Timur PANKOV
ALMATY 18 March
(THE GLOBE)
Bruce Willis is really called Walter Willison.
His was born on March 19, 1955 in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany. Bruce was raised in PennsGrove, NJ where he moved when he was about 2 years old and where he attended Montclair State College because of its theater department. He eventually landed a role in the play �Heaven and Earth� in 1977 which motivated him to quit school and pursue acting. Willis eventually landed a role as �David Addison� in the hit TV show �Moonlighting.� Willis would eventually go on to win Emmys and Golden Globes for this role. Willis� feature film debut came opposite Kim Basinger in the film �Blind Date.� He eventually went on to star in the hit action film �Die Hard� directed by John McTiernan. This popular film spawned two sequels. The latest in this trilogy, �Die Hard With A Vengeance� reunited Willis with McTiernan for an explosive sequel worthy of the �Die Hard� name glorified by the first film.
Bruce showed, that everyone can make his fortune, if he does what he feels like doing and also has a strong will and desire to reach the fame. I think that is why he is so popular among people of different ages.
�Bruce Willis - is a real man, but not a commix hero� -said Joel Sigal from `Good Morning, America!`
And I will agree with him.
Some facts
His recording of �Respect Yourself� reached #5 in January of 1987.
Bruce and Demi announce they are ending their marriage of eleven years on June 24, 1998.
He has three beautiful daughters with Demi: Rumer, Scout Larue and Tallulah Belle.
Bruce Willis - American actor famous by his movies �Die Hard�, �Pulp Fiction�, �The fifth element� and �Armageddon�.
By Alberto MENGONI
(THE GLOBE)
Nowadays cameras are doing much of the work that before being invented was taken care by painters. Figure out, for instance, a personal document, ID card, passport or driving license without the bearer�s picture, it would be impossible to personalize such papers without a portrait picture! Centuries ago, instead, portraits were not used on personal documents, there was no such need yet, nevertheless portraits were being made mainly for two reasons: to satisfy the vanity of the portrayed subject, usually a wealthy person, or to hand down to posterity the features of distinguished persons in charge of relevant assignments or posts. Practically speaking, portraits were, to a certain extent, to serve as an open file.
Quite naturally, then, that a flourishing business was coming out of it. There
was no important centre without ateliers where painters were practising their painting skills. Antwerp in the Flanders, Belgium, was one such place where artists such as Rubens and Van Dyck have spent numberless hours in learning the techniques and secrets of perfect portraiture.
Right 400 years ago Antoon Van Dyck, possibly the most noted portraitist of the XVII century, was born in the Belgian town from a well-off bourgeois family that could even herald some �noblesse� from her mother�s side. Frans and Maria gave 6 brothers and sisters to Antoon, and 4 out of 7 chose to serve God as priest and nuns. Antoon, instead, did not find any religious vocation in himself but a driving force, a wild enthusiasm that set him to manage painting. At 7 his toys were canvas, easel and colours, and his playground was a little studio at �den Barendans�, the house were he was born in Antwerp�s Grote Markt.
Of course, painting was Antoon�s religion and the boy turning teenager at only 11 trespassed Hendrick Van Balen�s atelier threshold, at St. Luke Guild, as an apprentice. There young Antoon had the opportunity to learn techniques and better framing his superb talent. In 1613, only 14, he produced a self-portrait regarded as a prodigious work considering the young age of his author. That self-portrait draws the attention and consideration of another master painter, Rubens, who takes him in his atelier; in a short time Antoon becomes Rubens� best student and in 1618, when he is only 19, Antoon becomes master in that very same St. Luke Guild who first saw him entering, only 8 years before, as an apprentice.
Rubens and Van Dyck are now friends, but while Rubens is a known painter, Van Dyck has still� ground to cover, so counselled by his friend Antoon leaves his hometown �to depict on canvas new horizons�.
Having already set up his own personal atelier where he was experiencing the techniques of Titian and Tintoretto, the great Venetian masters of the XVI century, he chose Italy for discovering those new horizons. In 1621 he arrives in Genoa, then one of the most important cities of the peninsula, but in a stay of 7 years Van Dyck toured the country extensively, working also in Milan, Mantua, Turin, Rome, Venice of course, and Palermo where he painted the famous �Madonna of the Rosary�. It�s Genoa, however, that�ll grant him honours, fame and money: during his last Italian year he�s back in the Ligurian city that elects him as the favourite painter of the commanding families: Doria, Grimaldi, Spinola, Franchi. Famous his painting �Gentleman of Spinola House�, one of the most important works on display in Milan, from 10/30/�98 to 3/14/�99, at �The soul and the face, portrait and physiognomy from Leonard to Bacon� exhibition.
Another relevant work that Van Dick painted while in Italy is the most magnificent �The children of the Balbi family� of 1625, made in Genoa, the city that the painter always considered his second hometown.
In Italy indeed Van Dyck discovered his missing horizons and, so enriched, he sets to go back home, to Antwerp, in 1628. By that time he is a well known painter, an acclaimed portraitist, so much so that grand duchess Isabel appoints him as �the� court painter. His activity is frantic: many portraits but also altars decorations in churches and monasteries contribute to his spreading fame, favoured as well by the reduced activity of his friend Rubens, mostly engaged by that time in diplomatic missions.
