1.
Basel
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Basel is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine. Basel is Switzerlands third-most-populous city with about 175,000 inhabitants, located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany. In 2014, the Basel agglomeration was the third largest in Switzerland with a population of 537,100 in 74 municipalities in Switzerland, the official language of Basel is German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the Alemannic Swiss German dialect. Basel has been the seat of a Prince-Bishopric since the 11th century, the city has been a commercial hub and important cultural centre since the Renaissance, and has emerged as a centre for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry in the 20th century. It hosts the oldest university of the Swiss Confederation, There are settlement traces on the Rhine knee from the early La Tène period. The unfortified settlement was abandoned in the 1st century BC in favour of an Oppidum on the site of Basel Minster, probably in reaction to the Roman invasion of Gaul. In Roman Gaul, Augusta Raurica was established some 20 km from Basel as the administrative centre. The city of Basel eventually grew around the castle, the name of Basel is derived from the Roman-era toponym Basilia, first recorded in the 3rd century. It is presumably derived from the personal name Basilius, the Old French form Basle was adopted into English, and developed into the modern French Bâle. The Icelandic name Buslaraborg goes back to the 12th century Leiðarvísir og borgarskipan, Basel was incorporated into Germania Superior in AD83. Roman control over the area deteriorated in 3rd century, and Basel became an outpost of the Provincia Maxima Sequanorum formed by Diocletian, the Alamanni attempted to cross the Rhine several times in the 4th century, but were repelled. In a great invasion of AD406, the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine river a final time, conquering and then settling what is today Alsace, from this time, Basel has been an Alemannic settlement. The Duchy of Alemannia fell under Frankish rule in the 6th century, and by the 7th century, based on the evidence of a third solidus with the inscription Basilia fit, Basel seems to have minted its own coins in the 7th century. Under bishop Haito, the first cathedral was built on the site of the Roman castle, at the partition of the Carolingian Empire, Basel was first given to West Francia, but passed to East Francia with the treaty of Meerssen of 870. The city was plundered and destroyed by a Magyar invasion of 917, the rebuilt city became part of Upper Burgundy, and as such was incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire in 1032. Since the donation by Rudolph III of Burgundy of the Moutier-Grandval Abbey and all its possessions to Bishop Adalbero II in 999 till the Reformation, in 1019, the construction of the cathedral of Basel began under German Emperor Heinrich II. In 1225–1226, the Bridge over the Rhine was constructed by Bishop Heinrich von Thun, the bridge was largely funded by Basels Jewish community which had settled there a century earlier. For many centuries to come Basel possessed the only permanent bridge over the river between Lake Constance and the sea, the Bishop also allowed the furriers to found a guild in 1226
2.
Fiesole
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Fiesole is a town and comune of the Metropolitan City of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a scenic height above Florence,8 kilometres northeast of that city. Both the Harvard University and Georgetown University maintain centers for Renaissance studies in Fiesole, the Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio is set in the slopes of Fiesole. Since the 14th century the city has always considered a getaway for the upper class of Florence. Fiesole was probably founded in the 9th-8th century BC, as it was an important member of the Etruscan confederacy, the first recorded mention on the town dates to 283 BC, when the town, then known as Faesulae, was conquered by the Romans. In pagan antiquity it was the seat of a school of augurs. Sulla colonized it with veterans, who afterwards, under the leadership of Gaius Mallius, Fiesole was the scene of Stilichos great victory over the Germanic hordes of the Vandals and Suebi under Radagaisus in 406. During the Gothic War the town was several times besieged, in 539 Justinus, the Byzantine general, captured it and razed its fortifications. Dante reflects this rivalry in his Divine Comedy by referring to the beasts of Fiesole, by the 14th century, rich Florentines had countryside villas in Fiesole, and one of them is the setting of the frame narrative of the Decameron. Boccaccios poem Il Ninfale fiesolano is an account of the origins of the community. Robert Browning mentions “sober pleasant Fiesole” several times in his poem Andrea Del Sarto, palazzo Comunale of the 14th century. The cathedral of Fiesole, containing the shrine of St. Romulus, martyr, according to legend the first Bishop of Fiesole, the old cathedral became a Benedictine abbey, which passed into the hands of the Canons Regular of the Lateran. It once possessed a library, long since dispersed. The abbey was closed in 1778, the room in the bishops palace where Carmelite bishop St. Andrew Corsini lived and died. The little church of the Primerana in the square, where the same saint was warned by Our Lady of his approaching death. Built in 996 and further expanded in medieval times, has maintained the Gothic presbytery from that period and it received a new façade in the late 16th century, with graffito decoration by Ludovico Buti. The interior, on a hall, has a 13th-century panel portraying Madonna with Child. In the transept are two marble bas-reliefs by Francesco da Sangallo, and a terracotta from Andrea della Robbias workshop, the church of S. Alessandro, with the shrine of St. Alexander, bishop and martyr. The Monastery of San Francesco on the crest of the hill, with the cells of St. Bernardine of Siena, San Girolamo, the home of Venerable Carlo dei Conti Guidi, founder of the Hieronymites of Fiesole
3.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
4.
