Your Monday Briefing

Good morning.

We’re covering protests in Hong Kong against China’s planned security laws, a rare cease-fire in Afghanistan and The Times’s front page on the loss of nearly 100,000 lives in the U.S.

By Carole Landry

If you have 7 minutes, this is worth it

Pool photo by Mark Mitchell

Leading a ‘team of five million’ in New Zealand

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, a global progressive icon, has been strikingly effective in coaxing New Zealanders to suspend their lives because of the coronavirus pandemic.

As New Zealand prepares for an election in September, our Sydney bureau chief writes about her leadership style, including her deft use of Facebook to craft a relationship with a population of five million that is “less saint and disciples, more friends or teammates.”

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興膳宏作1.小川環樹先生其人：

2.性格內向的先生 —小川環樹；

3.小川環樹先生之韻
場合：講座；過世，全集
~《中國古典文化景致》

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

What makes "The Great Wave" so vibrant and rich? 

Dive in as Met scientists share the techniques that went into creating this iconic Japanese work. 

METMUSEUM.ORG

The Great Wave: Anatomy of an Icon

Scientists at The Met use modern technology to analyze the color and double woodblock printing process used to print Hokusai's Great Wave.

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Rosa Costa

Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky

Dance Curves: On the Dances of Palucca, 1926 

Dancer and choreographer Gret Palucca (1902-1993) was a former student of Mary Wigman, the leading figure in German Expressionist dance. In 1925, Palucca opened her own dance studio in Dresden and developed close contacts with various Bauhaus instructors, many of whom greatly admired her dance style. Wassily Kandinsky’s four “analytical drawings,” which were based on photographs of Palucca by Charlotte Rudolph, illustrate how closely the dancer’s style coincided with the Bauhaus aesthetic. The drawings and photographs were published in the arts journal Das Kunstblatt in 1926. According to Kandinsky, Palucca’s “principal assets” were “1. Simplicity of the whole form, and 2. Construction of the large form.”

Wassily Kandinsky, “Tanzkurven: Zu den Tänzen der Palucca,” Das Kunstblatt, Potsdam, vol. 10, no. 3 (1926)

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On May 24, 1893, the Brooklyn Bridge opened, providing the only land connection between Manhattan and Brooklyn.   ⁣

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At the opening ceremony, President Chester A. Arthur and New York Mayor Franklin Edson crossed the bridge, marked by celebratory cannon fire, with the pair greeted at the eastern end by Brooklyn Mayor Seth Low.⁣

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On the first day alone, 1,800 vehicles and 150,300 people crossed the bridge. ⁣

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The New York firm of Currier & Ives—who created this now-famous image—operated until 1907, lithographing more than 4,000 subjects for distribution across America and Europe. ⁣

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Until the 1880s, images were printed in monochrome, then hand-colored by women who worked for the company at home. In the latter decades of the 19th century, as here, Currier & Ives began to print in color.⁣

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P.S. Ever wondered how a lithograph is made? Go here  met.org/3cuMluX

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 Currier & Ives (American, active New York, 1857–1907). The Grand Display of Fireworks and Illuminations at the Opening of the Great Suspension Bridge between New York and Brooklyn on the Evening of May 24, 1883. View from New York Looking towards Brooklyn. Color lithograph. @metdrawingsandprints⁣

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[Image description: A colorful lithograph of the Brooklyn Bridge, with exploding fireworks overhead.]