, gray-green covering which anchors the lower edge, adding a restrained contrast to the dark clothing. There is no stage, no audience, and no visible violin. It’s only the musician’s stillness, her disciplined posture, and the tactile precision of face and hands. The overall mood is hushed and contained, inviting us to notice small transitions like soft highlights across her cheek and knuckles, the controlled edges around the bow, and the way a limited palette turns “black” into a spectrum of temperature and depth. Seen in the context of China’s renewed artistic openness in the late 1970s, the painting’s clarity and composure can feel like a reclamation of oil painting’s quiet powers like observation, nuance, and psychological intimacy. The “sound” here is almost visual, suggested by the attentive tilt of the head and the careful hands, so that we complete the music in our own mind.

“小提琴手 (The Violinist)” by 靳尚谊 / Jin Shangyi (Chinese) - Oil on canvas / 1979 - Taikang Art Museum (Beijing, China) #WomenInArt #art #artText #artwork #JinShangyi #靳尚谊 #Jin #北京泰康美术馆 #TaikangArtMuseum #PortraitofaWoman #ChineseArt #ChineseArtist #Musician #Violin #BlueskyArt #AsianArt #AsianArtist

Put this in any liquid thing you will
And drink it off, and if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.

ROMEO & JULIET, 5.1
#ShakespeareSunday
#Apothecary #WARNING

Slow burn😊

#ShakespeareSunday #BurnsNight 😁💙

🧵2/2

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

Julius Caesar, Nicolas Cousteau, Commissioned in 1696 for the Gardens of Versailles; Louvre.

Caesar: Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once. JC II.2 #ShakespeareSunday Topic: Heros 🧵1 of 2 @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social @linda2.bsky.social @lightacandle.bsky.social @tjmiddleton.bsky.social @tonylarch.bsky.social @flackjd.bsky.social

MAJOR UPSET ALERT: Democrat Taylor Rehmet has just been projected the winner of the Texas SD9 special election — flipping a district that went Trump +17 and hasn’t elected a Democrat since 1991.

Trump personally endorsed Leigh Wambsganss and spent days hyping this race… and still lost.

Decodex – A Daily Cryptogram Puzzle Game Decode a quote a day! Play the daily cryptogram at playdecodex.com.

Decodex 2026-02-01

🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢

Time: 1:34

Being thus warned, I saved the first word for the last. 😼TYVM!

Play here: playdecodex.com

@lightacandle.bsky.social

A mostly white cat lays on his back next to a closet door and looks at the camera.

Some very clear communication happening next to the food door.

Doesn’t surprise me..

Rainbow Over Ghost Ranch…

A tabby-and-white cat curled up in a cardboard box full of packing paper on the floor.

One underfloor hot water pipe + one cardboard box full of packing paper = one happy cat.

#CatsOfBluesky

#StunDay

Svörtuloft – black lava cliffs on the westernmost point of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, constantly carved by the waves of the North Atlantic

today
#hiking #Iceland #Snæfellsnes #LandscapePhotography #seascape #scape #RockinTuesday

Happy #Caturday from KitKat, who is busy lurking in her Excellent Box 🐈‍⬛

Not only is Trump's regime going after those protesting ICE's brutality.

Now they're going after the journalists who cover the protests.

It's an all-out assault on the First Amendment.

Buttigieg on Fox News: "When you see an American woman opening the door to her home and on her doorstep finds half a dozen federal agents in tactical gear that is more tricked out than what I would take outside the wire in Afghanistan -- I think most people get that that is wrong."

#Caturday

It should not take a court order to get a toddler out of a prison.

DHS: Want affordable housing? Help report illegal aliens in your area. Call 866-DHS-2-ICE. If you are an illegal alien, you can take control of your departure using DHS.GOV/CBPHOME.

straight up Gestapo shit

Judge Orders Release of 5-Year-Old Detained by Immigration Agents in Minnesota The treatment of Liam Conejo Ramos, pictured wearing a blue winter hat and Spider-Man backpack while in the custody of immigration agents, drew outrage across the country.

Breaking News: A federal judge ordered the release of a 5-year-old boy and his father from immigration custody, condemning their removal from their Minneapolis neighborhood as unconstitutional. The detainment of the boy, Liam Conejo Ramos, by immigration officers had caused widespread outrage.

Brexit five years on: What was promised vs what we got Just three in 10 say exiting the bloc was the right decision, accoring to a recent YouGov poll

On the 5th anniversary of Brexit, it would be decidedly wrong not to pass comment. An engineered act of self harm with nothing to show after trading with the EU for 47 years. And now, many wish to rejoin. I hate to say I told you so but, I did tell you so.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

💯💯💯💯💯

Dated 1875, this painting is described in Museo Nacional del Prado records as an “estudio del natural” (a study from life) made at the Manila academy, part of a group of portraits by Filipino artist Esteban Villanueva y Vinarao presenting “tipos del país” (“types of the country” aka “local types”). The title “Mestiza” invokes a Spanish-colonial categorization for mixed ancestry and an “identity” shaped by power and hierarchy. It is a waist-up portrait of a young woman, shown seated and turned three-quarters looking past us rather than meeting our eyes. Her skin is warm medium-brown, with gentle highlights on the forehead, nose, and cheekbones. The modeling is smooth and careful, emphasizing a quiet, self-possessed expression. Her brows are softly arched and her lips are closed with a faint tension at the corners that can read as wary, thoughtful, or simply reserved. Dark hair is neatly center-parted and brushed back into a low bun, with a thin band of light catching along the hairline. Small gold-toned earrings glint at each ear. She wears a white blouse with vertical rose-pink stripes and broad, puffed sleeves. At the neck and sleeve edges, white lace and embroidery create a soft, scalloped border that contrasts with the crisp stripes. The paint catches the fabric’s sheen as bright along the shoulder and sleeve tops, deeper in the folds, so you can almost feel the weight and coolness of the cloth. A fine chain necklace has a square, gray medallion. She emerges from a simple backdrop of dark brown field transitions to a cooler, pale gray on the left. Villanueva y Vinarao, trained in Manila and later in Spain, paints with academic restraint rather than spectacle. The neutral ground, controlled light, and averted gaze suggest interior life, not display. Now in the Prado’s collection and on loan to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, this portrait also reminds us how images travel while the people they picture are too often left unnamed.

“Mestiza” by Esteban Villanueva y Vinarao (Filipino) - Oil on canvas / 1875 - Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid, Spain) #WomenInArt #art #artText #artwork #BlueskyArt #EstebanVillanueva #EstebanVillanuevaYVinarao #Villanueva #MuseoDelPrado #PortraitofaWoman #FilipinoArt #FilipinoArtist #PhilippineArt

Look out world, here she comes #Caturday

The Dorestad Brooch ~
Found in 1969 at the bottom of a well, probably ending up there after one of the many viking raids that plagued Dorestad, a major trading hub on the River Rhine close to the North Sea.
Created around 775–800 AD, during the reign of Charlemagne.

#Caturday #ClassicalCats

Hot wings

JANE FONDA: “I know Don Lemon. My husband created CNN. And I will fight for their right to speak… they arrested the wrong Don. This is how autocrats act. We can’t fall for it.”

A photo of my British Blue shorthair cat, Ripley, trying to lick my fingertip but instead getting her own nose.

*blep*