Soon Antoon Van Dyck finds Antwerp too limited for his growing artistic vitality and he starts thinking of moving again. London at that time was a kind of magnet attracting artists from the world over lured by the favourable conditions granted by the English Court. King Charles I was sort of a benefactor, an art lover that come to know of the Flemish artist�s fame invited him in his capital. It�s the year 1632 when Antoon crosses the Channel to occupy the prestigious post of court painter, a step that both him and his many estimators never regretted. The painter, still a young man of 33, is continuously improving his trade, his colours that in the solar Italian period were still somewhat darkish, become on the contrary luminous, lighted up in grayish London.
More and more Van Dyck�s atelier receives visits from the mighty ones of the epoch: honours and large profits are the common rewards for a man of such a talent. It�s of this period the striking �Henry Danvers, Earl of Danby� and �Cupid and Psyche� still today owned by the Royal Family.
Of course, from time to time Van Dyck �shuttles� to Antwerp and in one of such repatriations he produces the moving �Crying for Christ� of 1635.
With no inclination for marriage up to that moment, Antoon meets in England his �other half of the sky� in Mary Ruthven, an aristocrat, one of the ladies of the court in London. He is 40 when he marries Mary in 1639, a union that is blessed by the birth of Justine on December 1st, 1641, a most perfect moment for the couple that however doesn�t last long. Antoon, in fact, dies all of a sudden 8 days after having become father, on December 9th. London as a whole mourns the great artist whose mortal remains leave his Blackfriars house to be buried in the choir of St. Paul Cathedral.
Justine, so soon deprieved of her father, will be also deprieved of his tomb when, few years after his burial, the �great fire� of London will burn out also that church in 1666.
After having left some 300 paintings, possibly the most impressive of the world�s portraiture, produced in a short but intense life, today, exactly four centuries after his birth, March 22nd, 1599, his hometown celebrates its famous son with a series of exhibitions that, no question about, mark it as the cultural event of the year. Antwerp will host from May 15th to August 15th �Antoon Van Dyck, 1599-1999�, a paintings display made possible by the temporary borrowing to the local Museum of Fine Arts of some masterpieces of the artist from other museums and private collections the world over. So for 3 months in Antwerp will gather such exquisite art pieces as �Queen Henrietta Mary and her dwarf, sir Jeffrey Hudson� from Washington, D.C., �Blessed Herman Joseph�s vision� and the �Self-portrait� of 1613 from Vienna, �Henry Danvers, Earl of Danby� from St. Petersburg�s Hermitage Museum, �The children of the Balbi family� from London�s National Gallery, �Cupid and Psyche�, instead, is being borrowed by Queen Elizabeth herself to the Antwerpen Open Association which supervises the whole happening. Of course, the core of the exhibition is formed by the many paintings usually kept in the Flemish city such as �Crying for Christ� and the �Self-portrait�, dated 1636, in which Van Dyck points at a sunflower. This masterpiece, by the way, serves as a logo for the whole event, enriched as well by side exhibitions of the artist�s drawings and etchings.
�Henry Danvers, Earl of Danby�, 1639, one of Van Dyck�s masterpieces to be displayed in Antwerp from May to August �99.
Van Dyck�s self-portrait of 1636, symbol of the exhibition being set in Antwerp to celebrate the painter�s 400th birth anniversary.
19/03/ 1831 - The first bank robbery in America was reported this day. The City Bank of New York City lost $245,000 in the heist.
19/03/ 1954 - The first rocket-driven sled that ran at incredible speeds on rails was tested in Alamogordo, NM. Scientists were heard to exclaim, �And we didn�t even need snow!�
19/03/ 1955 �Bruce (Walter) Willis was born (Emmy Award-winning actor: Moonlighting [1987]; Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Die Hard: With a Vengeance, Pulp Fiction, Hudson Hawk, The Last Boy Scout, Billy Bathgate)
20/03 1914 - The first international figure skating championship was held in New Haven, CT. this day.
20/03 1969 - Beatle John Lennon married Yoko Ono at the Rock of Gibraltar on this day. Lennon called the location, �quiet, friendly and British�. He was the second Beatle to marry in eight days. Paul McCartney and Linda Eastman were wed a week earlier.
21/03 1946 - Timothy Dalton was born (actor: Centennial, Licence to Kill, The Lion in Winter, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Flash Gordon)
22/03/1933 - during Prohibition, President Roosevelt signed a measure to make wine and beer containing up to three-point-two percent alcohol legal.
March 20
The State Philharmonic society. �Young Talents� State Program and the Orchestra �Academy of Soloists�. 3.00 p.m.
Palace of the Republic. French Young Ballet. 7.00 p.m.
From 4 th of March
Gallery of Modern Art �Orkhon�. Bouquet of Flowers Exhibition.
From 5.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.
From 21st of March
The Kosteyev State National Museum. German Paintings of the 15-19 centuries.
The Kosteyev State National Museum. Exhibition of Richard Spooner�s private Collection.
The Kosteyev State National Museum. Exhibition of the works of S. Kalmykov, I. Itkind, V. Eifert, and Rudolf Nuriev�s painting.
From 10.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. Closed on Monday.
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