Gustav Klimt on Google Doodle
Doodle July 14, 2012
Google commemorates Austrian artist Gustav Klimt with a doodle of the artist’s “The Kiss,” integrated into the logo in gold…a characteristic Klimt style.
Klimt is one of the most celebrated art nouveau painters in Austria today with works that can be seen in many historical buildings in Vienna’s Ringstraße which includes the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Burgtheater and a lot more.
He became one of the founding members and president of the Wiener Sezession (Vienna Secession) in 1897 (below is the Secession building, which is characterized by a golden dome of laurel leaves). Klimt remained with the Secession until 1908. The group’s goals were to provide exhibitions for unconventional young artists, to bring the best foreign artists’ works to Vienna, and to publish its own magazine to showcase members’ work.
The Kiss is currently exhibited at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, a museum at the Belvedere Palace.
For his 150th Birthday today, 14 July, a center dedicated to him was opened in Kammer am Attersee. It is not a museum per se, but rather a documentation center…Future activities associated with the artist will be held there. The initiative “Klimt am Attersee” is in cooperation with the Leopold Museum in Vienna.
(photos in collage taken during a night walk inVienna)
The Kiss, upclose
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Johann Gottfried Galle on Google Doodle
Google honors German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle with a doodle depicting the solar system and a giant telescope. on 23 September 1846, with the assistance of student Heinrich Louis d’Arrest, was the first person to view the planet Neptune, and know what he was looking at.
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Peter Carl Fabergé on Google Doodle
Google doodlers honor Peter Carl Fabergé with a doodle depicting 6 faberge eggs in different colors and designs with the letters G and E peeping out from two opened eggs.
Fabergé, born in Saint Petersburg, Russia was a son of a jeweller, he took over his father’s business to what would be a company producing lucrative form of art later on. He was commissioned by Tsar Alexander III to make what were then easter eggs as gifts to his wife, the Empress Maria, mother of Tsar Nicholas (Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov), the last emperor of Russia. He (Tsar Nicholas) himself would commission Faberge to continually make eggs, made of precious metals or hard stones decorated with combinations of enamel and gem stones, as gifts to his wife and mother. These eggs came to be known as the Imperial Fabergé eggs, a symbol of luxury and a masterpiece of the jeweller.
Hubby came home from Kiev with these souvenirs; babooshka, eggs, shot glass and mug.
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Gideon Sundback on Google Doodle
Google honors Swedish-Americal engineer Gideon Sundback with a doodle of a zipper going down an embroidered Google logo.
In 1941, Otto Fredrik Gideon Sundback developed a version based on interlocking teeth, the “Hookless No. 2″. In this fastener each tooth is punched to have a dimple on its bottom and a nib or conical projection on its top. It is the modern metal zipper in all its essentials.
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Google celebrates Earth Day with a Doodle
Google celebrates Earth day with a time-lapse animation doodle of flowering plants that slowly blooms. It is the 42nd year of the advocacy started by US Senator Gaylord Nelson in efforts to raise environmental awareness.
Here we see purple, red and yellow flowers sprout from a series of shrubs laid out to spell Google. The shrubs appear to be pansies and the likes.
Earth Day was first held on 1970 after then senator Nelson, thought of the idea to promote an environmental agenda after a huge oil spill off the coast of California a year earlier.
Major Earth Day events have been held since 1970, always on 22 April. In 1990 the event went global for the first time, involving activities with an estimated 200 million people in 141 countries.
This year’s Earth Day is centered around the theme “one billion acts of green”, which encourages individuals to make simple environmentally conscious pledges, such as switching off light bulbs (sounds like earth hour no?) or reducing car journeys. Organisers say the day is now observed in 192 countries. WÖW
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