As Anglo-Irish tensions tore his country apart, William Butler Yeats sought to give Ireland songs of identity rooted in the island's particular history and myth. Invoking a strong sense of place and folk tradition, Yeats attempted to counter the rapid growth of industry and materialism that he saw as

Lyrical, Modernist poetry, Mythic, Rebel, Sublime, Tragic

While Michelangelo sought to free human forms from stone, British sculptor Henry Moore left his abstract figures an integral part of the materials from which he hewed them. His sculptures seem to be the product of natural forces, as if water and wind erosion created the negative spaces and hollows. I

Modern sculpture, Mythic, Round, Spiritual, Voluminous

Amy Franceschini began her professional life with an intense desire to become a photojournalist, but this was not to be her fate. According to Franceschini, a random conversation with a man at a party first cast doubt over her journalistic ambitions. He told her that she'd be condemning herself to a

Bubblicious, Charming, Eclectic, Mythic, Pop

Although too erratic in technique to earn the distinction of virtuoso, Rudolf Nureyev still took a place among the most brilliant dancers in history. His flamboyance and charisma garnered him a truly massive audience; it's possible that his dancing has been seen by more people than that of any other

Bombast, Dramatic, Intense, Masculine, Mythic, Severe, Soviet ballet: the bolshoi and the kirov