Latest news with #Canaletto
Business Wire
15-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Sappi Casting and Release Announces New Textures and Collaborative Product Launch Ahead of
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Sappi North America, Inc., a leading producer and supplier of diversified paper, packaging products and dissolving wood pulp, is preparing for the interzum 2025 exhibition with six new Ultracast textures and a new collaborative product launch. The exhibition will take place next week – May 20 – 23 – in Cologne, Germany. Visitors to the Sappi booth (Hall 6.1 Booth E-048) will be immersed in a sensory experience with surfacing solutions that demonstrate the impact of how we perceive and experience a variety of materials through natural looking design and our sense of touch. The decorative laminate texture six-pack will include new or recently launched textures, including: Canaletto: Canaletto is a new woodgrain texture with a natural, all-over design featuring meticulous details and a well-balanced rhythmic grain pattern. The realistic details, beautiful shimmer, and satiny touch make Canaletto stand out, evoking a soft, precise richness of noble wood. Circuit: The complex interconnections and patterns on electronic components inspire Circuit. Its peaks and valleys look like traces and pathways woven or etched onto its surface. When you examine its haptic surface more closely, you can see a delicate network of lines that resemble conductive routes punctuated by geometric shapes. City: City is an evolution of the Sappi texture Urban, with a refined stone character for a more contemporary appeal. With an expanded scale, softened and adapted to trendy stones like travertine and limestone, City is versatile and can beautifully fit many other décors like marble, concrete, clay and granite. Matte Luxor: Matte Luxor is a decorative laminate version of our textile texture Luxor. The dual gloss surface creates a woven appearance of squares and diamonds. The ultra-fine lines produce a warp-and-weft effect, adding an easy, subtle sheen to the surface design. Matte Luxor's haptic is reminiscent of a pleasing woven engineered finish. When touched, the technical texture has a multidirectional sensory effect: one direction has a gliding smoothness, and the other has a slight roughness. Mokka Vintage: Mokka Vintage exudes a bold, industrial aesthetic with its ultra-flat finish and intentionally weathered appearance. Mokka Vintage's dual finish creates extremes in light and dark qualities, giving the material a raw and rough edge. Deliberately incorporated subtle scuffs, scratches, and irregularities suggest a history of wear and resilience. Vita: Vita, our newest organic texture, features a nicely refined ribbed finish with subtle undulations that exhibit a vibrant play of glimmer and shadow, a vivid sheen that moves with the light. Vita enables unlimited design freedom in interiors with a surface that blends perfectly into the elevated aesthetics of industrial stainless steel and the expressive elegance of statement pieces. 'When creating new textures, we are constantly evaluating what is the most important to consumers – haptics, aesthetics, and function,' says Mark Hittie, Director of Release Business Strategy for Sappi North America. 'We are proud to showcase this new laminate texture six-pack, which combines design with performance. We strive to push the boundaries of texture, with the user experience always top of mind.' In addition to these six new textures, Sappi is announcing a collaborative product launch with Upco SRL. UpcoXtouch, Texture by Sappi, is a three-dimensional textured surfacing solution that provides high-wear and anti-fingerprint performance to decorative laminates, including worktops, countertops, and kitchen cabinetry. 'We strongly believe in this collaboration,' says Florian von Kuczkowski, COO of Upco SRL. 'Combining Upco's innovative functional coating solutions with Sappi's aesthetically pleasing and authentic-to-the-touch textures answers the need of laminators for a textured surface with highly functional properties.' UpcoXtouch will be featured at both Upco's and Sappi's booths during interzum 2025. Learn more about Sappi's Textures here. About Sappi North America, Inc. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Sappi North America, Inc., is a leader in converting wood fiber into superior products that are used worldwide. Sappi NA has a corporate office in Portland, Maine and mills in Skowhegan and Westbrook, Maine, Cloquet, Minnesota, and Matane, Quebec, along with a dedicated Technology Center and Sheeting Facility. Sappi NA employs approximately 2,100 people in the United States and Canada. Sappi NA uses a renewable, recyclable natural source – woodfibre – to create packaging, specialty papers, graphic papers, and pulp that make everyday products more sustainable. Sappi supports sustainable forestry and sustainable manufacturing to mitigate climate change, protect biodiversity and improve soil and water quality. Sappi North America is a subsidiary of Sappi Limited (JSE), a global company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, with more than 12,000 employees and manufacturing operations on three continents in seven countries and customers in over 150 countries. To learn more, visit
