1.
Olomouc
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Olomouc is a city in Moravia, in the east of the Czech Republic. Located on the Morava River, the city is the ecclesiastical metropolis, today it is an administrative centre of the Olomouc Region and sixth largest city in the Czech Republic. The city has about 100,154 residents, and its urban zone has a population of about 480,000 people. Olomouc is said to occupy the site of a Roman fort founded in the imperial period, during the 6th century, Slavs migrated into the area. As early as the 7th century, a centre of power developed in the present-day quarter of Povel. Around 810 the local Slavonic ruler was defeated by troops of Great Moravian rulers, a new centre, where the Great Moravian governor resided, developed at the gord at Předhradí, a quarter of the inner city. This settlement survived the defeat of the Great Moravia and gradually became the capital of the province of Moravia, the bishopric of Olomouc was founded in 1063. Centuries later in 1777, it was raised to the rank of an archbishopric, the bishopric was moved from the church of St. Peter to the church of Saint Wenceslas in 1141 under bishop Jindřich Zdík. The bishops palace was built in the Romanesque architectural style, the bishopric acquired large tracts of land, especially in northern Moravia, and was one of the richest in the area. Olomouc became one of the most important settlements in Moravia and a seat of the Přemyslid government, in 1306 King Wenceslas III stopped here on his way to Poland. He was going to fight Władysław I the Elbow-high to claim his rights to the Polish crown and was assassinated, with his death, the whole Přemyslid dynasty died out. The city was founded in the mid-13th century and became one of the most important trade. In the Middle Ages, it was the biggest town in Moravia, Olomouc finally lost after the Swedes took the city and held it for eight years. In 1235, the Mongols launched an invasion of Europe, after the Battle of Legnica in Poland, the Mongols carried their raids into Moravia, but were defensively defeated at the fortified town of Olomouc. The Mongols subsequently invaded and defeated Hungary, in 1454 the city expelled its Jewish population as part of a wave of anti-Semitism, also seen in Spain and Portugal. The second half of the 15th century is considered the start of Olomoucs golden age and it hosted several royal meetings, and Matthias Corvinus was elected here as King of Bohemia by the estates in 1469. In 1479 two kings of Bohemia met here and concluded an agreement for splitting the country, participating in the Protestant Reformation, Moravia became mostly Protestant. During the Thirty Years War, in 1640 Olomouc was occupied by the Swedes for eight years and they left the city in ruins, and it became second to Brno
2.
Stuttgart
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Stuttgart is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the Stuttgart Cauldron an hour from the Swabian Jura. Stuttgarts urban area has a population of 623,738, making it the sixth largest city in Germany. 2.7 million people live in the administrative region and another 5.3 million people in its metropolitan area. Since the 6th millennium BC, the Stuttgart area has been an important agricultural area and has been host to a number of cultures seeking to utilize the rich soil of the Neckar valley. The Roman Empire conquered the area in 83 AD and built a massive Castrum near Bad Cannstatt, Stuttgarts roots were truly laid in the 10th century with its founding by Liudolf, Duke of Swabia as a stud farm for his warhorses. Overshadowed by nearby Cannstatt, the town grew steadily and was granted a charter in 1320, the fortunes of Stuttgart turned with those of the House of Württemberg, and they made it the capital of their County, Duchy, and Kingdom from the 15th Century to 1918. Stuttgart prospered despite setbacks in the forms of the Thirty Years War and devastating air raids by the Allies on the city, however, by 1952, the city had bounced back and became the major economic, industrial, tourism and publishing center it is today. Stuttgart is also an important transport junction, and possesses the sixth largest airport in Germany. Such companies as Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Daimler AG, Dinkelacker, Stuttgart is unusual in the scheme of German cities. It is spread across a variety of hills, valleys and parks and this is often a source of surprise to visitors who associate the city with its reputation as the Cradle of the Automobile. The citys tourism slogan is Stuttgart offers more, under current plans to improve transport links to the international infrastructure, the city unveiled a new logo and slogan in March 2008 describing itself as Das neue Herz Europas. For business, it describes itself as Where business meets the future, in July 2010, Stuttgart unveiled a new city logo, designed to entice more business people to stay in the city and enjoy breaks in the area. Stuttgart is a city of mostly immigrants, according to Dorling Kindersley Publishings Eyewitness Travel Guide to Germany, In the city of Stuttgart, every third inhabitant is a foreigner. 40% of Stuttgarts residents, and 64% of the population below the age of five are of immigrant background, the reason for this being that the city was founded in 950 AD by Duke Liudolf of Swabia to breed warhorses. Originally, the most important location in the Neckar river valley as the rim of the Stuttgart basin at what is today Bad Cannstatt. As with many military installations, a settlement sprang up nearby, when they did, the town was left in the capable hands of a local brickworks that produced sophisticated architectural ceramics and pottery. When the Romans were driven back past the Rhine and Danube rivers in the 3rd Century by the Alamanni, in 700, Duke Gotfrid mentions a Chan Stada in a document regarding property
3.
