- Bashar al-Assad (born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the current and 19th president of Syria since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the secretary-general of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, which nominally espouses a neo-Ba’athist ideology. His father and predecessor was General Hafiz al-Assad, whose presidency in 1971–2000 marked the transfiguration of Syria from a republican state into a de facto dynastic dictatorship, tightly controlled by an Alawite-dominated elite composed of the armed forces and the Mukhabarat (secret services), who are loyal to the al-Assad family.
- Through a Glass Lushly: Michalina Janoszanka’s Reverse Paintings (ca. 1920s) (publicdomainreview.org)
Michalina Janoszanka (1889–1952) is an artist better known for her role on the other side of the canvas, as the muse and mentee of famed Polish painter Jacek Malczewski (1854–1929). She posed for countless symbolist paintings, appearing alone, alongside Malczewski in double-portraits, among satyrs, and as Medusa. However, Janoszanka was more than a muse. She was also an artist in her own right. Trained in Kraków and Vienna, she became a strong oil painter. Her themes were traditional: portraits, still lifes, and religious scenes. But what most captured her mentor’s excitement, not to mention the attention of the Young Poland modernist art movement, was something else: the surreal, kaleidoscopic landscapes she painted directly onto glass.
