Tell me about …

Betty Boop was created by Max Fleischers during the Great Depression. The Hollywood film industry needed characters to distract them from everyday misery. And so Betty Boop was born, rivalling even Mickey Mouse.

Betty first appearance on screen is in 1930 in the short film -Dizzy Dishes-.

She is originally supposed to be a bulldog, but later became a woman. She has a baby doll’s face and a pin-up body. She wear a minidress, big earrings and a garter sticking out of her dress.

Portrayed as a sex symbol, she was constantly pursued by men, who even forced her to have unwanted sex.

But she defends herself and was aware of her sex appeal. She was inspired by the flappers and was an independent, free woman. She works, goes out on her own, drinks, flirts, dances, sings and doesn’t care how others look at her.

During her cartoon career she has many roles: president, flight pilot, circus performer and many more.

In 1934, Betty Boop lost her celebrity. The Motion Picture Production Code was established to regulate cartoon scenes on screens. Nudity, vulgarity, dancing, singing, crime and much more were banned. Betty has to change her look (more formal), her personality and her storylines - less curls and less curves.

After that, Betty Boop was mainly used in merchandising. But the debate has recently opened up as to whether Betty is a feminist. During the -Me Too scandal-, she was highlighted as the first cartoon woman to fight against perverse behaviour in the Hollywood film industry.

Director Claire Duguet has created the documentary -Betty Boop For Ever-, which traces her story through a feminist lens.

And guess what, Betty Boop has not yet said her last words...

Blue has long been a rare and prestigious color. I wanted to tell you a little about its origins. I did some research and here's what I found.

In nature, blue is the ocean and the sky, but few other things are blue.

The Egyptians used blue to paint ceramics, statues and to decorate the tombs of the pharons. Around 6,000 years ago, the color Ultramarine blue was invented, a very rare color that comes from the Lapis Lazuli stone in the mountains of Afghanistan.

The Egyptians used this stone for their jewelry, and it was the Buddhists who transformed it into paint in the 6th century. Later, when it arrived in Europe, it was called "ultramarine" by Italian traders. In the 14th-15th century, it was as precious as gold, reserved only for the most important commissions.

Much later, Cobalt Blue was developed, a less expensive formula than Ultramarine Blue used by revolutionary artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In 1860, Cerulean blue was marketed by the famous paint brand Rowney and Company.

Although blue was very expensive for painting, it was much more affordable for textile dyeing. Indigo blue, a dark blue close to violet, has its origins in the Indigofera tinctoria plant in India. Very popular in England for dressing the nobility as well as the working class, it was replaced in 1880 by a synthetic indigo that is still used today to dye the blue of jeans.

Navy blue, or Marine blue, the darkest shade of blue and a fashion alternative to black, was used for the uniforms of British Royal Navy officers and sailors.

Prussian blue, or Berlinauer Blau, was accidentally discovered by a German trying to reproduce a red. This blue was used by Pablo Picasso in his blue period and Katsushika Hokusai for many of his works, including the famous wave.

In the 60s, Frenchman Yves Klein developed a matte Ultramarine color: Klein Blue. Now widely used in fashion.

Josephine Baker arrived in Paris from the United States (Saint Louis) in 1925 at the peak of France’s obsession with American jazz and all things exotic. She was the colonial fantasy of the Roaring Twenties, but she knew how to play on these clichés, and use her success to become the first black icon in France – and a free woman.

In 1940, she joined the French resistance against the Nazis, hiding coded messages in her sheet music and microfilms in her bras. She then became a second lieutenant in the French Air Force, joined the Red Cross and was awarded the Legion of Honor.

In 1963, she took part in the March on Washington alongside civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr to fight against racial segregation.

Joséphine Baker entered the Paris Pantheon in 2021, becoming the first black woman to receive this honor and the sixth woman to join some 80 national heroes.

Red like the soles of Louboutin shoes or like Moscow's Red Square? One thing's for sure, red is beautiful, and the Russians have understood this very well, as we say in old Russian: Krasny.

Here's a quick overview of the different shades of red:

Red is one of the first colours used by prehistoric artists made from ochre and clay. A little later, during Antiquity, the Romans used Cinnabar red to paint decorations, which comes from a highly toxic mineral.

Since the 4th century BC, China has been producing Vermillion red, but in Europe it was during the Renaissance that this orange-red became very fashionable.

Red Lead (Minum) was used for medieval manuscripts and Indian and Persian miniature paintings.

Carmine red, also used in cosmetics, was made from small red insects called cochineal. This red was used by the greatest artists of the 15th and 16th centuries.

In 1992, Christian Louboutin created his shoes with a Chinese red sole, an idea that would make the brand very famous. His signature shoes are worn by the fashion elite and the most elegant stars.

By the way the European and Asian meanings of red are very different. In Asian countries, particularly China, the colour is synonymous with long life, good luck and wealth.

In the Western countries, red has had several representations. In the Middle Ages, red represented the blood of Christ, flames and hell. In Antiquity, it was the colour of the aristocracy. For a very long time, red was a sign of power, wealth and the clergy.

It was only from the 18th century that red became the symbol of protest, the emblem of rebellious people and revolution.

With all this history, choose your favourite shade of red and its meaning, and long live to red!

Ukiyo-e, often translated as “picture of the floating world”, refers to Japanese paintings and woodblocks. These depict scenes from the social life of the idle upper class during the Edo period (1603-1868), with Japanese aesthetics of beauty, poetry, nature, spirituality, love and sex.

The woodblock printing technique made it possible to print in large quantities but involve many specialists: the artist, the block carver, the paper manufacturer and the printer. The first Ukiyo-e were monochrome (black), later becoming very colorful.

