[dohtml]<p align="right"><i>Friday 21 May 2010</i></p><p align="center"><b><font size="4">French police hunt thief of five art masterpieces</font></b></p>[/dohtml]French police are hunting the burglar or burglars who made off with paintings by Picasso, Matisse and other great artists from a Paris museum.

Officials have admitted the Museum of Modern Art’s alarm system had not been fully functioning for several weeks.

One masked intruder was spotted by security cameras, climbing into the museum through a broken side window, having cut through a gate padlock.

The museum, across the River Seine from the Eiffel Tower, has been cordoned off by investigators.[dohtml]<blockquote><font face="Trebuchet MS">Full story at <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/10136767.stm" target="_blank">BBC News</a></font></blockquote>[/dohtml]

[dohtml]Le saviez-vous? Le Musée national d’art moderne, dédié à l’art moderne et contemporain, est situé à Paris dans le centre Georges-Pompidou – <a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/MNAM" target="_blank">Wikipédia</a>.[/dohtml]

[dohtml]A moment ago, I read about Matisse, Henri (1869–1954) in the F<small>AMOUS </small>P<small>EOPLE</small> section of the Bloomsbury Concise Encyclopedia. Did you know? In the period before World War I he became a leading Fauvist.[/dohtml]

[dohtml]<div style="font-size: 12pt; color: black; font-family: Comic Sans MS"><p>I’ve just read about <font face="Arial" size="2">Matisse and the Fauves</font> in the spread “Post-Impressionism and Fauvism” under the section <font face="Arial"><b>The Visual Arts</b></font> of <a target="_blank" href="http://z8.invisionfree.com/DYK/index.php?showtopic=388&view=findpost&p=3617172"><i>The Guinness Encylopedia</i></a>. Did you know? The origin of term “Fauvism” is due to the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who compared the works of Henri Matisse and others at the Salon d’automne of 1905 to wild beasts (<i>fauves</i>). Two other leading Fauvists were André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck.</p></div>[/dohtml]

Le saviez-vous? Vauxcelles n’avait d’yeux que pour un torse d’enfant et un petit buste en marbre d’Albert Marque, qu’il appela “Donatello parmi les fauves”.

[dohtml]<p>A moment ago, I read about Modigliani, Amedeo (1884–1920) in the F<small>AMOUS </small>P<small>EOPLE</small> section of the Bloomsbury Concise Encyclopedia. Did you know? His best-known works are his African-influenced sculptures of elongated figures. This is the painting of his that was stolen (<i>Woman with Fan</i>, 1919):</p>
<center><img src="http://www.thefineartcompany.co.uk/figurative/mod1.jpg" alt="" /></center>[/dohtml]

[dohtml]<p>Did you know? Matisse painted <i>Pastorale</i> in 1906. This was one of the paintings that were stolen.</p>
<center><img src="http://www.bluetravelguide.com/photosBTG/00/00/06/76/ME0000067686_3.JPG" alt="" /></center>[/dohtml]

[dohtml]<p>A moment ago, I read about Donatello (c.1386–1466) in the F<small>AMOUS </small>P<small>EOPLE</small> section of the Bloomsbury Concise Encyclopedia. Did you know? He was named Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardo in full. And this is the painting of Picasso that was stolen (<i>The Pigeon with Green Peas</i>, 1911):</p>
<center><img src="http://www.so-sticky.com/catalog/images/Pablo%20Picasso%20-%20Le%20pigeon%20aux%20petits%20pois.jpg" alt="" /></center>[/dohtml]

[dohtml]<div style="font-size: 12pt; color: black; font-family: Comic Sans MS"><p>I’ve just read about <font face="Arial" size="2">Abstraction before World War II</font> in the spread “Cubism and Abstraction” under the section <font face="Arial"><b>The Visual Arts</b></font> of <a target="_blank" href="http://z8.invisionfree.com/DYK/index.php?showtopic=388&view=findpost&p=3617172"><i>The Guinness Encylopedia</i></a>. Did you know? Modigliani worked with the Romanian-born sculptor Constantin Brâncu&#351i.</p></div>[/dohtml]

[dohtml]<p>A moment ago, I read about Cubism in the A<small>RT, </small>M<small>USIC AND </small>L<small>ITERATURE</small> section of the Bloomsbury Concise Encyclopedia. Did you know? Cubism was started by Picasso and Georges Braque. And this is the Braque painting that was stolen (<i>Olive Tree near l’Estaque</i>, 1906):</p>
<center><img src="http://www.eternels-eclairs.fr/images/peinture/tableaux/georges-braque/georges-braque-l-olivier-pres-de-l-estaque.jpg" alt="" /></center>[/dohtml]

[dohtml]I have just read about Henri Matisse in the glossary at the end of Chapter&nbsp;16, “The arts”, under the section THE HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT in Volume&nbsp;2, “The human world”, of the Reader’s Digest Library of Modern Knowledge. Did you know? It is in the use of bright colours in the Fauvist movement that he developed his characteristic simplified style in which figures, objects and background all form part of a flat, brightly coloured, decorative pattern, as in Odalisque with Raised Arms.[/dohtml]