Something Beautiful

Reiman Gardens, Iowa

Today let us go to the Reiman Gardens at Iowa State University.  There we find the following gardens and slideshows -- 

Dunlap Courtyard (5 photos) 

Lake Helen (6 photos)

Herb (& Tulip) Garden (15 photos)

Rose Garden (21 photos)

Butterfly Wing (30 photos)  (extraordinary!)

Roses, too

I'd like to stay with the flower theme for a few days.   

We could continue with roses.     I've always loved the rose page at the New York Botanical Garden site. 

There are more than 150 varieties of roses on this one page at the Witherspoon site.

If you wanted to learn about roses, Old Garden Roses & Beyond is a great place to start.  (a personal favorite)

And then there's the absolutely extraordinary Rose Gathering site.   

Cherry blossom time

The cherry trees are just beginning to bloom at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.   It's not easy to find good photographs of cherry trees in bloom but the BBG site contains quite a few.  You'll find some in this slideshow  of twelve photographs, and in the Guide, which has a grand total of twenty-nine pictures. 

Sutton Hoo treasure

The ship at Sutton Hoo In the late 1930s, a British archaeologist discovered a ship buried under a large mound in Suffolk, England.  The ship served as a kind of underground pyramid for an Anglo-Saxon king,  ca. 630.  Excavation of the ship and the king's burial chamber within it yielded some fabulous objects. 

Many of those items are now in the British Museum, London.  Here are the four most beautiful --

Gold belt buckle with cast ornament and niello inlay

Purse lid

Buckle   

Shoulder clasps (plus 2 other views)

*   *

Other items are interesting, but not as aesthetically pleasing, e.g., these three military objects --

Helmet; with 2 other views

Shield (reconstruction)

Sword with gold and cloisonné garnet fittings; with one detail

And these four non-military items --

Sceptre

Gold coins and ingots

Hanging bowl; with 1 extra view

2 silver spoons, 3 silver bowls

*   *

Additional information about Sutton Hoo and its objects is also available at the Compass site --

Excavations at Sutton Hoo

A king's possessions in the ship-burial

Who was buried at Sutton Hoo? (answer: probably King Redwald)   

Restoring the helmet from Sutton Hoo: a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle

The Compass site also has a Guided Tour featuring the 11 items listed above.

Cheetah

The cheetah is one of the earth's most beautiful animals. 

This photo appears in the National Geographic Photo-of-the-Day Archive, which stretches back to March  2001.   

Lichtenstein Museum

This museum owns some marvelous works. You can see some on this page and on this one.

Ever-photogenic Saturn

Saturn is beautiful from so many angles. Here, in one photo, is the planet itself, its rings, and an enigmatic moon.

Astrophotography

I don't think they get better than these photos by Noel Carboni.   (Thanks to Steve at nutlog for the tip.) 

Three works in ivory

One more day of ivory, okay?  So we can gaze longingly at these works --

Magdeburg Panel, 962-68, Italy

Borradaile Triptych, 10th century, Byzantine.

Ivory triptych, 1330-40, England 

 

Viking chess pieces

Here's a follow-up to yesterday's post on chess -- the Lewis chessmen, made ca. 1200, probably in Norway.  They are among the British Museum's most prized objects.   Although not classically beautiful, there is something haunting about them. 

(As always, check out the larger pictures.)