Portal:The arts/Did you know/February, 2009


 * ... that Eugène Delacroix's efforts to produce The Barque of Dante (pictured) in time for the Paris Salon of 1822 left him weak and in need of recuperation?
 * ... that Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova regarded Osip Mandelstam's poem on Russian poetess Mariya Petrovykh as the "best love poem of the twentieth century"?
 * ... that Stephen Etnier, an American realist painter, commanded the United States Navy ship USS Mizpah during World War II?
 * ... that the title for Peter Benchley's best-selling 1974 novel Jaws was not agreed until 20 minutes before it went into production?
 * ... that the 1983 song "Everyday I Write the Book" was Elvis Costello's first hit single in the United States?