Vincent Van Gogh was the son of a pastor (牧师) in Holland. Around his early twenties he decided to become an artist. He felt that color was his main influence and he used it to express himself. The way he painted was very unusual during the late 1800s because he paid much attention to colorful abstract art. Van Gogh had many paintings that have changed the way we look at art. His paintings weren't popular during his lifetime because of an illness that was possibly a mental disorder. However, they are now considered to be the most popular forms of art in the world today. In what ways can we appreciate his paintings?

    Learn about the artistic style of expressionism. In Van Gogh's artwork, the style that he used was expressionism, which was the only one of this kind compared to other paintings.

    Look for key symbols that would help you understand his artwork better such as the background of the objects.

    Try to understand the artist's aims. You can do this by watching the use of colors, perspectives, and the subject. Knowing the artist's aims, you will be able to understand why he created the work.

    Take what you have learned from the artwork and put it in your feelings to see how it affects you and is related to you. This will allow you to make a connection with the artist.

    I remember meeting him one evening with his pushcart. I had managed to sell all my papers and was coming home in the snow. It was that strange hour in downtown New York when the workers were pouring homeward in the twilight. I marched among thousands of tired men and women whom the factory whistles had unyoked. They flowed in rivers through the clothing factory districts, then down along the avenues to the East Side.

    I met my father near Cooper Union. I recognized him, a hunched, frozen figure in an old overcoat standing by a banana cart. He looked so lonely, the tears came to my eyes. Then he saw me, and his face lit with his sad, beautiful smile-Charlie Chaplin's smile.

    "Arch, it's Mikey," he said. "So you have sold your papers! Come and eat a banana."

    He offered me one. I refused it. I felt it crucial that my father sell his bananas, not give them away. He thought I was shy, and coaxed and joked with me, and made me eat the banana. It smelled of wet straw and snow.

    "You haven't sold many bananas today, pop, "I said anxiously.

    He shrugged his shoulders.

    "What can I do No one seems to want them."

    It was true. The work crowds pushed home morosely（愁眉苦脸的）over the pavements. The rusty sky darkened over New York buildings, the tall street lamps were lit, innumerable trucks, street cars and elevated trains clattered by. Nobody and nothing in the great city stopped for my father's bananas.

    "I ought to yell," said my father dolefully. "I ought to make a big noise like other peddlers, but it makes my throat sore. Anyway, I'm ashamed of yelling, it makes me feel like a fool. "

    I had eaten one of his bananas. My sick conscience told me that I ought to pay for it somehow. I must remain here and help my father.

    "I'll yell for you, pop," I volunteered.

    "Arch, no," he said," go home; you have worked enough today. Just tell momma I'll be late. "

    But I yelled and yelled. My father, standing by, spoke occasional words of praise, and said I was a wonderful yeller. Nobody else paid attention. The workers drifted past us wearily, endlessly; a defeated army wrapped in dreams of home. Elevated trains crashed; the Cooper Union clock burned above us; the sky grew black, the wind poured, the slush burned through our shoes. There were thousands of strange, silent figures pouring over the sidewalks in snow. None of them stopped to buy bananas. I yelled and yelled, nobody listened.

    My father tried to stop me at last." Nu," he said smiling to console me," that was wonderful yelling, Mikey. But it's plain we are unlucky today! Let's go home."

    I was frantic, and almost in tears. I insisted on keeping up my desperate yells. But at last my father persuaded me to leave with him.

    The search engine Google celebrated on Thursday the 110th birthday of the first Native American woman engineer. Google honored Mary Ross with a special Google Doodle on its homepage.

    Ross was born on August 9, 1908, in the state of Oklahoma. She was the great-granddaughter of John Ross, the longest—serving chief of the Cherokee Nation. Her work is considered important to the early stages of the age of space travel.

    Ross showed special abilities in math and science from an early age. As a student, she developed an interest in aviation, or the practice of flying aircraft. She went on to earn a master's degree in mathematics from Colorado State Teachers College, now called the University of Northern Colorado.