Realism (arts)
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Realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. Realism has been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in part a matter of technique and training. In the visual arts, illusionistic realism is the depiction of lifeforms, perspective. Realist works of art may emphasize the mundane, ugly or sordid, such as works of realism, regionalism. There have been various movements in the arts, such as the opera style of verismo, literary realism, theatrical realism. The realism art movement in painting began in France in the 1850s, the realist painters rejected Romanticism, which had come to dominate French literature and art, with roots in the late 18th century. Realism is the precise, detailed and accurate representation in art of the appearance of scenes. Realism in this sense is also called naturalism, mimesis or illusionism, realistic art was created in many periods, and it is in large part a matter of technique and training, and the avoidance of stylization. It becomes especially marked in European painting in the Early Netherlandish painting of Jan van Eyck, however such realism is often used to depict, for example, angels with wings, which were not things the artists had ever seen in real life. It is the choice and treatment of matter that defines Realism as a movement in painting. The development of increasingly accurate representation of the appearances of things has a long history in art. It includes elements such as the depiction of the anatomy of humans and animals, of perspective and effects of distance. Ancient Greek art is recognised as having made great progress in the representation of anatomy. Pliny the Elders famous story of birds pecking at grapes painted by Zeuxis in the 5th century BC may well be a legend, roman portraiture, when not under too much Greek influence, shows a greater commitment to a truthful depiction of its subjects. The art of Late Antiquity famously rejected illusionism for expressive force, scientific methods of representing perspective were developed in Italy and gradually spread across Europe, and accuracy in anatomy rediscovered under the influence of classical art. As in classical times, idealism remained the norm, intriguingly, having led the development of illusionic painting, still life was to be equally significant in its abandonment in Cubism. The depiction of ordinary, everyday subjects in art also has a history, though it was often squeezed into the edges of compositions. However these objects are at least largely there because they carry layers of complex significance, pieter Bruegel the Elder pioneered large panoramic scenes of peasant life
4.
Modern art
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Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with ideas about the nature of materials. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic for the traditional arts, more recent artistic production is often called contemporary art or postmodern art. Matisses two versions of The Dance signified a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting, analytic cubism was jointly developed by Picasso and Georges Braque, exemplified by Violin and Candlestick, Paris, from about 1908 through 1912. Synthetic cubism is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces, collage elements, papier collé, the notion of modern art is closely related to modernism. Although modern sculpture and architecture are reckoned to have emerged at the end of the 19th century, the beginnings of modern painting can be located earlier. The date perhaps most commonly identified as marking the birth of art is 1863. Earlier dates have also proposed, among them 1855 and 1784. In the words of art historian H, harvard Arnason, Each of these dates has significance for the development of modern art, but none categorically marks a completely new beginning. A gradual metamorphosis took place in the course of a hundred years, the strands of thought that eventually led to modern art can be traced back to the Enlightenment, and even to the 17th century. The important modern art critic Clement Greenberg, for instance, called Immanuel Kant the first real Modernist but also drew a distinction, The Enlightenment criticized from the outside. The French Revolution of 1789 uprooted assumptions and institutions that had for centuries been accepted with little question and this gave rise to what art historian Ernst Gombrich called a self-consciousness that made people select the style of their building as one selects the pattern of a wallpaper. The pioneers of art were Romantics, Realists and Impressionists. By the late 19th century, additional movements which were to be influential in art had begun to emerge. The advocates of realism stood against the idealism of the academic art that enjoyed public. The most successful painters of the day worked either through commissions or through public exhibitions of their own work. There were official, government-sponsored painters unions, while governments regularly held exhibitions of new fine
5.
