Telemarketing and Your Business

Telemarketing can absolutely addition your profits and access sales for your business. If you aren't already utilizing telemarketing aural your business again now is the absolute time to attending into abacus telemarketing into the mix to ensure bigger after-effects for your business.

Is telemarketing expensive?

Telemarketing can be actual expensive, but it depends how you go about it. Conducting in abode telemarketing is about the better expense. Set up, hiring of agents and telco all add up absolutely quickly.

The best bet for those of you searching for a altercation chargeless way to absorb telemarketing to your business would be to attending for telemarketing companies such who are inexpensive, accomplished and aswell action a backup policy. They should acquiesce you to pay per hour or per advance whichever would plan best for your business model. You do about allegation to be able to pay upfront if you wish a top superior job completed. If you're on a account plan out how abundant you're searching to absorb per anniversary and again stick to that and abound your telemarketing attack as your business grows. A lot of business companies will be accommodating to plan with your account and advice you abound aback it will aswell account their business.

To accord you some idea, some Australian based telemarketing companies allegation as little as $25 per hour per agent, from $25 per sales advance or from $33 per appointment. They can action these affordable ante due to their appropriate telco ante and accomplished staff. So ensure you don't get ashore with top rates, boutique about and see if companies can exhausted added quoted rates!

How will telemarketing access profits for my business?

As business owners we all apperceive that beginning leads are a basic allotment of accretion sales and profits for your business. Telemarketing is the absolute way to ensure you accept a constant accumulation of hot sales leads, accessories etc.

One affair you should apprehend about is that leads are leads... whether they're generated online, through chat of mouth, via television, radio or telemarketing not every individual advance will close, it is artlessly an befalling for your business to present it's articles and casework to an absorbed party.

So accordingly it is important to ensure that the leads you're bringing in from telemarketing will be accurately activated and not accepted to about-face into burning sales. You accept to bethink that telemarketing is a anatomy of commercial your business rather than absolute sales and you allegation to be accommodating with the advance of the leads and advance them properly.

How can I advance the leads or accessories properly?

Firstly you allegation a top superior sales team. If you already accept one again you allegation to ensure that they accept absolutely what a advance is, its not a bankrupt sale... that is their job as sales humans to abutting the prospect. It is artlessly a advance of anyone who has bidding absorption in your articles or services.

Pick the actual condoning questions. Abounding businesses dont put abundant accomplishment into the condoning questions they baddest for their artefact or service. This is the a lot of important assignment in ambience up your telemarketing for your business. In adjustment for it to be acknowledged you allegation to ensure that the questions accommodated up with the end aftereffect you expect.

A abundant way for you to ensure you accept covered aggregate you allegation in your condoning questions is to run it by your sales aggregation afore arrangement it to the telemarketing team. Your sales aggregation will be the aboriginal to accuse about leads so their ascribe actuality should accomplish for a added advantageous experience.

You allegation to ensure that leads or accessories are not accepting wasted. Sometimes sales humans get apathetic and they wish to artlessly alarm a advance or arrangement an arrangement and accept them abatement into their lap as a auction again and there. But abominably not every advance or arrangement will be that easy. Sales teams allegation to be watched anxiously by you as to how they're utilizing the leads and appointments, are they giving chase up calls if the abeyant chump asks? Are they re-scheduling any arrangement which deceit be kept? Do they apperceive the cachet of anniversary advance or arrangement they're alive on? These things are all important for the account of your business. Too generally do I see sales leads accepting beatific aback for asinine affidavit such as "This chump had a ancestors emergency and needs to re-shedule appointment" In this instance the sales accepting should be all-embracing this as a approaching appointment, there is already a faculty of affinity accepting congenital and some advice on the abeyant customer. This doesn't beggarly it is a bad lead, and could in actuality prove to be a abundant easier advance to abutting in the approaching than a lot of due to the akin of affinity accepting built.

Bottom band is you allegation to be boxy on your sales team, analyze their plan and whatever leads you accept weren't appropriately able to the accepted you were promised based on your condoning questions should be alternate and replaced by your called telemarketing company.

How continued will it yield to alpha seeing profits from telemarketing?

