Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669):  Prints  

Rembrandt created some 300 etchings and drypoints from about 1626 to 1665.  His career as a printmaker ran parallel to his career as a painter—he rarely treated the same themes in both media and only occasionally did he reproduce his paintings in prints.  Above all, he was a great innovator and experimenter in this medium, often handling traditional materials in unconventional ways.  His impact on printmaking is still reflected in etchings produced today.  Rembrandt began etching early in his career while he was still in Leiden.  His own face is a common feature in his earliest prints, which were probably meant as studies of varied expressions rather than self-portraits.  He also often portrayed family and people he knew around him (The Artist’s Mother).  In later years, he still etched unconventional and beautiful introspective portraits like that of the goldsmith Jan Lutma the Elder (1656; ), in which he evoked the shifting play of light on the sitter.  See graphics at https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rembp/hd_rembp.htm 

Using a nom de plume has been common throughout the history of literature.  Some authors fear punishment by strict, controlling governments, while in other cases women have used masculine noms de plume during times when men have had an easier time getting published.  You could also call it a pseudonym or a pen name.  While the phrase nom de plume means "pen name" in French, it doesn't come from French speakers, but was coined in English using French words.  https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/nom%20de%20plume  See also "What's in a name?":  10 noms de plumes of famous authors at https://cafebabel.com/en/article/whats-in-a-name-10-noms-de-plumes-of-famous-authors-5ae00b60f723b35a145e76dc/ 

The great American expatriate painter James McNeill Whistler is best known, of course, for his Arrangement in Grey and Black, a.k.a. Whistler’s Mother, an austere portrait of a severe woman in a straight-backed chair.  But judging Whistler only by this dour picture (of a mother said to have been censorious toward her libertine son) is misleading; the artist delighted in color.  One painting that exemplifies Whistler’s vivid palette, The Princess from the Land of Porcelain, constitutes the centerpiece of the Peacock Room at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art.  The work was owned by English shipping magnate Frederick R. Leyland in 1876 and held pride of place in the dining room of his London house, where he displayed an extensive collection of Chinese porcelain—hence the painting’s title.  The subject was Christina Spartali, an Anglo-Greek beauty whom all the artists of the day were clamoring to paint.  In 1920 the Smithsonian acquired the painting and the room (essentially a series of decorated panels and lattice-work shelving attached to a substructure).  Owen Edwards  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-story-behind-the-peacock-rooms-princess-159271229/ 

The Jacobean Era was the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of James VI of Scotland who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I.   The Jacobean era succeeds the Elizabethan era and precedes the Caroline era.  The term "Jacobean" is often used for the distinctive styles of Jacobean architecture, visual arts, decorative arts, and literature which characterized that period.  The practical if not formal unification of England and Scotland under one ruler was an important shift of order for both nations, and would shape their existence to the present day.  Another development of crucial significance was the foundation of the first British colonies on the North American continent, at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, in Newfoundland in 1610, and at Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts in 1620, which laid the foundation for future British settlement and the eventual formation of both Canada and the United States of America.  The fine arts were dominated by foreign talent in the Jacobean era, as was true of the Tudor and Stuart periods in general, and Sir Nathaniel Bacon (1585–1627).  The decorative arts–furniture, for example–became increasingly rich in color, detail, and design.  Materials from other parts of the world, like mother-of-pearl, were now available by worldwide trade and were used as decoration.  Even familiar materials, such as wood and silver, were worked more deeply in intricate and intensely three-dimensional designs.   Architecture in the Jacobean era was a continuation of the Elizabethan style with increasing emphasis on classical elements like columns and obelisks.  Architectural detail and decorative strapwork patterns derived from continental engravings, especially the prints of Hans Vredeman de Vries, were employed on buildings and furniture.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobean_era 

vortex (n.)  1650s, "whirlpool, eddying mass," from Latin vortex, variant of vertex "an eddy of water, wind, or flame; whirlpool; whirlwind," from stem of vertere "to turn".  Plural form is vortices.  Became prominent in 17c. theories of astrophysics (by Descartes, etc.).  In reference to human affairs, it is attested from 1761.  Vorticism as a movement in British arts and literature is attested from 1914, coined by Ezra Pound.  Related: vortical; vorticist  https://www.etymonline.com/word/vortex 

A parachute candidate (also known as a "carpetbagger" in the United States) is a pejorative term for an election candidate who does not live in, and has little connection to, the area they are running to represent.  The allegation is thus that the candidate is being “parachuted in” for the job by a desperate political party that has no reliable talent local to the district or state or that the party (or the candidate himself/herself) wishes to give a candidate an easier election than would happen in one's own home area.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute_candidate 

On July 25, 1897, a 21-year-old ex-oyster pirate named Jack London boarded a ship to the Yukon to join the Klondike Gold Rush, hoping, like tens of thousands of other prospectors, to find his fortune—and perhaps a little bit of adventure while he was at it.  But six months later, he was discouraged, to say the least.  “All he’d found,” wrote Joy Lanzendorfer, “was a small amount of dust worth $4.50.  A diet of bacon, beans, and bread had given him scurvy.  His gums bled, his joints ached, and his teeth were loose.  London decided that, if he lived, he would no longer try to rise above poverty through physical labor.   Instead, he would become a writer.  So he carved into the cabin wall the words ‘Jack London Miner Author Jan 27, 1898.’”   He began submitting stories to magazines while still in Alaska, and his experiences there would inspire much of his work, including his famous novel The Call of the Wild and one of his best known short stories, “To Build a Fire.”  “When London returned from the Klondike, he dove into writing, churning out thousands of words,” Lanzendorfer writes.  “For months, he got nothing for his efforts but rejection letters—over 600 of them.  Everything I possessed was in pawn, and I did not have enough to eat,’ he wrote of that time.  ‘I was at the end of my tether, beaten out, starved, ready to go back to coal-shoveling or ahead to suicide.’  Then he sold two short stories, one for $5 and another for $40.  Slowly, he began publishing, and in 1903 he wrote three books, including The Call of the Wild.  He followed up with more hits—White Fang, The Sea-Wolf, and Martin Eden, among others.  By his late 20s, he was the highest-paid writer in the United States.”  What did he spend his money on?  A thousand-acre ranch in Sonoma County, a boat he named The Snark, and a personal library of some 15,000 volumes.  Seems like he made his fortune in the gold rush after all.  Literary Hub  July 24. 2022  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2543  July 25, 2022