Art by Nicholas Roerich

"My heartiest thanks for the magnificent work which you sent to me. I admire those creations so much that I can say without exaggeration that never have landscapes made such a great impression on me."

--Albert Einstein, letter to Roerich Museum, 1931

RoerichTrust.org

The Black Gobi

1928

And We Do Not Fear

1922

Book of Life

1938

Changthang, Northern Tibet

1939

Song of Shambhala

Idols (Pagan Russia)

1910

Issa and the Skull of the Giant

Message to Tiron

1940

Abode of Gesar

1947

Mongolia

Mongolia I

1938

Monhegan, Maine

1922

Mother of Genghis Khan

1933

Most Sacred Treasure of the Mountain

1933

On the Heights, Tumo

1936

Stronghold of Tibet

1932

Descent into Hell

1933

Star of the Hero

1936

Guests from Overseas

1901

USSR postage stamp

1974

Nicholas Roerich

1874-1947 Russian

The Sedlec Ossuary

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Sedlec Ossuary is a small Roman Catholic chapel located in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic. The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people.

"Henry, the abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Sedlec, was sent to Palestine by King Otakar II of Bohemia in 1278. When he returned, he brought with him a small amount of earth that he had removed from Golgotha and sprinkled it over the abbey cemetery. The word of this pious act soon spread and the cemetery in Sedlec became a desirable burial site throughout Central Europe. During the Black Death in the mid 14th century, and after the Hussite Wars in the early 15th century, many thousands of people were buried there and the cemetery had to be greatly enlarged.

"In 1870, František Rint, a woodcarver, was employed by the Schwarzenberg family to put the bone heaps into order. The macabre result of his effort speaks for itself. Four enormous bell-shaped mounds occupy the corners of the chapel. An enormous chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body, hangs from the center of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vault. Other works include piers and monstrances flanking the altar, a large Schwarzenberg coat-of-arms, and the signature of Rint, also executed in bone, on the wall near the entrance."

Under the Influence: Masters of the Universe Art Show at Gallery 1988, Los Angeles

Battle for the Master of the Universe

Allison Reimold

Fearless Predator

Eric Tan

Master of His Universe

John Rozum

Skeletor was OG

Meggs

I Am the Master of the Universe

Jason Hernandez

Gallery 1988

http://ihavethepowerart.blogspot.com/

World War I

On the firestep in the trenches during the night, you could hear the groaning of the dying — but you couldn't go out to help them. There were rats feeding on their flesh. They were dying there, dying in misery and pain, and the rats were nibbling away at their flesh.
--Cecil Withers, British private

The air in the dugout is so foul that I sit by the entrance. Walter Mayer and Hendrich from my squad sit next to me. Hendrich has completely lost his composure. He is down on his knees and prays. Mayer loses all patience. He tells him off. In this situation a prayer is senseless... Our roof is blown apart by a 28 cm shell. Because I am sitting by the entrance, I am left unscathed, just shoved inside. Most of the men are dead.
--Walter Pechtold, German soldier

The appearance of the trench is atrocious... In places pools of blood. On the protective wall, in the communication trench, stiff corpses covered with tent canvas... An unbearable stench poisons the air... I have not slept for 72 hours. It is raining.
--Charles Delvert, French infantry captain

When we started firing we just had to load and reload. They went down in their hundreds. You didn't have to aim, we just fired into them.
--German machine gunner

The first thing I saw were two legs sticking out of the ground... There was a skull high up in a tree and helmets with bits of head in them...
--John Masefield, British visitor to the front

Some injured men are able to drag themselves to the rear, the one supporting the other, some using their rifles as crutches. Stretcher-bearers follow them in single file, carrying their burdens of suffering... Oh! The terrible explosion! With infernal violence, a shell bursts right amongst this mob and hideously tears it to pieces.
--Thellier de Poncheville, French soldier

Soon a fresh gun gets through the fire to the front. They are selected soldiers. But by midday they, too, are finished. One of them, bleeding, comes to us. The men are so apathetic that they cannot bring themselves to bandage the man.
--Walter Pechtold, German soldier

All day long they lie there, being decimated, getting themselves killed next to the bodies of those killed earlier.
--French officer

The men often cannot eat in the forward lines because of the smell of corpses, and they cannot sleep either.
--Rupprecht Maria Luitpold Ferdinand, German commander

Shrieks of agony and groans all around me... All about me are bits of men and ghastly mixtures of cloth and blood.
--Anthony R. Hossack, British soldier

These are horrendous days... The infantry have lost about half their men, if not more. Some of those who have survived are no longer human beings, but creatures who are at the end of their tether...
--Albrecht von Thaer, German lieutenant-colonel

I can still see the bewilderment and fear on the men's faces when we went over the top. All over the battlefield, the wounded were lying there — English and German, all asking for help... You couldn't help them. I came across a Cornishman, ripped from shoulder to waist with shrapnel, his stomach on the ground beside him in a pool of blood.
--Harry Patch, British private

Among the living lay the dead. As we dug ourselves in, we found them in layers stacked on top of one another. One company after another had been shoved into the drum-fire and steadily annihilated.
--Ernst Junger, German officer

What a slaughter. Hell cannot be this dreadful.
--Alfred Joubaire, French lieutenant

I saw men dead from exhaustion from their efforts to get out of the mud... We were pitchforked into a quagmire in the dark and there was no possibility of a man helping the one next to him... It was the worst instance I came across of what appeared to be a cruel useless sacrifice of life.
--L.W. Kentish, British officer

Under no circumstances must we relax our effort, and we must retain the offensive.
--Douglas Haig, British commander

hand

decomposed German soldier

legless dead French soldier

dead American soldiers

wounded British soldier

sources:
Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War by Alan Kramer, 2007
The Faces of World War I: The Great War in Words and Pictures by Max Arthur, 2007
The Pity of War: Explaining World War I by Niall Ferguson, 1998
The Somme: Heroism and Horror in the First World War by Martin Gilbert, 2006

photographs from Corbis, Getty Images, and the Imperial War Museum London

World War I flyers

skull with aviator's helmet and goggles and German 50-mark note between the teeth as a symbol of the cheapness of an aviator's life

Take the manifold out of my back
Take the crankshaft out of my brain
Take the pistons out of my stomach
And assemble the fucking engine again

--World War I aviators' song

Dead Horse

http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Mongolia/blog-216788.html

Ramskull

photographer unknown

Mongol Shuudan

The logo of the Russian anarcho-punk rock band Mongol Shuudan.

In Mongolian, “Mongol Shuudan” means “Mongolian Postal Service.”

Their music is inspired by the history of the anarchist forces of Nestor Makhno (the “Black Army,” which fought against both the Whites and the Reds) in the Russian Civil War.

Their name was inspired by a postage stamp.

www.MongolShuudan.ru

What

A hippopotamus skull.

Happy Holidays

US

5+ Art

Photo by 5+, a young Mongolian artists' group.

http://www.art5plus.com/

http://www.art5plus.com/photo.html

Dan's photos

Photo by Dan Rosen

http://alreadythere.org/v/places/mongolia