Painting
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Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture, composition, narration, or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive, Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature. A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by motifs and ideas. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action, the term painting is also used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders. What enables painting is the perception and representation of intensity, every point in space has different intensity, which can be represented in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. In practice, painters can articulate shapes by juxtaposing surfaces of different intensity, thus, the basic means of painting are distinct from ideological means, such as geometrical figures, various points of view and organization, and symbols. In technical drawing, thickness of line is ideal, demarcating ideal outlines of an object within a perceptual frame different from the one used by painters. Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music, color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, and Newton, have written their own color theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent, the word red, for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic, painters deal practically with pigments, so blue for a painter can be any of the blues, phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, and so on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music is analogous to light in painting, shades to dynamics and these elements do not necessarily form a melody of themselves, rather, they can add different contexts to it. Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, collage, some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer, there is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required, rhythm is important in painting as it is in music
5.
Isle of the Dead (painting)
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Isle of the Dead is the best-known painting of Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin. Prints were very popular in central Europe in the early 20th century—Vladimir Nabokov observed in his novel Despair that they could be found in every Berlin home, Böcklin produced several different versions of the mysterious painting between 1880 and 1886. All versions of Isle of the Dead depict a desolate and rocky islet seen across an expanse of dark water, a small rowboat is just arriving at a water gate and seawall on shore. An oarsman maneuvers the boat from the stern, in the bow, facing the gate, is a standing figure clad entirely in white. Just behind the figure is a white, festooned object commonly interpreted as a coffin, the tiny islet is dominated by a dense grove of tall, dark cypress trees—associated by long-standing tradition with cemeteries and mourning—which is closely hemmed in by precipitous cliffs. Furthering the funerary theme are what appear to be sepulchral portals, not knowing the history of the early versions of the painting, many observers have interpreted the oarsman as representing the boatman Charon who ferried souls to the underworld in Greek mythology. The water would then be either the River Styx or the River Acheron, Isle of the Dead evokes, in part, the English Cemetery in Florence, Italy, where the first three versions were painted. The cemetery was close to Böcklins studio and was also where his infant daughter Maria was buried, apollo 93, p.510, states that it was painted in the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro, and that it inspired Rachmaninov. Böcklin completed the first version of the painting in May 1880 for his patron Alexander Günther, in April 1880, while the painting was in progress, Böcklins Florence studio had been visited by Marie Berna, née Christ. She was struck by the first version of this dream image, at Bernas request, he added the coffin and female figure, in allusion to her husbands death of diphtheria years earlier. Subsequently, he added elements to the earlier painting. He called these works Die Gräberinsel and it was acquired by the Gottfried Keller-Stiftung in 1920. The third version was painted in 1883 for Böcklin’s dealer Fritz Gurlitt, beginning with this version, one of the burial chambers in the rocks on the right bears Böcklins own initials, A. B. Financial imperatives resulted in a version in 1884, which was ultimately acquired by the entrepreneur and art collector Baron Heinrich Thyssen. It was burned after an attack during World War II. A fifth version was commissioned in 1886 by the Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig, in 1888, Böcklin created a painting called Die Lebensinsel. Probably intended as an antipole to the Isle of the Dead, it shows a small island. Together with the first version of the Isle of the Dead, may 1880 – Oil on canvas,111 x 155 cm, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Kunstmuseum, Basel
6.
