Dutch state-museum

The Rijksmuseum (English: State Museum) is a Dutch national museum dedicated to arts and history in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the Concertgebouw.
The Rijksmuseum was founded in The Hague in 1800 and moved to Amsterdam in 1808, where it was first located in the Royal Palace and later in the Trippenhuis. The current main building was designed by Pierre Cuypers and was originally opened in 1885, but was closed for renovation from 2003 to 2013. On 13 April 2013, the main building was reopened by Queen Beatrix after the ten year renovation which cost € 375 million.

The museum has on display 8,000 objects of art and history, from their total collection of 1 million objects from the years 1200–2000, among which are some masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer. The museum also has a small Asian collection which is on display in the Asian Pavilion.

Romans & romans

If film was the most influential medium, Hollywood was the most influential image maker. Hollywood films reached a global audience through big budget productions, and equally big distribution and advertising channels. Hollywood adapted works of the Romanticism movement to the screen, seamlessly forging a bridge between Romanticized historical novels, operas, paintings, and music of the 19th century onto film in the 20th. The ideals of the Romantics were fully realized
on the screen in such influential works as Ivanhoe (1952) and El Cid (1961) which belong to the same late Romantic culture in their music, imagery and themes.

 

Spanish clippings

Clip culture
The widespread popularity of video clips, with the aid of new distribution channels, has evolved into 'clip culture'. It is compared to 'lean-back' experience of seeing traditional movies, refers to the Internet activity of sharing and viewing a short video, mostly less than 15 minutes. The culture began with the development of broadband Internet service, and has seen a boom since 2005 when websites for uploading clips emerged on the market.
Such video clips often show moments of significance, humour, oddity, or prodigy performance. Sources for video clips include news, movies, music video and amateur video shot. In addition to clips recorded by high-quality camcorders, it has become more common to produce clips with digital cameras, webcams, and mobile phones.

Toreador, shame or fame?

Bullfighting is a traditional spectacle of Spain, Portugal, southern France, in which one or more bulls are baited, and then killed in a bullring for the entertainment of the audience. As such, it is often called a blood sport by its detractors, but followers of the spectacle regard it as a 'fine art' and not a sport, as there are no elements of competition in the proceedings. In Portugal, it is now illegal to kill a bull in the arena, so it is removed and either professionally butchered or, in exceptional cases, treated and released into its owners'.

Supporters of bullfighting argue that it is a culturally important tradition and a fully developed art form on par with painting, dancing and music, while animal rights advocates hold that it is a blood sport resulting in the suffering of bulls and horses.
Spanish-style bullfighting is normally fatal for the bull, but it is also dangerous for the matador. Matadors are usually gored every season, with picadors and banderilleros being gored less often. With the discovery of antibiotics and advances in surgical techniques, fatalities are now rare, although over the past three centuries 533 notable professional bullfighters have died in the ring or from injuries sustained there.