It all depends on the advance of your campaign, sometimes telemarketing is a alive advance so you should not apprehend affecting after-effects quickly. You allegation to plan duke in duke with the telemarketing aggregation you accept called to ensure the success of your telemarketing attack and to see absolute results. Sometimes you will allegation to adapt condoning questions in adjustment to get the best results, this can sometimes be a acquirements action for both parties.

Usually things will run abundant smoother if you're ambidextrous with a aggregation who has acquaintance in telemarketing for your industry, artefact or service. Especially if you yourself are not 100% abiding on what condoning questions will plan best.

Telemarketing companies can aswell accommodate acumen as to what condoning questions should be included if you accord them abundant advice on your artefact or account as able-bodied as what after-effects you're searching for and your sales process.

Generally if you activate your attack with all the actual condoning questions again you can calmly activate authoritative profits as anon as the leads or accessories are formed on by your sales team. This could be as quick as one week!

Does telemarketing accept added allowances besides breeding sales leads and accessories for my business?

Of advance it does! Any business that is actively accepting your business name and data out there will absolutely accept added allowances for your business and it is important to adviser this and to ensure you are accepting the best amount for your blade if advance in telemarketing services.

Don't just attending at telemarketing as a advance bearing account or arrangement ambience account that will accomplish you just the leads or accessories you're paying for. Maximize it!!!! Acquiesce telemarketing agents to accord out your website or business data to those who don't absolutely authorize or aren't accessible for an arrangement appropriate now.

Not alone will this access cartage to your website but it will aswell accommodate you with approaching business and will betrayal your business to abounding humans every individual day! A lot of telemarketing agents are able of authoritative upto 400 affiliated calls daily, so why not allotment your business with as abounding of those abeyant barter as possible. The accepting they allege to may aswell apperceive added humans who are absorbed in your articles and/or casework as well.

Is telemarketing the alone business I allegation for my business?

If you're just starting out again telemarketing is absolutely a abundant abode to start, it is fast, able and will absolutely access profits for your business and acquiesce your business to grow.

But like any business address for your business the added the merrier as continued as they plan that is. Combining your telemarketing casework with things such as an online presence, sms marketing, email marketing, commercial through radio, newspapers or television, advance advertising, and abundant added would alone accompany added acknowledgment and business your way.

Like any business action you allegation to see if it will plan in with your blazon of business and how you like things run.

All in all telemarketing will definatley do absolute things for your business if it is done correctly. So if you're searching to add telemarketing to your business plan again get in blow with an accomplished telemarketing aggregation today and activate alive appear advocacy profits for your business!

Sistine Chapel Ceiling Part II: Earlier Influences

My blog post earlier in the week has inspired me to write even more on Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes.  Honestly I could probably write on this topic weekly and still find new things to say, its impact on art was so significant.

At the same time though, while Michelangelo’s frescoes have provided inspiration for hundreds of other artists and artworks, it appears that he also drew on a wide variety of earlier images.  During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance there were certain visual traditions that were used in art to let the viewer instantly recognize the subject.

Michelangelo was from Florence, the city known as the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance where many examples of art could be found.  Michelangelo greatly respected the master painters and sculptors that came before him and drew on their art for his own inspiration.

Temptation, Masolino and Expulsion, Masaccio, Brancacci Chapel, 

S. Maria del Carmine, Florence, 1424-27

One example can be found in Michelangelo's Temptation and Expulsion fresco, he was influenced by the frescoes in Santa Maria del Carmine, the Carmelite church in Florence.  The frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel by Masolino and Masaccio with the same subject matter were works of art that he was known to regularly visit and sketch from.


Let's compare and contrast the subjects.  From Masolino, Michelangelo borrowed the idea of the serpent in the Garden of Eden having the head of a woman rather than that of a snake.  Both artists also focused on the figures rather than the garden setting.  From Masaccio Michelangelo used the idea of an angel with a sword and showing Adam and Eve as having become haggard and miserable as they were forced to leave, both sets of figures appear to be in agony.


Michelangelo's fresco was painted more than 80 years later than the earlier two.  When comparing and contrasting both sets of figures we can see that he spent quite a lot of time studying anatomy.  Drawing from the nude life model was now a more acceptable practice, and while it was still unacceptable to dissect cadavers, his study of bones and muscles has paid off in a depicting very accurate and realistic bodies.

Temptation and Expulsion from Eden, Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Vatican, 1508-12

Another example can be found in the cloisters at Santa Maria Novella.  The frescoes done outside in the cloister by Paolo Uccello are known as the Chiostro Verde (Green Cloisters) because they have faded after being exposed to the elements and have a greenish appearance.

Interestingly enough they cover the same subject matter as the Sistine Chapel ceiling: The stories from Genesis (Creation of Adam, Creation of Eve, Temptation, Expulsion) and scenes of the Deluge and Noah's Ark.

Santa Maria Novella is the same church that Ghirlandaio and his workshop painted two enormous fresco cycles.  At the time those were being painted, Michelangelo was studying under Ghirlandaio.  He was participating in the fresco painting and would have become very familiar with Uccello's work.

Again Uccello's Temptation scene shows the serpent with the head of a woman, however he takes great care to paint a landscape and foliage in his fresco.  

 Creation of the Animals, Creation of Adam, Creation of Eve, Temptation in the Garden of Eden, Paolo Uccello, Chiostro Verde, St. Maria Novella, Florence, c-1430-1450

Compare and contrast Uccello's Creation of Adam with Michelangelo's Creation of Eve (left hand scene shown below).  Both show God as an old robed man who is helping up the newly created human.  There is something of Uccello's Adam in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam as well, the pose that Adam takes with one straight leg and one bent knee.

I imagine that when they were first done the Uccello frescoes looked much different and would have been quite impressive.  However when compared side by side (done years later) it is easy to see why Michelangelo became such an influence on later artists.  His realism is stunning.

Look at the interesting view of the ceiling below, the combination of large scenes combined with smaller scenes and the painted illusion of sculpture and a cornice is incredible.  Everything you see below is painted and creates both a striking illusion and a powerful narrative.

Last but not least we should remember the influence of the ancient sculpture, the Laocoon, which was unearthed while Michelangelo was painting this in Rome (more information can be found in an earlier blog post I wrote on the Laocoon in July of 2011).  The sculpture can be seen in the left hand column of this blog.

The struggle taking place and the twisting torso influenced those figures known as "ignudi" on the ceiling.  They were the mysterious athletic male figures who frame the corners of each main scene, no two have the same pose.

In a later post I want to highlight some of the later artists that Michelangelo influenced, I already mentioned this in my writing on Caravaggio.  There are many, many other artists that drew on Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes as a source.  I think that may be a very long blog post indeed.

Until then here are my book recommendations-

Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King- I know I just listed it in my last post but this book is really informative and well written.  It is non fiction but feels like a fast paced novel and puts every aspect of this work in a new light.
Michelangelo Biography of a Genius by Bruno Nardini- this is a very good biography.
The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo by Irving Stone- one of my favorite books, telling the story of Michelangelo through a novel.  This is based on history and research but as a novel isn't 100% accurate, still it is a very good story and will give anyone a new appreciation for this great master.

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Ceiling

We were never supposed to remember Michelangelo when we think of the Sistine Chapel.  In the early Renaissance an artist was little more than a tradesman or artisan.  Art wasn’t created as self-expression but was typically commissioned by a wealthy patron.  Even the best and most highly sought after artists were not considered to be in the same social class as their patrons.  

In the case of the Sistine Chapel the patron was the pope.  Do many people in the 21^st century know of Pope Julius II (1443-1513) who commissioned the ceiling frescoes or his uncle Pope Sixtus IV (1414-1484) who remodeled the original chapel?  Both were from the extremely wealthy and influential della Rovere family in Urbino.

 Sistine Chapel Ceiling frescoes, Michelangelo, 1508-12, Vatican

When the Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes were commissioned the public was meant to remember these two popes from the della Rovere family instead.  It would have seemed unthinkable before their creation that 500 years later instead the ceiling would be forever linked with the artist rather than the patron.

I have been to the Sistine Chapel more than once, and I am also struck by the fact that it is not just the ceiling which is covered in frescoes by Michelangelo.  The entire chapel is covered in frescoes painted by some of the leading artists of the time including Luca Signorelli and then another three who all trained with Leonardo’s teacher Andrea del Verrocchio: Botticelli, Perugino (Raphael’s teacher) and Ghirlandaio (Michelangelo’s first teacher).  It is as if the entire Italian High Renaissance is indebted to the work in the Sistine Chapel.

 Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter, Pietro Perugino, 1481-82, Vatican

Michelangelo started his artistic training in the fresco workshop of Ghirlandaio in Florence.  He participated in the fresco cycles at Santa Maria Novella in Florence, but he didn’t enjoy the medium.  Shortly thereafter he received training in sculpting and from that point forward considered himself a sculptor.  Later he went to Rome, where he attracted the attention of the Pope with his sculpture of the Pieta.

Pope Julius II saw in the ceiling a blank canvas to express the greatness of the Catholic Church and therefore the implied greatness of the della Rovere family within the church.  However Michelangelo wasn’t interested in the commission at all, he was more interested in the Pope’s original idea of building himself an enormous marble tomb.  When Julius II changed his mind and asked to have the huge and oddly curved Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoed, Michelangelo left and went home to Florence.  The Pope had him followed and asked that he return and the civic leaders made him return so as not to start a war by disobeying the Pope.

 The Deluge, Michelangeo, Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Vatican, 1508-12

Michelangelo returned with a team of assistants, unlike painting on a canvas a fresco was an incredibly difficult process which involved plastering a wall and immediately painting on the wet plaster.  The painting was permanent and had to be removed to fix errors, it took days of four men working together to paint even a small area.

The role of the artist had slowly been changing in the late 15^th century and the three great artists of the High Renaissance (Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael) played a large role in that.  It is not entirely known what part Michelangelo played in the layout of the ceiling and the depiction of the Biblical stories shown there.  As Ross King writes in his informative book Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling (p. 60):


     "For a pope to hand over to a mere artist - even to an artist of Michelangelo's reputation - the
     complete pictorial program for the decoration of the most important chapel in Christendom 
     would have been, to say the least, highly unusual."

Temptation and Expulsion from Eden, Michelangeo, Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Vatican, 1508-12

It is much more likely that there were advisers to the Pope who helped suggest the design and choose the stories to show.  The scenes are all from the Old Testament and relate to rebirth and new beginnings (God creating the World, God creating Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark) and therefore indirectly relate to how the della Rovere family helped achieve it's own rebirth of the church.

However Michelangelo visited many churches in Florence and drew on earlier depictions and sources for these (this will be discussed at length in a future blog post).  His new realism and use of the figure to tell stories had an immediate impact when the first half of the ceiling was unveiled to the public in 1510.

 The Creation of Adam, Michelangeo, Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Vatican, 1508-12

The stories were painted in backwards chronological order,  note how much his style was changed and simplified from the first scene showing Noah and the Flood.  In that early painting the scene is crowded with figures.  His work becomes much more effective when he simplifies his style.

He uses the human figure to represent the entire story, leaving out many of the symbols, landscape and backgrounds that other artists were using.  His studies in human anatomy are evident and this key work shaped the direction of the Renaissance.

 God Separating Darkness and Light, Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Vatican, 1508-12

Pope Julius II recognized the extraordinary skill level of Michelangelo, but it was through his Sistine Chapel Ceiling frescoes that everyone recognized his genius and his status as a "mere artist" was transcended. 

 

Note: For more on this topic my next blog post  Sistine Chapel Ceiling Part II: Earlier Influences, discusses some of the earlier art that inspired Michelangelo.

Suggested Reading:

Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King
Michelangelo: His Life, Work and Times by Linda Murray 
Michelangelo: Biography of a Genius by Bruno Nardini

Business Marketing

How to Accomplish Your Internet Business Strategies Successful

Do you apprehension how a lot of entrepreneurs are starting to use the Internet to advance their business? Well, this is not absolutely hasty because the accessible acceptance of Internet a allotment of humans behindhand of the age group. With this, it is recommendable for you to alpha business your business in the Internet as well. For sure, you will accretion added success back you are bringing your aggregation - your articles or casework afterpiece to your ambition audience. However, it is best to apprentice some tips on how to barrage acknowledged Internet business campaigns. This will advice abnormally entrepreneurs who are new to this field:

Accomplish abiding to portray acceptable angel for your aggregation - your primary affair is the angel of your company. Therefore, you should not barrage annihilation on the Internet unless you are 100 percent annoyed with it. For example, you are not actual adequate in architecture websites again what you should do is appoint anyone who is able in the field. You cannot accident the angel of your aggregation by aggravating to barrage a website that is not able-bodied planned and executed. Also, be abiding to adapt aggregate on the website to abstain any types of absurdity that can could cause abuse to your image.

Set up a blog - besides ablution an official website for your business, it would aswell be abundant to set up a blog. On this blog, you could abode your admirers on a added claimed level. You could aswell barrage contests and added gimmicks to accomplish the admirers added engaged. A blog is aswell a acceptable area to accomplish assertive announcements for your articles or services.

Apprentice about SEO to addition the success of your attack - are you accustomed with SEO or seek engine optimization? Well, this is the key to extensive your ambition audience. If your artefact or aggregation is almost new and baby again you ability accept to plan bifold to tap your ambition audience. With the advice of SEO, you could acquisition adapted keywords for your website and eventually acquisition a way to ambition your adapted accumulation of audience. You could seek advice from SEO experts to addition your website's baronial and traffic.

Be alive in assorted amusing media networks - as you apparently noticed amusing media networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others are so able because abounding humans are allotment of these networks. Therefore, you should go area the humans are. Accomplish abiding to accomplish your aggregation arresting in assorted amusing media networks.

Adviser the acknowledgment of your admirers - lastly, to admeasurement the success of your campaigns, it is actual important that you adviser the responses of the audience. You can get account from their responses and a lot of importantly, you would apperceive about their angle and opinions about your articles or services.

Using the Internet to advance your articles or casework is absolutely a acceptable idea. However, you should apperceive that this does not agreement success a lot of abnormally if you will not chase the tips mentioned in this article. It is actual important to bethink that Internet is so big and it can be actual viral so you should be amenable with all the advice and statements that you will be releasing. It is simple to hit column or broadcast but already you do again you should be abiding that you can angle by it or abroad you will

Has Sculpture Become Just Another Pretty Face?

BERLIN — Sometimes on a whim I stop into the Bode Museum here to commune with a tiny clay sculpture of John the Baptist.
It’s in a corner of a nearly always empty room, a bone-white bust, pretty and as androgynous as mid-1970s Berlin-addled David Bowie. The saint’s upturned eyes glow in the hard light through tall windows. Attributed to the 15th-century Luccan artist Matteo Civitali, the sculpture is all exquisite ecstasy and languor.
Sometimes it’s not the saint I check on but a sculptured portrait in the same room of the banker Filippo Strozzi — stern like a Roman emperor, the face of rectitude and power — by Benedetto da Maiano, Civitali’s contemporary. Then I usually climb the stairs to admire Houdon’s bust of Gluck, the composer, and ogle a towering pair of craggy German knights, relics of Renaissance pageantry made of painted wood, each taller than the N.B.A. star Dirk Nowitzki.
Mostly, though, I go to the Bode for the silence.

Like a sentry commanding the northern tip of Berlin’s Museum Island, its back turned to the busier Pergamon Museum, the Neues Museum, the Altes Museum and the Alte Nationalgalerie, the Bode seems to attract just a few handfuls of visitors a day. Some go there to see the paintings, coins and Byzantine art. The sculpture rooms are mostly abandoned.

Is it me, or do we seem to have a problem with sculpture today? I don’t mean contemporary sculpture, whose fashionable stars (see Koons, Murakami et alia) pander to our appetite for spectacle and whatever’s new. I don’t mean ancient or even non-Western sculpture, either. I mean traditional European sculpture — celebrities like Bernini and Rodin aside — and American sculpture, too: the enormous universe of stuff we come across in churches and parks, at memorials and in museums like the Bode. The stuff Barnett Newman, the Abstract Expressionist painter, notoriously derided as objects we bump into when backing up to look at a painting.

A few minutes’ walk from the Bode, the Friedrichswerdersche Kirche, the rebuilt neo-Gothic former church designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the 1830s, houses its own sublime assortment of 19th-century sculpture. It’s usually even emptier than the Bode, and it is free to boot. I’ll occasionally spend an hour or so there, feeling small and unimportant before the portraits of Kant and the great German archaeologist Johann Winckelmann. Except for the doleful guards, I rarely encounter another living soul.

I grew up with the smells of plaster dust and clay in my mother’s sculpture studio on Third Avenue. Making a figure out of stone or metal retains its childlike wonder for me. But sculpture skeptics from Leonardo through Hegel and Diderot have cultivated our prejudice against the medium. “Carib art,” is how Baudelaire described sculpture, meaning that even the suavest, most sophisticated works of unearthly virtuosity by Enlightenment paragons like Canova and Thorvaldsen were tainted by the medium’s primitive, cultish origins.

Racism notwithstanding, Baudelaire had a point. Sculpture does still bear something of the burden of its commemorative and didactic origins. It’s too literal, too direct, too steeped in religious ceremony and too complex for a historically amnesiac culture. We prefer the multicolored distractions of illusionism on flat surfaces, flickering in a movie theater or digitized on our laptops and smartphones, or painted on canvas. The marketplace ratifies our myopia, making headlines for megamillion-dollar sales of old master and Impressionist pictures but rarely for premodern sculptures.

Critics bow to fashion and a legacy of lazy disdain, largely avoiding the topic — I’ve done it myself, so I know — and museums only perpetuate the cycle, offering a steady flow of Botticelli, Monet and Rembrandt exhibitions, before which we genuflect like medieval pilgrims praying before sculptured shrines. But sculpture shows that might broaden our horizons, being costly and difficult to mount, are almost rarer than genuine newly discovered Michelangelos.

In an age of special effects, we may also simply no longer know how to feel awe at the sight of sculptured faces by the German genius Tilman Riemenschneider or before a bronze statue by Donatello. We can’t see past the raw materiality and subject matter. Never mind that Donatello may have been the greatest creative genius until Picasso; he long ago got lapped in the public’s imagination by Madame Tussaud, who has given way to “Avatar” in 3-D and Alexander McQueen’s trippy costumed mannequins.

I read the other day that the Metropolitan Museum had decided to stay open late to accommodate the bewildering crowds for its McQueen extravaganza. Mass hysteria is how a friend described it to me. It clearly became the height of fashion for people to stand in the endless line, if only to have been able to say that they stood in the endless line. How many of those people, I asked myself, stopped to look at any of the Met’s sculptures while they were there, or ever had?
How wonderful, I also thought.

I have the Bode to myself.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

I just saw the documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams by Werner Herzog.  Several people recommended the movie to me and I recently went to see it, by now only showing at the discount theater.  Originally it was playing in 3D which would have been interesting but I saw the 2D version.

I know very little about prehistoric or Paleolithic art which was the reason I wanted to see it.  The movie was interesting in the fact that it showed a close up and comprehensive view of caves that are not open to the public.  However it got me thinking about so many different things that I left the movie with more questions than answers, I have been trying to read more and find more information on this period in art since I saw it.  It is fascinating and I recommend watching this.

Wall painting with Horses, Chauvet Cave, France c-30,000 B.C.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams tells the story of the Chauvet Caves in France, apparently this was a relatively recent discovery.  Explorers found this cave in 1994, the cave entrance had been sealed for thousands of years due to a rock slide, which is why the art is still in such a pristine condition.  It is thought to be the oldest cave art in existence, dated around 30,000 B.C.  That over 30,000 years ago there were fairly sophisticated societies making art and music is a difficult concept to wrap my mind around.  There are a number of objects, weapons, altars, paintings, very small sculptures and musical instruments which survive from this Paleolithic era which give historians and archaeologists a good amount of information about daily life.


The documentary explains that this was during the Ice Age and that today's humans (Homo Sapiens) lived at the same time as Neanderthals, a separate species.  There are no art related artifacts found that were created by Neanderthals, the assumption is made that they didn't create any.  Therefore it would seem that the creativity exhibited in early man is one thing that set us apart.  Also early man lived side by side with a variety of animals: enormous cave bears, lions, rhinos and wooly mammoths to name a few.  I hadn't realized lions and rhinos were living in Europe then but there are many images of them.


The movie was interesting but there wasn't much of a reason or hypothesis given as to who created these paintings and why.  In Chauvet Cave it doesn't appear that this was decorative only, but would rather have had a significance, perhaps religious.  There is nothing suggesting people lived in the areas where paintings were, but an object that may have been a type of an altar was found.

I was struck by the paintings of the horses, they appear to suggest perspective which astonished me.  Is this a herd of horses?  Does it represent one horse running or moving?  No one explained it and perhaps no one can.

 Wall painting of Reindeer, Lascaux Cave, France, c-15,000 B.C.