New York Post
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Judge Judy is still the smartest voice on TV — even as an AI baby
AI takes big baby steps So the world's wizards have caught up with the world's A-1 wise ass. Me, I turn on my computer. Check my messages. Comes a familiar voice. The highest paid voice on TV. Having just spent a week together in her home — I'm familiar with the sound. It last graciously told me: 'You owe me $12 for what you lost in gin.' I don't understand. She's now in LA. Me, New York. I look around. I realize she's not in my broom closet. My Yorkie's barking. Even he knows you don't eff with Judge Judy. It's definitely her voice. Her cadence. Her phraseology. Her words. Her exact sound. Same robes as Judy's. With same collar, same earrings. But a baby. Advertisement It's spouting proper phrases like discussing a parole officer. Talking about drunken people. Sitting at a judicial desk. This intelligence is coming out of an infant character — same robe, same outfit. The image speaks not as a child but with the exact voice, substance and phraseology of an adult Judge Judy Sheindlin. Advertisement All, totally, completely AI generated. Scary. For some, it's magic. Magnificent. Thrilling. For others, frightening. Now replaceable by some crappy mobile phone instead of a producer who once had to shell out big money for VIP actors. Feast day for nonnas Mother's Day story. Senior lady dining with a friend at the Upper East Side's Canaletto. Her driver's off for the holiday. No car. No taxis visible. Elvis, owner of the Italian restaurant, picks up her check, orders her an Uber and pays for it. Advertisement Nice, loving, thoughtful grandmother's day gift. Sit down for this Fewer bones are flying into or out of NYC. Planes — even from our few still functioning airports — are not full. Both to and from Europe had the identical experience. Passengers were warned not to change seats from their officially assigned ones to another now unoccupied one. Do Not! change seats was the cockpit warning. Seems the light passenger load was affecting the carrier's mobility since the aircraft wasn't balanced correctly. Advertisement An appraisal Construction experts complain that today's new glossy buildings might — in some cases — lack perfection. Things break, don't work, need replacement. Not all workers are super-pros. The non-union — knowing too little, earning too much with a union carpenter getting $130 per hour — it's now do it fast, do it quiet and do it cheap. And when can New Yorkers be rid of the endless scaffolding? Never. It's safety for whatever's falling down. It's cheaper than a lawsuit. There's nobody to stop it. Construction boss: 'Guys now hide their plates so congestion cameras can't get them. A union carpenter gets $130 per hour. It's $18 on the George Washington bridge. It's $9 in the city. Greed is the problem. Just going to check on my jobs I'm already out $27.' So this successful guy, born in a filthy neighborhood, an eighth-floor walk-up, no heat, no hot water, has never forgotten those humble days. Once a year he goes back to that dreadful slum — to visit his wife and children. Only in New York, kids, only in New York.
Evening Standard
25-04-2025
- General
- Evening Standard
How the late Pope Francis's funeral will unfold
The coffin did not pass through the Apostolic Palace for another exposition, as was done previously for John Paul II, and was not displayed on an elevated bier – the so-called 'Canaletto' or 'death bed' – as happened with both John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Telegraph
23-04-2025
- Telegraph
How JMW Turner helped shape the modern holiday map of Europe
Many things influence our decisions about where in the world we want to travel. The enthusiasm of friends, evocative writing, the romance of childhood memories, a simple urge for some sunshine, a random promotion by a cheap airline. But surely, in the our contemporary world, it is the power of images which prevails. Whether on this website, on Instagram or Facebook, in ads or promotions, a stunning or alluring photograph can be more than enough to seduce us into a booking or at least into exploring our options. But what about the early of days of leisure travel, two or more centuries ago? Then the only way of visualising the wonders of the world was through paintings and prints. In fact, you could make an argument for Canaletto being the first artist to develop a successful business on the back of tourism. His sunny alluring prospects of Venice were, on a more epic scale, the first postcards. The vast majority of his works were commissioned by the Grand Tourists of the 18th century, young aristocrats who travelled to Italy for a year or two, to complete their classical education – and to have some fun in the bordellos and casinos of Venice. Canaletto provided a suitably tasteful record of this most beautiful of cities that they could hang on the walls of their stately homes and his canvases were shipped