Metropolitan Museum of Art Gallery

The Creation of the World and the Expulsion from Paradise 1445

The masterpiece was painted by Giovanni di Paolo (Giovanni di Paolo di Grazia). It represents a vision of Paradise reminiscent of that described by the great Florentine poet Dante in "The Divine Comedy." The universe is shown as a celestial globe, with the earth at the center surrounded by a series of concentric circles representing first the four elements, the known planets (including the sun, in accordance with medieval and Renaissance cosmology), and finally the constellations of the zodiac. Presiding over the scene of Creation is God the Father, bathed in a glowing celestial light as he is borne aloft by seraphim. Beside the "mappamondo" (map of the world) is the garden of Paradise, its four rivers issuing from the ground at the lower right. The garden's effulgent flora symbolize the pure and sinless state of man before the Fall. A diminutive Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden by a lithe angel whose unusual nakedness and human form may symbolize his deep compassion for the corrupted state of humankind after the fall from grace

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Cypresses 1889 Vincent van Gogh

Cypresses was painted in late June 1889, shortly after Van Gogh began his yearlong stay at the asylum in Saint-R?my. The subject, which he found "beautiful as regards lines and proportions, like an Egyptian obelisk," both captivated and challenged the artist: "It's the dark patch in a sun-drenched landscape, but it's one of the most interesting dark notes, the most difficult to hit off exactly that I can imagine." One of two close-up views of the "very tall and massive" trees in a vertical format (the other is in the Kr?ller-M?ller Museum, Otterlo), Cypresses was shown in the 1890 Salon des Ind?pendants

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Diana Vreeland wearing Mainbocher

Diana Vreeland ) wearing Mainbocher (on the right). Vreeland was a noted columnist and editor in the field of fashion, working for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue and as a special consultant at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her she is modelling a Mainbocher ensemble of a frock of flesh-coloured fleur-de-soie with a shawl-scarf of lac red-fringed with emerald green. Date: 1932

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans