Thomas Kinkade Arts I

Thomas Kinkade, known as the "Painter of Light", has become one of the most avidly collected, financially successful and controversial painters in history. His paintings are embraced by thousands of faithful collectors and criticized by others for there idyllic scenes which romanticize and illuminate a fantasy life on earth.

Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light, is the leading brand name of Meida Arts Group MAGI, publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange as MDA, posted $120 million in net sales for FY 1999, a 53 percent increase over FY98’s $82.7 million. MAGI is the first company to create and develop what it calls a "lifestyle brand" around a product — in other words, the personality of Thomas Kinkade.

Using the strong sales of Kinkade prints as a base, MAGI has entered into numerous licensing agreements with companies like Hallmark, Warner Books and even Lazy-Boy (yes, Kinkade inspired Barcaloungers), and today the name "Thomas Kinkade" appears on hundreds of products, many of which bear little relation to his art. Indeed, MAGI’s corporate vision rests on the wholesale commodification of not just art, but an artist.

Halloween Special

Halloween is one of the oldest holidays still celebrated today. It's origins go back thousands of years and has been influenced by many cultures.

The original celebration from which Halloween sprang was Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New Year. When the Romans invaded Britain they brought with them their own customs and festivals. One festival known as Pomona day was celebrated at the same time as the Celtic New Year. Pomona was the Roman goddess of fruits and gardens. During the Roman occupation the two festivals became one and began to share customs. It is to the Roman festival of Pomona that we can thank for the tradition of 'dooking for apples'.

In recent times many members of the church have been critical of people celebrating Halloween, believing the holiday to be evil. It is strange then to think that the church created the Halloween we know today. When the first Christian missionaries travelled across pagan Europe and Britain they did not attempt to change the ancient ways but instead incorporated the beliefs into the Christian ideology. In 835 AD the Roman Catholic church made November the1st, the Celtic New Year, a religious holiday in honour of all the Saints. This day was called All Saint's Day, or Hallowmas, or All Hallows. The day after All Saints day the church made All Souls Day to honour the dead. On that day people would light bonfires and parade through the villages dressed as ghosts or skeletons, saints, angels and devils. October the 31st then became known as 'All Hallow Even' which evolved over time to 'All Hallow's Eve, then to Hallowe'en and finally to the name and spelling we use today - Halloween.

For most of us Halloween is a time to dress up, party and have some scary fun, but to some members of society it still holds spiritual significance. The rise of new wave religions, with their tendency to follow the old ways and worship nature and the seasons, has returned Halloween to its original Celtic status.

Click on the links for more Halloween Facts, Cliparts, Images and Pictures

• Haunted House Cliparts
• Ghosts Cliparts
• Graveyards Cliparts
• Witch And Warlocks Cliparts
• Pictures For Halloween
• Halloween Cliparts
• Halloween Cats

Victorian Paintings Of Angels

Virgin With Angels (William Bouguereau)

• Victorian Angels Cliparts

Victorian Angels Cliparts III

The Victorian Era of Great Britain marked the height of the British industrial revolution and the apex of the British Empire. Although commonly used to refer to the period of Queen Victoria's rule between 1837 and 1901, scholars debate whether the Victorian period--as defined by a variety of sensibilities and political concerns that have come to be associated with the Victorians--actually begins with the passage of the Reform Act 1832. The Victorian era was preceded by the Regency era and succeeded by the Edwardian period.

Queen Victoria had the longest reign in British history, and the cultural, political, economic, industrial and scientific changes that occurred during her reign were remarkable. When Victoria ascended to the throne, England was essentially agrarian and rural; upon her death, the country was highly industrialized and connected by a massive railway network. Such a transition was not smooth by any stretch of the imagination, nor were the early decades of the period without incident. The first decades of Victoria's reign witnessed a series of epidemics (typhus and cholera, most notably), crop failures and economic collapses. There were riots over enfranchisement and the repeal of the Corn Laws, which had been established to protect English agriculture during the Napoleonic Wars in the early part of the 19th century.

Discoveries by Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin began to question centuries of assumptions about man and the world, about science and history, and, finally, about religion and philosophy. As the country grew increasingly connected by a massive network of railway lines, small, previously isolated communities were exposed and entire economies shifted as cities became more and more accessible.

The mid-Victorian period also witnessed significant social changes: an evangelical revival occurred alongside a series of legal changes in women's rights. While women were not enfranchised during the Victorian period, they did gain the legal right to their property upon marriage through the Married Women's Property Act, the right to divorce, and the right to fight for custody of their children upon separation.