back to Britain in their dozens. Canaletto profited further from his reputation, visiting England repeatedly between 1746-56, mostly to depict scenic views of the Thames between Greenwich and Eton. As for the more exotic destinations which were also coming to public attention during the age of exploration and discovery, Captain Cook always travelled with an official artist on board his ships so, as the Admiralty put it, 'to give a more perfect idea [of the destinations] than can be formed from written descriptions only'. The most famous was William Hodges, who accompanied Cook's second voyage to the Pacific between 1772-75. He depicted many landscapes in the South Sea Islands and New Zealand, often sketching on location in the open air. But most important to the history of modern tourism was JMW Turner, who was born exactly 250 years ago, just as Hodges was returning from the Pacific. Turner was an inveterate traveller who followed in the footsteps of the aristocratic Grand Tourists, but with an entirely different mindset The son of a Covent Garden barber and wig-maker, and without any family money behind him, he had to develop a strong commercial instinct in order to to make a living from his art. He also seems to have enjoyed a natural wanderlust, and took advantage of the growing network of steam packets which were making it both quicker and more reliable to cross the Channel and then to travel up and down the Rhine. His earliest travels were hindered by the fallout from the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. But he was a brave adventurer and – in 1802, as a 27 year old – was among the first from Britain to head to the Continent when the Peace of Amiens created a brief window in hostilities. With his sketch book and paintbrush in hand, he crossed over to France and headed deep into the Swiss Alps, as far as the dramatic Devil's Bridge which crosses Schöllenen Gorge, a gateway to the St Gotthard Pass. You couldn't call Turner a documentary artist. He put a strong emphasis on the grandeur of landscapes and his taste for the dramatic was ideally suited to spectacular peaks of the Alps. It was also in line with the zeitgeist of the time – inspired by Wordsworth's enthusiasm for the 'sublime' appeal of the natural world – and it played well with the art-buying public. This was an era when travel was quickly becoming affordable for more people than just the aristocracy and a new breed of wealthy, middle-class sightseers was also hungry for paintings and prints of Europe's most scenic beauty spots. Turner would spend his summers on the road, filling his sketchbooks with watercolours of his favourite views. In winter, back in his London studio, he would work them up into paintings and – another string to his commercial bow – as prints. He travelled around Britain too – especially between 1827-38, when he was working on a huge series of Picturesque Views of the Antiquities of England and Wales, an invaluable record of what were then considered the country's most appreciated and desirable beauty spots. The prints were marketed either individually or in sets, like a visual bucket list for travellers on staycations in the early decades of the 19th century. That bucket list also extended through the Low Countries, the Rhineland and many parts of Italy, especially Venice. As part of those travels, Turner enjoyed some of the earliest river cruises, sketching the highlights as he chugged gently not only up the Rhine, but also the Loire and the Seine. Prints from these sketches were marketed as 'Turner's Annual Tour' and released in time for Christmas – an ideal present for the would-be traveller. As such, they were a direct vision of the future of leisure travel and the way it would soon be marketed by tour operators and travel agents. Indeed, you could see them as an anticipation of Instagram, but without the selfies. The connection with tour operators soon proved to be even more direct. Of all the destinations he explored on the Continent, it was the Alps which seem to have inspired him most. He visited Switzerland again several times during the 1830s and 1840s and some of his most famous images of the time were his watercolours capturing the many moods of the Rigi mountain overlooking Lake Lucerne. He sketched and painted its great pyramidal bulk more than 30 times and was partly responsible for popularising both Lucerne and the mountain itself with British travellers. When Thomas Cook ran its first package tour to Switzerland in 1863 (12 years after Turner's death), the highlight of the trip was an ascent of the Rigi to watch the sunrise. And when Queen Victoria spent a month by the lake in the summer of 1868 its status as one of the leading tourist attractions in Europe was cemented for decades to come. She even made it up to the top of the Rigi, partly by sedan chair, partly riding side-saddle on a pony. Turner certainly knew what would please his buyers, but great artist as he was, he did not limit himself to agreeable prospects of the sort that Canaletto had churned out. There was also grit to his work – subtle political references and social critiques which, today, we might