As the global recession has swallowed the United States in its seemingly bottomless stomach, one of the first cities to crumble was Detroit. To document this tragic decline, French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain took to the Motor City and came back with some of the most hauntingly beautiful and compelling images of the recession to date.
Standing at over 200 feet tall (60 meters), Seljalandsfoss is one of Icelands most famous waterfalls due to its natural, picturesque beauty.
Founded by Andre Breton in the early 1920s and emphatically explained in his Manifestoes of Surrealism, Surrealism is often considered both a cultural and revolutionary art movement. The form dedicated itself to depicting the subconscious and as such many critics regard Surrealism as a substantial divergence from traditional art movements.
By stripping ordinary objects of their normal function, Surrealist artists aimed to expose psychological truth and as a result created abstract images in order to evoke empathy from the viewer. Highly individualized, the movement relied heavily on the element of the unexpected, borrowed from various Dadaist techniques and eventually came to represent the alienation many experienced in the wake of a war stricken world.
Undoubtedly the most famous Surrealist painting in history, The Persistence of Memory is Salvador Dali’s iconic ode to time. The dripping clocks reflect the inner workings of Dali’s subconscious and convey a simple (albeit complexly delivered) message: time as we know it is meaningless.
Dali’s Metamorphosis of Narcissus depicts the tale of Greek figure Narcissus, the egotistical man who pined for his reflection in a pool of water. In this painting Narcissus is seen sitting in a pool with two other Narcissus-like figures hidden in the landscape.
Rene Magritte painted The Son of Man as a self-portrait with the hope of conveying important messages about the individual. In regard to the painting, Magritte stated that “Everything we see hides another thing. We always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.”
In order to highlight Magritte’s belief that art was not reality but a mere representation of it, Magritte painted the well known and philosophically provocative “This Is Not a Pipe” portrait. In the work, Magritte did in fact paint a pipe however sought to relay to the viewer that the pipe wasn’t actually a pipe but rather an image of the real thing. Magritte’s painting holds true to the surrealist style as it strips signs and symbols of their original meaning.
Even though he worked as a painter prior to Surrealism’s inception, the works of Greek painter Giorgio de Chirico’s had a great and lasting influence on the surrealist movement. In fact, Surrealism’s most salient proponents like Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte and Yves Tanguy all acknowledged Chirico’s impact on their own work, particularly regarding Chirico’s use of color and composition to reflect brooding moods. The Red Tower was his first painting.
This 1921 painting is among the most famous of Ernst’s earlier works and heavily mimics the style of Giorgio de Chirico.
Yves Tanguy’s paintings exemplify more nonrepresentational surrealism and show vast, abstract landscapes yet utilize a minimal amount of colors.
Scattered along the scenic Great Ocean Road in Australia, the 12 Apostles formation is the result of the Southern Ocean’s harsh weather conditions eroding the existing landscape. Beginning 10 to 20 million years ago, the constant erosion of the limestone cliffs caused caves to form within them. These caves eventually became arches and ultimately collapsed into the isolated stacks of rock seen today.
Created from 300 million year old salt bed deposits, Arches National Park in Utah is home to over 2,000 beautifully crafted arches. As the salt beds shifted over the years, the superior rock layers began to create domes that were further molded by rain, ice and wind. The result? The magnificent arches you see today.
The Stone Forest in China is an amazing sea of towering stone pinnacles that are believed to be over 270 million years old. Some speculate that the area was once an ocean floor and that today’s stone structures are actually the rocky results of millions of years of flowing water.
Situated north of the Farafra Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt, the White Desert is populated with chalk rock formations that have formed following occasional sandstorms.
Located in Blyde Canyon in South Africa, the Three Rondavels are named for their resemblance to the rondavels — or huts — of Africa. Over time the harder and superficial rock layers eroded more slowly than the underlying softer layers, which resulted in this unique South African rock formation. As a fun piece of trivia, the Three Rondavels are thought to have inspired the setting in J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
Also known as Bears Lodge, Devils Tower is America’s first national monument and a sacred site to many Native Americans. Devil’s Tower was formed approximately 60 million years ago during a volcanic eruption, when the molten lava released during the eruption eventually cooled and soon shaped the basalt columns.
Located in Yehlia Geopark, Taiwan, the Queen’s Head is a curious stone monument that has been sculpted by wind and sea erosion. However, the Queen’s Head is only one of the many uniquely shaped (and named) stone moments in the region, with others including the Fairy’s Shoe, Candle, Stone Heart, Bean Curd, and the Dragon Head.
Calling Utah’s Canyonlands National Park home, Mesa Arch is a stone’s throw away from The Arches National Park (pun intended). The arch is located right on the rim of a plateau and beautifully frames the canyon landscape below it.
A report in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry found that eating fruits and vegetables might actually help the human body make its own aspirin. The report claims that benzoic acid, a natural substance in fruits and vegetables, can help make an acid found in aspirin: salicylic acid. That acid is the key component for pain relief and anti-inflammation.
Humans grow up to half an inch taller as they sleep, as it is a time when excess fluid between our discs replenishes itself and thus stretches our limbs. Conversely, our discs undergo stress and compress themselves throughout the waking hours. The result? The replenished fluid seeps out.
Despite how lifeless we may feel in the morning, the human body makes enough heat to bring half a gallon of water to boil in only thirty minutes.
Pondering that double cheeseburger, french fries and milkshake again? Think again: overeating has been associated with hearing loss.
As much as we may like to malinger, consider this before calling in to work: even the removal of the spleen, stomach, one kidney, one lung, 75% of the liver, 80% of one’s intestines, and almost every organ from the pelvic and groin area, will not result in your death. Are you still too sick for work?
Despite our natural desire for symmetry, we must accept the fact that the term is not one always associated with our bodies: as the human heart is situated beneath the left lung, it is actually smaller than its neighbor on the right.
If you’ve just returned from a three-week journey in the Sahara Desert, don’t try to eat—or at least enjoy it. If your body lacks saliva, you won’t be able to taste your food. The scientific explanation? In order for the flavors to be tasted, the chemicals within the food must combine with and be dissolved by saliva.