The Census of 1851 revealed that women outnumbered men by 4%, which meant that large numbers of women were incapable of marriage simply because there were not enough men. The result of these findings (which had also been reflected in earlier censuses) was a tremendous popular concern over what would come to be two of the most public mid-Victorian concerns: "superfluous women" (i.e. single women of marriagable age) and prostitution. These two issues, for obvious reasons, brought together a motley crew of evangelicals and women's rights activists, all of whom were concerned with what would come to be known as "the woman question."

When the passage of the first of the Contagious Diseases Acts in 1864 authorized any constable to order any woman suspected of being a prostitute infected with a venereal disease to undergo mandatory internal examinations and medical treatment, these various groups would be unified by their desire to repeal the acts.

By the time the CD Acts were repealed in 1886, Victorian England had been completely transformed. This era, which at its outset looked no different from the century before it, would end resembling far more the era that would follow.

Victorian Angels Cliparts II

White Angel
There's a white angel out there
OUt there somewhere
It'll blow away the darkness
Let is bright light shine

There's a white angel out there
With gold encrested wings
A white halo of leaves
They only show certain people they're their angel

There's a white angel out there
One for each of us
Be they a friend to save you
Or a true being of Heaven

There's a white angel out there
Just let them find you please
They'll show you light
They'll save you from dark

There's a white angel out there
Just let them break through thier darkness
Let them gain those wings
And you'll see them waiting

There's a white angel out there
Just you wait and see

Victorian Angels Cliparts I

Wings
Wings of a bird
Wings of an angel.
Wings of living things.
When you died
you were given wings to fly
white wings of an angel.
You were given a halo
but you were an angel anyway.
Now god given you extra eyes
so you can watch over us
you loved ones left bgehind.
Now you are an angel
with wings and a halo and extra eyes
Your never far from me
My guardidn angel in heaven




An Angel
I need an angel
Someone to watch
Over me.
When all hope has
run out.

My life is a mess
And it feels like
no one's left
Maybe I need an angel

Soft wings of protection
To hold me when I'm scared
Warm arms to comfort me
I just need an Angel

I need an angel
To chase away7
My nightmares
To make things better

I want someone to protect me
I just want an angel like you.




"My Angel"
There's an Angel within me who KNOWS what I need.
I can have what I ask for, if I only BELIEVE.
My Angel is with me where ever I go.
If there is DANGER ahead, my Angel will KNOW.
When I KNOW in my HEART, and can SEE with my mind,
I can have what I ask for. I'm a child of the DIVINE.
If I want something SPECIAL, I need only to THINK.
My Angel within me, creates, QUICK AS A WINK!
My Angel and I, are ONE of a kind.
When I want to SEE one, I can LOOK, with my MIND.



Angel Cries! ! ! ! ! ! !
Angel Cries! ! !
From the depth within
Heart full of Love
Searches for this beginning

Angel Cries! ! ! !
from a place unknown
wondrously seeking
soulful hurt has shown

Angel Cries! ! !
from the room of uncertain
faith believing
lets stop all the hurting

Angel Cries! ! !
from the depth of compassion
enlightened reunion
take flight in fashion

Angel Cries! ! !
from a place of desire
ignite the flame
mended wings fly higher

Angel Cries! ! !
from deep within me
Angelic Grace
that you have set free! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !



Links For Angels Poems and Cliparts

• Angels Globe VII
• Angels Globe VI
• Angels Globe V
• Angels Globe IV
• Angels Globe III
• Angels Globe II
• Angels Globe I

Victorian Cherubim Cliparts

Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of people living at the time of Queen Victoria (reigned 1837 - 1901) in particular, and to the moral climate of Great Britain throughout the 19th century in general. It is not tied to this historical period and can describe any set of values that espouses sexual repression, low tolerance of crime, and a strong social ethic.

Historians now regard the Victorian era as a time of many contradictions. A plethora of social movements concerned with improving public morals co-existed with a class system that permitted harsh living conditions for many. The apparent contradiction between the widespread cultivation of an outward appearance of dignity and restraint and the prevalence of social phenomena that included prostitution and child labour were two sides of the same coin: the various social reform movements and high principles arose from attempts to improve the harsh conditions.

The term Victorian has acquired a range of connotations, including that of a particularly strict set of moral standards, which are often applied hypocritically. This stems from the image of Queen Victoria —and her husband, Prince Albert, perhaps even more so—as innocents, unaware of the private habits of many of her respectable subjects; this particularly relates to their sex lives.

Two hundred years earlier the Puritan republican movement under Oliver Cromwell had temporarily overthrown the British monarchy. During England's years as a republic, the law imposed a strict moral code on the people (even abolishing Christmas as too indulgent of the sensual pleasures).