even call reportage. In an apparently idyllic moonlit scene in Venice made in 1840, for example, lurks the silhouette of an Austrian soldier, rifle on his shoulder standing by his sentry box outside the Doge's Palace. It's a direct reminder that this was a city under occupation. He was also one of the first battlefield tourists, visiting Waterloo in 1817 – just two years after the defeat of Napoleon – and employed a veteran to give him a proper a guided tour. The result was an apocalyptic painting emphasising the horror of the battle. Not an obvious inspiration for would be tourists, you might think. But then again, maybe it is. Maybe it is one of the first examples of the power of travel, of how actually visiting a place can change the way we understand and feel about history. Turner also used landscapes to make reference to political battlegrounds. Ten years after he visited Waterloo, he was in Wiltshire. In a pleasing prospect of the Downs looking towards Salisbury cathedral, he included the ancient earthworks of Old Sarum in the foreground. This was a clear reference to the political controversies of the time. Old Sarum was the most notorious of the Rotten Boroughs – parliamentary constituencies with tiny electorates (in this case 11 men) which were entitled to return MPs to Westminster, and which were soon to be swept away by the Great Reform Act of 1832. (Ironically the bill had been vehemently opposed by the great victor at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington). The age of leisure travel may have been just beginning, but there was nothing new about political corruption. The essentials The best place to see Turner's work is Tate Britain, which has by far the biggest collection of his work. The National Gallery also has some of his most famous paintings and Turner House, where he lived in Twickenham and which is now a museum, is holding an anniversary exhibition, Turner's Kingdom: Beauty, Birds and Beasts, from April 23-October 26. For hotel recommendations in Lucerne see here.
Telegraph
13-02-2025
- General
- Telegraph
How Germany's most beautiful city was miraculously rebuilt
Eighty years ago today, on the evening of Feb 13 1945, my German grandmother stood at the attic window of her apartment, on the outskirts of Dresden, and watched the night sky light up as the RAF and the USAAF reduced Germany's most beautiful city to a sea of rubble. Her youngest son, my father, had been born here in 1942. He was just a toddler. If they'd been living in the centre of the city, I doubt I'd be here to tell their story. Eighty years on, that fateful night still dominates British discussions about Dresden. 'What about Coventry?' we ask, understandably. What about all the other British cities which were blitzed by the Luftwaffe years before? Yes, the bombing of Dresden was especially horrific, over 20,000 killed in one night – but it was the culmination of a war which was begun by Germany. Over the last 30 years I've visited Dresden many times, and most Germans I've met there share this British point of view. They mourn the loss of life, the obliteration of countless treasures – but they see Dresden in a wider context, alongside cities the Nazis destroyed, such as Rotterdam and Warsaw. To my mind, it's a good thing that the bombing of Dresden isn't forgotten. It's an important reminder of the horrors of modern warfare. But because of that focus on the war, many Britons assume there can't be much left to see there – and most of us are unaware that British links with Dresden aren't confined to 1945. In Edwardian times the British community in Dresden was so extensive that the city had its own daily English newspaper, The Dresden Daily the only one in Germany. 'Dresden is second to no city in Germany in the attractions it offers to travellers in search of the picturesque,' declared the inaugural edition, in February 1906, anticipating an 'increased influx of English visitors.' When I first came to Dresden, 50 years after the bombing, that boast rang pretty hollow. After the war, Dresden had ended up in East Germany, and though the East Germans had patched up a few antique landmarks, the communist regime had neither the money nor the inclination to conduct a full-scale reconstruction of the cityscape obliterated in 1945. German reunification, in 1990, dramatically accelerated this restoration process, and during the 1990s and 2000s, I was thrilled to see how many ruined buildings were revived. Nevertheless, I thought this process would take a lifetime, which is why my latest visit (my first since Covid) was such a wonderful surprise. I'm delighted to report that during the last decade, the city has been transformed, not just by the renovation of old buildings, but by the construction of many new ones, built in sensitive baroque style. The crowning glory of this renaissance is the Frauenkirche, whose huge dome dominates the skyline in Canaletto's paintings of the city. Flattened in 1945, for half a century this iconic church was a melancholy heap of rubble, until Dresdeners set about rebuilding it – an exact replica, blending new and extant masonry. The golden cross and orb upon its