Symbolism (arts)
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Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style originates with the 1857 publication of Charles Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, the works of Edgar Allan Poe, which Baudelaire admired greatly and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock tropes and images. The aesthetic was developed by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine during the 1860s and 1870s, in the 1880s, the aesthetic was articulated by a series of manifestos and attracted a generation of writers. The name symbolist itself was first applied by the critic Jean Moréas, distinct from, but related to, the style of literature, symbolism in art is related to the gothic component of Romanticism and Impressionism. In ancient Greece, the symbolon was a shard of pottery which was inscribed, Symbolism was a reaction in favour of spirituality, the imagination, and dreams. Some writers, such as Joris-Karl Huysmans, began as naturalists before becoming symbolists, for Huysmans, the Symbolist poets have a more complex relationship with Parnassianism, a French literary style that immediately preceded it. The Symbolists continued to admire Théophile Gautiers motto of art for arts sake, many Symbolist poets, including Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine, published early works in Le Parnasse contemporain, the poetry anthologies that gave Parnassianism its name. One of Symbolisms most colourful promoters in Paris was art and literary critic Joséphin Péladan, a number of Symbolists were associated with the Salon. Symbolists believed that art should represent absolute truths that could only be described indirectly, thus, they wrote in a very metaphorical and suggestive manner, endowing particular images or objects with symbolic meaning. Jean Moréas published the Symbolist Manifesto in Le Figaro on 18 September 1886, the Symbolist Manifesto names Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Paul Verlaine as the three leading poets of the movement. In a nutshell, as Mallarmé writes in a letter to his friend Cazalis, to not the thing. Symbolist poems were attempts to evoke, rather than primarily to describe, – both poets seek to identify one sense experience with another. The earlier Romanticism of poetry used symbols, but these symbols were unique, the symbolists were more extreme, investing all things, even vowels and perfumes, with potential symbolic value. The physical universe, then, is a kind of language that invites a privileged spectator to decipher it, Symbolist symbols are not allegories, intended to represent, they are instead intended to evoke particular states of mind. The nominal subject of Mallarmés Le cygne is of a trapped in a frozen lake. Significantly, in French, cygne is a homophone of signe, un cygne d’autrefois se souvient que c’est lui Magnifique mais qui sans espoir se délivre. They were also portrayed as at odds with society, having tragic lives and these traits were not hindrances but consequences of their literary gifts. Schopenhauers aesthetics represented shared concerns with the symbolist programme, they tended to consider Art as a contemplative refuge from the world of strife and will
7.
