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?