When the monarchy was restored, a period of loose living and debauchery appeared to be a reaction to the earlier repression. The two social forces of puritanism and libertinism continued to motivate the collective psyche of the United Kingdom from the restoration onward. This was particularly significant in the public perceptions of the later Hanoverean monarchs who immediately preceded Queen Victoria. For instance, her uncle George IV was commonly perceived as a pleasure-seeking playboy, whose conduct in office was the cause of much scandal.

By the time of Victoria, the interplay between high cultured morals and low vulgarity was thoroughly embedded in British culture.

Victorian Chrubs Images

Victorian Culture

This inescapable sense of newness resulted in a deep interest in the relationship between modernity and cultural continuities. Gothic Revival architecture became increasingly significant in the period, leading to the Battle of the Styles between Gothic and Classical ideals.

Charles Barry's architecture for the new Palace of Westminster, which had been badly damaged in an 1834 fire, built on the medieval style of Westminster Hall, the surviving part of the buiding. It constructed a narrative of cultural continuity, set in opposition to the violent disjunctions of Revolutonary France, a comparison common to the period, as expressed in Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution and Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Gothic was also supported by the critic John Ruskin, who argued that it epitomised communal and inclusive social values, as opposed to Classicism, which he considered to epitomise mechanical standardisation.

The middle of the century saw the Great Exhibition of 1851, the first World's Fair and showcased the greatest innovations of the century. At its center was The Crystal Palace, an enormous, modular glass and steel structure -- the first of its kind. It was condemned by Ruskin as the very model of mechanical dehumanisation in design, but later came to be presented as the prototype of Modern architecture.

The emergence of photography, which was showcased at the Great Exhibition, resulted in significant changes in Victorian art. John Everett Millais was infuenced by photography (notably in his portrait of Ruskin) as were other Pre-Raphaelite artists. It later became associated with the Impressionistic and Social Realist techniques that would dominate the later years of the period in the work of artists such as Walter Sickert and Frank Holl.

Special Angels Cliparts

Heavenly angels, often referred to as guardian angels, are mentioned numerous times in the Scriptures. Therein we learn that angels are spiritual beings created by God to serve him, and sent by God to watch over the human race, to deliver his message, to guard and protect us from danger, to do battle with other spiritual beings on our behalf.



Since the beginning of time, angels have delivered God's messages to mankind. Sometimes the messages are warnings of impending danger, sometimes instructions as to what to do in a particular situation, sometimes they are simply "there" as protection from enemy forces. Sometimes they bring joyful announcements as in the day they announced the birth of Jesus.




In Abrahamic religions, a fallen angel is an angel that has been exiled or banished from Heaven. Often such banishment is a punishment for disobeying or rebelling against God.





One early source for information on angelology and demonology, is the Persian prophet Zoroaster, who is thought to have influenced Judeo-Christian beliefs. The best-known fallen angel is Satan. According to some traditions, fallen angels will roam the Earth until Judgment Day, when they will be banished to Hell.

Haunted House Cliparts

Of all the places that become haunted, the haunted house is the most popular in folklore dating back several thousands of years. According to legend, when a person dies their spirit leaves this world and moves on to the next world. However, sometimes their ghost will remain and haunt the area of its death. This is usually caused by terrible death taking place like the murder of a family member, an accidental death of a child, or perhaps the suicide of loved one.

As legend has it, the ghost in the house usually doesn't like having other people live in their house and will do supernatural things to drive out the current occupants like breaking valuables, making strange noises, changing the temperature, or displaying themselves as frightening apparitions.

You will also hear tales of more than just human ghosts occupying a haunted house. Some claim that the ghost of their pets continue to walk around at night. Others tell tales of spirits, possibly from other worlds, making their way around the house. You may hear that demons from Hell have taken up residence. Some go as far as to say that the house itself has gained a consciousness and become a spirit of it's own.

Occasionally the stories will include a house that is haunted by relatively friendly ghosts. It is usually mentioned that in these cases the spirit didn't die a terrible death, but instead, it just didn't want to leave the world of the living and chose to remain around.

Although many people report that their house may be haunted, very rarely does any evidence turn up to support their claims. Most of the phenomena thought to be created by spirits is actually just common occurrences in old houses caused by drafts, bad wiring or plumbing, and antiquated appliances. There is an obvious correlation between how haunted a house is and the age of the house. Also, like all topics in the field of the supernatural, there are many tricksters and hoaxers trying to take advantage of people.

The most famous haunted house hoax was the house that the movie "The Amityville Horror" was based off of. After an investigation was made it was found out that the house owners had made up their ghost stories to try to weasel their way out of their mortgage.

Today, there are many books dedicated to "real" haunted houses all around the world that can give you detailed information about the dark history of haunted houses that may even be in your home town.