    During World War II, Ross began working for the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation as a mathematician. She earned a special certification in the field from the University of California in1949.Ross was later chosen to join Lockheed's top—secret Skunk Works team that worked on aircraft designs. The name refers to a group that is permitted to work independently on advanced projects. She was the only female engineer among the team's 40 members.

    Early on, she researched defense systems. By the late 1950s, her work centered on satellites and a series of space rockets called Agenda. The rockets were extremely important in the 1960s during the Apollo moon program.

    Ross also helped develop early design ideas for space travel between planets, including flyby space flights to study Venus and Mars. Ross retired from Lockheed in 1973.But she continued to give talks at high schools and colleges to encourage more women and Native Americans to study engineering. She died in 2008, a few months before her 100th birthday.

    Many celebrated Ross' life on social media. Twitter user Aaron Perez, for example, wrote: “Mary Ross was an engineer who pioneered in the field of satellites. I never would have known if it wasn't for the doodle. Women engineers deserve more recognition.”

How can I exhibit in the Atrium Gallery

    The Atrium Gallery provides a space for exhibiting a range of creative work, especially the work of our students and staff.

    We aim to promote a programme of high quality art exhibitions which reflect creative activity and research interests.

    Proposals to exhibit

    We select exhibitions by proposal submission. Selected exhibitions showcase innovative, ambitious new work that contributes to the School's learning and research activities, and is a source of pleasure and inspiration to students, staff, visitors and the wider LSE community.

    You must be a student or member of staff at LSE at the time of the proposed exhibition. LSE Arts has no dedicated source of funding, therefore we will ordinarily expect proposals to come with a minimum level of funding, to cover core exhibition costs.

    Proposals will be judged termly for exhibition the following academic term. There is a high demand for our gallery space  so please list your first choice of dates and any alternate dates that would also work.

    Proposal Submission Timescales

    The deadline for exhibition proposals for Summer term 2019 is Friday 18 January 2019. The committee will review applications and successful applicants will be notified (通知) by the week informed on Monday 11 February 2019. Exhibitions will be on display from 29 April to 14 June 2019 inclusive.

    Not all applications will be successful. Successful proposals will generally be exhibited the term after receiving the proposal.

    Complete our exhibition proposal form by downloading the exhibition proposal form and sending to arts@ lse. ac.uk with accompanying images.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us at arts@ lse.ac.uk.

    The new president of Harvard University is the son of an Eastern European refugee and Auschwitz (奥斯威辛) survivor—Lawrence S. Bacow. His father worked full time while attending a state college in Detroit at night to earn his degree.

    Bacow, the former president of Tufts University, has taken over Harvard at a time when higher education is under attack for being financially out of reach to many Americans. But Bacow said his family's journey had reflected the power of college education to transform generations and the opportunities that have historically been available in the United States.

    "My parents came to this country with almost nothing," Bacow said. "I wouldn't be here if this country had not been open to people like my parents at that time. Nor would I if my father hadn't had the opportunity to get the college education."

    Bacow grew up in Pontiac, Michigan. His father's family fled anti-Jewish (反犹太的) violence in Minsk, then part of the Soviet Union, before the start of World War II and went to the United States. His mother arrived in Brooklyn at age 19, having survived Auschwitz concentration camp. She was the only Jew from her town to have survived the war. Yet Bacow, who is married with two sons, said that while growing up in Michigan, he had a happy childhood, entering science fairs as a child and building radios like his dad.

    Bacow has spent most of his professional career at MIT, Harvard and Tufts. He was a professor of environmental studies at MIT, and later a principal at the university. He led Tufts from 2001 to 2011. At Tufts, Bacow earned a reputation for shaking up a sleepy university that was being overshadowed by its peers in Boston. He is also credited with leading it through both 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis.

    As the Tufts president, Bacow traveled around the country, reaching out to alumni (校友), and he urged his faculty and deans to do the same, in an effort to boost donations to finance Tufts' academic ambitions. He raised more than $20 million for faculty recruitment, attracting up-and-coming professors by offering junior faculty perks (福利), such as long academic leaves that they couldn't get elsewhere.

    Under Bacow's leadership, Tufts spent millions on labs and libraries. He also made addresses nationally about the need to make higher education more accessible and affordable to low-income students.