The influence of Ukiyo-e spread to the Western world, where famous artists such as Monet, Van Gogh and Toulouse Lautrec were fascinated. This specific influence was given the name “Japonisme”.

"Where are you going like that? Take that lipstick off right now" Remember that time when you were a young teenager and thought you could go to school with red lipstick on? Those days are over now, I wear whatever lipstick I want.

What is the power of lipstick and what are its secrets? First of all, I think wearing lipstick is political - theatrical, confrontational and glamorous.

About 5000 years ago, Egyptian men and women painted their lips to show their upper class status. With the advent of Christianity and Puritan beliefs, the Church condemned the use of lipstick. They were associated with Satan worship, women wearing lipstick were suspected of being witches, magicians or “prostitutes”.

Much later, in 1910, suffragettes wore red lipstick as a symbol of political defiance.

In the 20’s, flappers would apply it in public, which made lipstick very popular.

During the dark days of the Second World War, American women were encouraged to wear the reddest lipstick to boost the morale of armed troops.

In the 1950s, American housewives wore lipstick to look pretty and please their husbands. But the next generation, the hippies, the fashion was to wear very nude or multicoloured colours to contrast with the mothers'. In the 1980s, the movement continued and the shocking response of the punks was black lipstick. Then many men started wearing extravagant make-up, matching lip colour to outfits was common and in vogue.

Lipstick has truly become a symbol of personal expression. Nowadays, people are looking for natural products and the makeup industry has adapted very well to different tastes. With the rise of social media and makeup tutorials, sales have accelerated.

Wearing lipstick is a way to show your social class, a sign of resistance or self expression but one thing is for sure, lipstick is a soft weapon that has not said its last word.

Witches have been around for centuries, they are mostly women but also some men are witches. They lived in rural areas and practiced healing to help people who could not find and pay for a doctor. They were very familiar with abortion and were sexually free. In fact, witches were very independent women and this did not fit in with the values of the church and those in power. So they decided to burn them, about 80,000 women were victimized during the 15th and 17th centuries. Those who were not killed were tortured.

The reason for this brutality and violence was the hatred against these women who did not conform to the norms of society, lived alone and resisted the patriarchal rules. For a long time, the witch represented an ugly old woman with a hooked nose. This is where the expression "end up old with cats" comes from.

It is from the end of the 20th century that the image of the witch changed with the "nice witch". Feminists were fascinated by witches and they quickly became an iconic figure.

So if you don't have a costume for Halloween, dress up as a witch. With everything going on these days, like the women's revolution in Iran and the abortion ban in the United States, it's time to be really scary. To be strong, proud and show that we are the granddaughters of the witches they couldn not burn!

You've probably already heard of the Impressionist movement. But here are a few details to refresh your memory. As you can see, the next painting I'm going to show you is heavily inspired by the movement and by the works of Vincent Van Gogh.

The movement developed in France in the 19th century and broke away from the overly strict rules of the academy. It was painted outdoors, spontaneously, with scenes of landscapes and everyday life.

In 1874, the first Impressionist exhibition was held, bringing together around thirty artists, including Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro and others.

Today, these works are appreciated the world over, but at the time this new movement was criticised and mocked. It was Paul Durand-Ruel, an outstanding art dealer, who brought recognition to the genius of these painters.

Here are some of the characteristics of Impressionism:

- rejection of academic painting

- painting in the open air and on the motif

- juxtaposition of small brushstrokes

- clear colour palette

- coloured shadows

- no precise contours and no little detail

- sometimes unfinished appearance

- representation of modern life

- landscape painting, water, sky...

Back in the prehistoric times, black paint (derived from coal) was one of the first color used to paint in caves. The Egyptians painted with black on pottery objects, because the color was a symbol of fertility.

Ink was invited in China, and with the advent of printing, black ink remained the principal ink for printing documents, books and newspapers because of its strong contrast on white paper.

In the 16th-17th centuries, black clothes were reserved for Europe's Catholic rulers, Protestants and Puritans. Black is also the color of witchcraft: people believed that the devil would appear in ceremonies called black sabbath. Because of this fear and hatred, large numbers of women suspected of being witches were martyred and burned alive.

Black also represents the industrial revolution, in reference to the coal and oil that blackened the streets, buildings and skies of big cities.

Black as the melancholy of 19th-century Romantic poets, writers and artists. Black as the color of 20th-century German and Italian faschists.

In terms of fashion, in the '50s black was rebellious, with black leather jackets worn on motorcycles. Then black became emblematic of the punk and goth subcultures. But it was also the elegance and simplicity of Coco Chanel and her little black dress, which became timeless.

In 2013, black like the Black Lives Matter movement, started in the United States by the African-American community, which fight against systemic racism against colored people.

Here are a few simple tips to know if you want to dress up your walls.

The most common method is to hang the frames on a horizontal line so that they are at eye level. But if you have a smaller room, you can hang your frames on a vertical line to enhance your room.

You can also play with a composition of frames of different sizes and shapes (the gallery wall). To do this, you always need to have a base point and place the other frames with the help of your sketch. This sketch must be consistent in its vertical and horizontal lines and the spaces between the frames must be equal.

Choose a common theme, colour or style that will bring harmony to your composition. Play with the size of your frames, the materials and shapes, you can also place objects such as candies, sculptures, clocks, mirrors and more. Then fill your frames with posters, drawings, illustrations, paintings, photographs, quotes, etc.

If you’re thinking big but your budget is small, instead of buying a big, expensive frame, you can opt for canvas paintings, fabric paintings, wall carpets, or even a mural.