Due to the correlation with ghosts the haunted house is associated with Halloween. In fact, the "haunted house" has become a huge Halloween attraction. At the beginning of October haunted houses begin springing up all over the place trying to give its patrons the scare of their life.

Ghosts Cliparts

Practically every culture on Earth since the dawn of time have had ghosts as part of their legends. Although not every culture has the same beliefs as to exactly what a ghost it, most of them agree that ghosts have something to do with the spirit or energy of the dead. Some claim that ghosts are the spirits that have not been able to find their way to the afterlife for one reason or another, that has either been left behind on Earth, or is making a visit to Earth from the afterlife.

Most legends agree that ghosts are either completely invisible or very hard to see resembling mist or shadow. Considering that a ghosts have no physical body, you wouldn't expect to see much. Visible or not, ghosts are said to have some control over the physical world, whether it be from merely allowing people to feel their presence or by causing chaos by breaking things and making noises.

Most religions claim that a soul (if they believe in one) passes on either to an afterlife or into another body. Because of this, it is thought that most ghosts are tormented in one way or another, whether it be from a violent death, fear of crossing into the afterlife, or inability to leave a particular area. Because they are tormented, most ghosts are unstable and potentially dangerous. Some ghosts are thought to be evil and hurt or even kill people.

Some cultures believe that ghosts are capable of possessing a living person and forcing them to say and do things against their will. This of course is also a very convenient way of explaining why you were doing something illegal. There are several documented cases of people claiming to be attacked, violated, or plagued by ghosts.

Ghosts are often said to haunt or frequent a particular area. Specifically, they supposedly haunt houses, graveyards, and areas of disaster.

Ghosts have become a large part of pop culture as well. The ghost story is a very common genre of of campfire tales, and are usually made to scare or entertain children. Hollywood has, of course, gotten a hold of the ghost idea and made plenty of movies regarding ghosts.

Most skeptics claim that ghosts do not exist, and attribute the phenomena with wind, optical illusions, gullibility, and good old fashioned lying. Still, most people believe in ghosts in one form or another, and many people claim to have witnessed a a ghost first hand.

Because Halloween is based on the spirits of the dead, ghosts are fully integrated into the holiday. Most cultures (Latin American, Japan, etc.) show deep respect for the spirits of the dead, but in the United States ghosts are usually viewed as playful white bed sheets that are cute and silly.

Facts About Ghosts

• Ghosts can smell things
• Ghosts love the smell of lemons
• They are cold in temperature
• They have a huge sense of humor
• They love it when humans laugh
• Ghosts are referred to as discarnates (We are incarnates)
• They get bored where they are
• Most are happy, but others may still feel a clinging emotional pain
• They can appear to the living in dreams
• They can leave behind certain scents that they were closely associated with
• Ghosts cannot cross water
• They can make sounds that are audible
• They use their energies & ours to move things (our hands on a planchette)
• They are pranksters (loving to get a row out of us)
• They usually appear as orbs (balls of intense light)
• The orbs are usually neon blue or violet in color
• Ghosts favor night due to the decrease in daytime energy use
• Ghosts may appear as mists or vapors
• A hooded black smoky figure is a dark entity WATCH OUT! They usually appear at the foot of beds.
• Some alleged hauntings are actually what they refer to as residue (A past event that replays itself over & over)
• People may find portals or vortexes in places. Here is how ghosts transport themselves. Usually cold
• Hauntings are most intense around children entering puberty. The kids are emitting immense amounts of energy.
• Ghosts can read your thoughts
• Ghosts retain all the memories & emotions of their lives
• Sometimes ghosts get trapped & need to be released. Let them know they can move on
• Noisy, troublesome ghosts are known as poltergeists
• Animal ghosts exist & have been sighted
• Some believe alien spirits can be contacted on the board, ever try this?
• Ghosts who lived hundreds of years ago keep up with the trends
• Children perceive ghosts as imaginary friends
• Ghosts tend to be very temperamental
• Ghosts hang out in cliques (many pals or loved ones)
• Ghosts make friends with other ghosts from different eras
• Strange whisper in the ear wake you out of a sleep? It's a ghost

According to an expert in England, mobile phones are killing off ghosts. Tony Cornell of the Society for Psychical Research, told a British newspaper called the Sunday Express that reports of ghost sightings began to decline when mobile phones were introduced some 15 years ago.

"Ghost sightings have remained consistent for centuries” said Cornell, of Cambridge in Eastern England. "But with the introduction of mobile phones 15 years ago, ghost sightings began to decline to the point where now we are receiving none."

Apparently paranormal events, which some scientists put down to unusual electrical activity, could be drowned out by the electronic noise produced by phone calls and text messages.