Before this the oldest cave paintings I knew of were in Lascaux, also in France and in Altamira in Spain.  These are both thought to be from approximately 15,000 B.C., which was already hard enough to fathom.  One thing all the paintings have in common is the representation of a variety of animals and sometimes a hunter.

Perhaps the paintings told a story of what happened (such as a hunt) or were a way to pray to god or their gods for a successful hunt.  One of the researchers in the movie suggested that the people who created this believed that a spirit was guiding them to paint.  In one type of cave painting at Chauvet there were many hand prints used as art, created by a man who was 6 feet tall, while that is tall by today's standards that would have been gigantic at the time.  I have been thinking that someone (a priest or priestess figure) would have been designated as the painter, if it was believed that the artist was a medium for a spirit, then probably not everyone would have been allowed to paint.

 Wall painting of Bison, Altamira Cave, Spain, c-15,000 B.C.

How were they created?  Perhaps the paintings were created using hollowed bones to blow pigments on the walls or brushed directly on the surface.  In Cave of Forgotten Dreams, it is mentioned that there were two series of paintings made, approximately 5,000 years apart.  To me this is another staggering figure, but it is also telling that it had long been thought of as a sacred space.


One of the more incredible details was a flute that was found in pieces near the cave.  A scientist put it together and then had a copy made.  It was made using a pentatonic scale (not knowing much of musical scales I had to look that up).  However the holes to make notes were not random and definitely used this musical scale which is widely used today, the same man who had a copy made played The Star Spangled Banner on the flute. 


I think what struck me the most were the ideas in their art that came about much later in art, by artists who couldn't possibly have ever seen the Chauvet cave.  Horses painted in perspective that wasn't rediscovered for millennium and animals carefully painted with shading and texture.  Animals shown as "moving" by having extra sets of legs made me think of Futurism and Cubism.  There was a hybrid creature painted with the head of a bull like the Minotaur from Greek mythology, later used by Picasso as well.  The art had elements of realism, naturalism and abstraction and all of these themes resurfaced in art throughout the ages.


There may not be many physical remains of man from the Paleolithic era but the fact that each civilization builds upon another became eerily apparent when looking at paintings created over 30,0000 years ago.

Additional resources:

Clottes, Jean.  Chauvet Cave (ca. 30,000 B.C.) | ThematicEssay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc, website

Tedesco, Laura Anne.  Lascaux (ca. 15,000 B.C.) | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

How to Ensure the DJ You Hire for Your Event Is the One the Shows Up to Your Event

So you've met with your DJ company for your event, and you are thrilled with the personality and presentation of the owner of the company. He promises to be there and deliver all of your requests as promised. But why do you hear of so many party planners complaining of having a different DJ than promised at their party?

There are many couples and party planners that experience this nightmare all over the country. Right here in Connecticut alone, there a lots of multi operator DJ companies that sub-contract their serves out to other DJ's.

There are thousands of couples tying the knot each year. Thats not to mention Mitzvahs, Company Events, Birthdays, School Functions and more. This a lot of events to be distributed among DJ companies. This leaves room for large firms to double, triple and over-book themselves. When a company grows into a large operation, sometimes quality is sacrificed in the form of outsourcing work. When a company gets offered higher paying, more convenient gigs in the time before your event, it becomes a tempting and irresistible option to send someone else, sometimes a random subcontractor to your event.

The following 3 tips can help you avoid this disaster:

1. Get a signed contract from you DJ service. Many clients tend to overlook the importance of this legal document. Many of my clients trust me so much that I have to remind them to sign the contract long after I have received an on-line payment. Getting the DJ's name on the contract ensures they are legally obligated to send that person.

2. Make sure your DJ company offers a money back guarantee. This along with the DJ's name on the contract will ensure the company will do everything in its power to make sure you are satisfied and delivered what you are promised. With this in mind, despite receiving your money back, once your event is ruined, no money can fix whats already been done. This leads me to the most important tip.

3. Build trust with your DJ company. By meeting them in person and determining their commitment to your satisfaction you can build a relationship based on mutual trust.

Use these 3 tips to help determine if your DJ company has a commitment to your total satisfaction, which will help make your special day stress-free and enjoyable. Over time you will be able to distinguish a professional from an amateur by how the remain committed to helping you along the way.