Gotha
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Gotha is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, located 20 kilometres west of Erfurt and 25 km east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the end of monarchy in Germany in 1918. The House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha originating here spawned many European rulers, including the houses of England, Belgium, Portugal. The first duke, Ernest the Pious was famous for his wise rule, in the 18th century, the Almanach de Gotha was first published in the city. The cartographer Justus Perthes and the encyclopedist Joseph Meyer made Gotha a leading centre of German publishing around 1800, in the early 19th century, Gotha was a birthplace of the German insurance business. The SPD was founded in Gotha in 1875 by merging two predecessors, in that period Gotha became an industrial centre, with companies such as the Gothaer Waggonfabrik, a producer of trams and later aeroplanes. Gotha lies in the part of the Thuringian Basin in a flat. Gotha has existed at least since the 8th century, when it was mentioned in a document signed by Charlemagne as Villa Gotaha in 775, the first settlement was probably located around todays Hersdorfplatz outside the north-eastern edge of the later city centre. During the 11th century, the nearby Ludowingians received the village and established the city in the late 12th century, as Gotha became their second most important city after Eisenach. One of the oldest pieces of evidence of trade in the city is the Gotha cache of coins with nearly 800 Bracteates. In 1180, Gotha was first mentioned as a city, when the area between Brühl and Jüdenstraße became the core of urban development, highlighting the early presence of Jews in this old trading town. The parish church of this first urban settlement was St. Marys Church at Schlossberg, the castle was first mentioned in 1217. As the Ludowingians died out in 1247, Gotha became part of the Wettins territories, the new town east of Querstraße was established in the early 15th century. The monastery was founded before 1251 and abandoned in 1525, until 1665, the bourse of Gotha was located in the centre of Hauptmarkt square inside the Renaissance building, which hosts the town hall today. The medieval town hall was located on the edge of Hauptmarkt. Water supply was a big problem, because Gotha is not located on a river, in 1369, Landgrave Balthasar had the Leinakanal built. This channel, over 25 kilometres long, brought water from the Thuringian Forest to the city. The main businesses of medieval Gotha were cloth-making and the woad trade, the Reformation was introduced in Gotha in 1524 and the castle was rebuilt as a larger fortress between 1530 and 1541
6.
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
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The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna is a public art school of higher education in Vienna, Austria. In 1701 he was ennobled by Emperor Joseph I as Freiherr of the Empire, with his death in 1714, the academy temporarily closed. On 20 January 1725, Emperor Charles VI appointed the Frenchman Jacob van Schuppen as Prefect and Director of the Academy, hofakademie der Maler, Bildhauer und Baukunst. Upon Charles death in 1740, the academy at first declined, however during the rule of his daughter Empress Maria Theresa, a new statute reformed the academy in 1751. The prestige of the academy grew during the deanships of Michelangelo Unterberger and Paul Troger, in 1772, there were further reforms to the organisational structure. Chancellor Wenzel Anton Kaunitz integrated all existing art schools into the k. k. vereinigten Akademie der bildenden Künste, the word vereinigten was later dropped. In 1822 the art cabinet grew significantly with the bequest of honorary member Anton Franz de Paula Graf Lamberg-Sprinzenstein and his collection still forms the backbone of the art on display. In 1872 Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria approved a statute making the academy the supreme government authority for the arts, a new building was constructed according to plans designed by the faculty Theophil Hansen in the course of the layout of the Ringstraße boulevard. On 3 April 1877, the building on Schillerplatz in the Innere Stadt district was inaugurated. In 1907 and 1908, young Adolf Hitler, who had come from Linz, was denied admission to the drawing class. He stayed in Vienna, subsisting on his allowance. Soon he had withdrawn into poverty and started selling amateur paintings, mostly watercolours, during the Austrian Anschluss to Nazi Germany from 1938–1945, the academy was forced to heavily reduce its number of Jewish staff. After World War II, the academy was reconstituted in 1955 and it has had university status since 1998, but retained its original name. It is currently the only Austrian university that doesnt have the university in its name. The Academy currently has about 900 students, almost a quarter of which are foreign students and its faculty includes stars such as Peter Sloterdijk. 110,000 volumes and its etching cabinet has about 150,000 drawings, the collection is one of the biggest in Austria, and is used for academic purposes, although portions are also open to the general public. Official website website of the Media Server Study in Austria, A Guide
7.
Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
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The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, the Academy of Fine Arts was founded 1808 by Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria in Munich as the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. The Munich School refers to a group of painters who worked in Munich or were trained at the Academy between 1850 and 1918, the paintings are characterized by a naturalistic style and dark chiaroscuro. Typical painting subjects included landscape, portraits, genre, still-life, from 1900 to 1918 the academys director was Ferdinand Freiherr von Miller. In 1946, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts was merged with the School of arts and crafts, in 1953 its name was changed to the current Academy of Fine Arts. The large 19th-century Renaissance Revival style building complex, designed by Gottfried Neureuther, was completed in 1886 and it has housed the Academy since then. A new Deconstructivist style expansion, designed by the architectural firm Coop Himmelbau as an extension from the building, was completed in 2005
8.
Wilhelm von Diez
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Albrecht Christoph Wilhelm von Diez was a German painter and illustrator of the Munich School. He attended a school in Munich, followed by the Polytechnic School from 1853 to 1855 and, from 1855, the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. He didnt stay at the Academy very long, preferring to teach himself draftsmanship and he first became known through the illustrations he drew for the Fliegende Blätter, a weekly satirical magazine. In 1871, he illustrated Schillers History of the Thirty-Years War and he later turned to animal, landscape and genre painting. Earlier that same year, with the support of Wilhelm von Kaulbach, in this position, he not only had a major influence on his pupils, but also upon the development of the entire Munich School, leading it to a more coloristic approach. All in the National Gallery Waldfest, Totes Reh, Sankt Georg der Drachentöter, Stefanie Kamm, ein Künstler zwischen Historismus und Jugendstil. München 1991, ISBN 3-88073-390-2 Wilhelm von Diez in HeidICON - Illustrations from the Fliegenden Blättern
9.
Rothenburg ob der Tauber
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Rothenburg ob der Tauber is a town in the district of Ansbach of Mittelfranken, the Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. It is well known for its medieval old town, a destination for tourists from around the world. It is part of the popular Romantic Road through southern Germany, Rothenburg was a Free Imperial City from the late Middle Ages to 1803. The name Rothenburg ob der Tauber means, in German, Red fortress above the Tauber and this is so because the town is located on a plateau overlooking the Tauber River. As to the name Rothenburg, some say it comes from the German words rot and burg, the name may also refer to the process of retting flax for linen production. In 950, the system in today’s castle garden was constructed by the Count of Comburg-Rothenburg. In 1070, the counts of Comburg-Rothenburg, who owned the village of Gebsattel. The counts of the Comburg-Rothenburg dynasty died out in 1116, the last count, Count Heinrich, Emperor Heinrich V appointed instead his nephew Konrad von Hohenstaufen as successor to the Comburg-Rothenburg properties. He held court there and appointed officials called reeves to act as caretakers, in 1170, the city of Rothenburg was founded at the time of the building of Staufer Castle. The centre was the marketplace and St. James Church, the development of the oldest fortification can be seen, the old cellar/old moat and the milk market. Walls and towers were built in the 13th century, preserved are the “White Tower” and the Markus Tower with the Röder Arch. From 1194 to 1254, the representatives of the Staufer dynasty governed the area around Rothenburg, around this time, the Order of St. John and other orders were founded near St. James Church and a Dominican nunnery. From 1241 to 1242, the Staufer Imperial tax statistics recorded the names of the Jews in Rothenburg, rabbi Meir Ben Baruch of Rothenburg had a great reputation as a jurist in Europe. Most members of the family were arrested and interred by the Nazis and are presumed to have been killed during the Second World War. The family is survived by its last living descendant, Andrew Sandilands Graf von Rothberg, 9th Count of Rothenburg, in 1274, Rothenburg was accorded privileges by King Rudolf of Habsburg as a Free Imperial City. Three famous fairs were established in the city and in the following centuries, the citizens of the city and the Knights of the Hinterland build the Franziskaner Monastery and the Holy Ghost Hospital. The German Order began the building of St. James Church, the Heilig Blut pilgrimage attracted many pilgrims to Rothenburg, at the time one of the 20 largest cities of the Holy Roman Empire. The population was around 5,500 people within the city walls, the Staufer Castle was destroyed by an earthquake in 1356, the St. Blaise chapel is the last remnant today
