Dinesh's photos with the keyword: A History of Western Society

www.learnreligions.com/bacchus-roman-god-2562627

Alexander at the Battle of Issos. At the left, Alexander the Great, bareheaded and wearing a breastplate, charges King Darius, who standing in a chariot. The moment marks the turning point of the battle, as Darius turns to flee from the attack (Museo Nazionale, Naples/Alinart/Scala/Art Resource

Alexander’s Conquests. This map shows the course of Alexander’s invasion of the Persian Empire and the speed of his progress. More important than the great success of his military campaigns was his founding of Hellenistic cities in the East.

Square of the Theatre Francais, Afternoon Winter Sun 1900 Camille Pissarro (1830-1903). This painting by the pure impressionist Passaro captures the excellent and vitality of busy Paris Boulevards, which brought all classes together, at least temporarily. The grandiose opera house stands in the distance, connected with France’s most distinguished classical theater by the recently completed Avenue of the Opera (Courtesy of the Lefevre Gallery, London)

The Fruits of War The extent of carnage , the emotional damage, and the physical destruction were equally unprecedented. Once great cathedrals standing in ruin symbolized the disaster (UPI/Bettmann Newsphoto)

The spinners: Diego Velazques (1599-1660). Spain’s master of realism captures women workers in a tapestry workshop and three ladies inspecting a tapestry in the background. Or so people long believed. Modern critics see a mythological weaving background. Or so people long believed. Modern critics see mythological weaving competition between the low-born Arachne en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachne on the right and the goddess of arts and crafts on the left.(The gusty Arachne lost and was turned into a spider.) Art historians also have their debates and conflicting interpretations (Museo del Prado, Madrid)

The Ford Jan Siberechts (1727-1703). Most seventeenth-century artists specialized. The Flemish painter Siberechts concentrated on water-logged landscapes of his native Flanders, which he peopled with peaceful, hardworking peasants absorbed in their daily tasks. Viewing this scene, one feels the slow, difficult movements of beasts and goods along a flooded road, as well as the solid virtues of the little milkmaid and the young peasant woman ( Niedersachstisches Landesmuseum, Hannover)

Tobacco was a key commodity in the Atlantic Trade. This engraving from 1755 shows a merchant and his slaves preparing a cargo for sail (The British Library)

Millet: The Gleaners Poor French peasant women search for grains and stalks the harvesters (in the background) have missed. The open-field system seen here could still be found in parts of Europe in 1857, when this picture was painted. Millet is known for his great painting expressing social themes (Cliché de Musees Nationaux, Paris)

A Woman Weighing Gold, Vermeer, (ca 1657) Varmeer painted picture of middle-class women involved in ordinary activities in the quiet interiors of their homes. Unrivaled among Dutch masters of his superb control of light, in this painting Vermeer illuminates a pregnant women weighing gold on her scales, as Christ in the painting on the wall weights the saved and the damned. (National Gallery of Art, Washington; Widener Collection) www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEior-0inxU</ www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2hgtFBBbxk

Rubens: The Education of Marie. One of the twenty-one pictures celebrating episodes from the life of Marie de Medici, the Influential widow of France’s Henri IV, Ruben’s painting is imbued with sensuous vitality. The three muses inspiring the studious young Marie dominate the canvas. (Louvere/Giraudon/Art Source) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_de%27_Medici

This contemporary drawing shows Ottoman officials rounding up male Christian children in the Balkans. The children became part of a special slave corps, which served the sultan for life as soldiers and administrators. The slave tax and the slave corps were of great importance to the Ottoman Turks in the struggle with Austria (The British Library)

The Turks dreamed of establishing a western Muslim Empire in the heart of Europe. But their army of nearly 300,000 men failed to pierce the elaborate fortifications that protected the old city walls from cannon fire and underground mines (The Mansell Collection)