dome were made by British goldsmith Alan Smith, whose father Frank was an RAF airman in the bombing raid – a profound, uplifting symbol of Anglo-German reconciliation. Since it reopened in 2005, the Frauenkirche has been a catalyst for the regeneration of the surrounding Neumarkt. In 1995, this broad cobbled square was a drab and dreary car park. In 2005, it was an empty space. Now, it's the centre of the city once more, just as it was in Canaletto's day. Neo-baroque buildings replicate the 18th-century street view he saw and painted, built in harmony and sympathy with the surviving relics. One of Dresden's finest rejuvenated relics is the Taschenbergpalais, built by Augustus the Strong, the unenlightened despot who transformed Dresden from a sleepy provincial capital into the so-called 'Florence of the Elbe'. Augustus built this palace to house his favourite mistress – he was (in)famous for having sired 365 children, one for every day of the year. It was burnt out in 1945 and left empty by the communists. It's now Dresden's smartest, most spectacular hotel. Reopened a year ago after a lavish year-long refit, it's hard to believe that trees once grew within its ruined walls. You can easily spend several days wandering around the reconstructed city centre, gawping at baroque buildings, trying to work out which ones are original and which are brand new. Yet as The Dresden Daily reported in 1906, the Saxon capital has always been equally renowned for 'health and recreation'. Spread along the valley of the River Elbe, cradled by rolling hills, the surrounding countryside is only a tram ride away. Quaint steamships chug along this wide, languid river, north to Meissen (a medieval citadel, home of the eponymous porcelain) and south to the craggy peaks of Saxon Switzerland (actually nothing like Switzerland, but charming all the same). On my last day, I went on a grand tour of this bucolic hinterland. I started off in Moritzburg, Augustus the Strong's fantastical version of Versailles – a cluster of follies and pleasure gardens surrounding an opulent hunting lodge. Then I travelled on to Schloss Wackerbarth, a historic winery in nearby Radebeul, to sample their light and subtle Rieslings. I finished up in Pillnitz, a baroque palace beside the Elbe built in faux oriental style, like the pagoda in Kew Gardens – a willow pattern plate brought to life. Although I'd been to Dresden lots of times since my first visit in 1995, I hadn't been back to Pillnitz for 30 years. After all the dramatic changes I'd seen in Dresden, a city that's been to hell and back, it felt strangely reassuring to end up in a place that hasn't changed in centuries. There's an island in the river, densely wooded, and as dusk fell I heard a solitary trumpeter playing a mournful melody, somewhere on that island, out of sight. If I'd seen it in a movie, I would have dismissed this as implausible – a ridiculously romantic, melodramatic detail – but here in lovely, melancholy Elbland it felt like the most natural thing on earth. My German grandmother fled from Dresden, ahead of the Red Army, and ended up in Hamburg, with her three children, where she met a British officer called Gerry Cook, a journalist back in civvy street, who married her and brought her back to Britain. She never went back to Dresden. I wish she was still around so I could take her back there with me today. She would have loved to see how my father's birthplace has been reborn. What to see and do The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister is one of Europe's greatest art galleries, with an amazing array of renaissance art. The flamboyant building in which it's housed, the Zwinger, is an artwork in its own right. The Military History Museum is a more modern architectural marvel, with a striking new extension by Polish-American starchitect Daniel Libeskind. Dresden's Stadtmuseum covers the 19th- and 20th-century history of the city, while the Albertinum displays a superb selection of German art, from Caspar David Friedrich to Gerhard Richter. Where to eat and drink There's plenty of traditional German grub in Dresden but it's not all sausages and sauerkraut. Housed in a historic building on Theaterplatz, the Alte Meister serves Teutonic staples with a modern twist. Lohrmanns is a lively microbrewery in a former factory – now a thriving cultural centre. It's fun to drink their fresh, fruity beer in this gritty post-industrial setting, amid the big vats where it's brewed. Where to stay The Taschenbergpalais is more than just a grand hotel – it's also an architectural meisterwerk, an integral part of the historic fabric of the city. If you're not on a five-star budget, the Dresden Hilton is a pleasant four-star alternative. Like the Taschenbergpalais, it has its own pool. Getting there Lufthansa fly to Dresden from London Heathrow, London Stansted, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle, with a change in Frankfurt or Munich. Dresden is around two hours by train from Berlin. For details of train connections from Berlin and elsewhere in Germany, visit William Cook travelled to Dresden as a guest of Visit Dresden. For more information visit