Schaffhausen
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Schaffhausen is a town in northern Switzerland and the capital of the canton of the same name, it has an estimated population of 34,587 as of December 2008. The official language of Schaffhausen is the Swiss variety of Standard German, the old portion of the city has many fine Renaissance era buildings decorated with exterior frescos and sculpture, as well as the impressive old canton fortress, the Munot. A train runs out of town to the nearby Rhine Falls in Neuhausen am Rheinfall, Europes largest waterfall, the town is first mentioned in 1045 as Villa Scafhusun. There are at least two theories on the origin of this name, one is related to a mention of a ford across the Rhine River that first occurs in 1050. This ford may actually refer to a scapha or skiff which was used to disembark goods coming from Constance to move them around the Rhine Falls, the name Scafhusun then arose from the scapha used at that point. Another theory is that Scafhusun comes from Schaf, as a ram formed the ancient arms of the town, derived from those of its founders, the counts of Nellenburg. The blazon of the coat of arms is Or on a Base Vert issuant from sinister a Semi Castle Argent with tower with entrance from which is issuing a Semi Ram Sable. The canting coat of arms refers to the interpretation of the name. Schaffhausen was a city state in the Middle Ages, documented to have struck its own coins from 1045, about 1050 the counts of Nellenburg founded the Benedictine monastery of All Saints, which became the centre of the town. Perhaps as early as 1190, certainly in 1208, it was a free city. The powers of the abbot were gradually limited and in 1277 the Emperor Rudolf I gave the town a charter of liberties, in 1330 the emperor Louis of Bavaria pledged it to the Habsburgs. In the early 15th century, Habsburg power over the city waned, by 1411 the guilds ruled the city. Then, in 1415 the Habsburg Duke Frederick IV of Austria sided with the Antipope John XXIII at the Council of Constance, as a result of the ban and Fredericks need of money, Schaffhausen was able to buy its independence from the Habsburgs in 1418. The city allied with six of the Swiss confederates in 1454, Schaffhausen became a full member of the Old Swiss Confederacy in 1501. The Reformation was adopted, initially, in 1524 and completely in 1529, the town was heavily damaged during the Thirty Years War by the passage of Swedish and Bavarian troops and the very important bridge was burnt down. It was not until the early 19th century that the industrial development of the town made a fresh start. In 1857 the first railroad, the Rheinfall-Bahn running from Winterthur, Schaffhausen is located in a finger of Swiss territory surrounded on three sides by Germany. On 1 April 1944 Schaffhausen suffered a raid by United States Army Air Forces aircraft which strayed from German airspace into neutral Switzerland due to navigation errors
8.
Silk
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Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity, Silk is produced by several insects, but generally only the silk of moth caterpillars has been used for textile manufacturing. There has been research into other types of silk, which differ at the molecular level. Silk is mainly produced by the larvae of insects undergoing complete metamorphosis, Silk production also occurs in Hymenoptera, silverfish, mayflies, thrips, leafhoppers, beetles, lacewings, fleas, flies, and midges. Other types of arthropod produce silk, most notably various arachnids such as spiders, the word silk comes from Old English sioloc, from Greek σηρικός serikos, silken, ultimately from an Asian source. Several kinds of silk, which are produced by caterpillars other than the mulberry silkworm, have been known and used in China, South Asia. However, the scale of production was far smaller than for cultivated silks. Thus, the way to obtain silk suitable for spinning into textiles in areas where commercial silks are not cultivated was by tedious. Commercial silks originate from reared silkworm pupae, which are bred to produce a silk thread with no mineral on the surface. The pupae are killed by either dipping them in boiling water before the adult moths emerge or by piercing them with a needle. These factors all contribute to the ability of the cocoon to be unravelled as one continuous thread. Wild silks also tend to be difficult to dye than silk from the cultivated silkworm. Genetic modification of domesticated silkworms is used to facilitate the production of more types of silk. Silk fabric was first developed in ancient China, the earliest example of silk fabric is from 3630 BC, and it was used as wrapping for the body of a child from a Yangshao culture site in Qingtaicun at Xingyang, Henan. Legend gives credit for developing silk to a Chinese empress, Leizu, because of its texture and lustre, silk rapidly became a popular luxury fabric in the many areas accessible to Chinese merchants. Silk was in demand, and became a staple of pre-industrial international trade. In July 2007, archaeologists discovered intricately woven and dyed silk textiles in a tomb in Jiangxi province, Silk is described in a chapter on mulberry planting by Si Shengzhi of the Western Han
9.
Johann Wilhelm Schirmer
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Johann Wilhelm Schirmer was a German landscape artist from Jülich, within the Prussian Duchy of Jülich. Johann Wilhelm Schirmer was started as a student of painting under Schadow at the academy of Düsseldorf. Later, he came under the influence of Carl Friedrich Lessing and landscape painting and he became known as one of the first of the Düsseldorf school of painting. In 1830 he became an Assistant Professor, and later, in 1839, in the meantime, he visited and painted in Belgium, the Black Forest, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Normandy and Italy. In 1854, he took up the role of a Director at the Art School at Karlsruhe and this artist is sometimes confused with August Wilhelm Ferdinand Schirmer, who had similar interests, and belonged to the same era. In addition, both were known by the name Wilhelm Schirmer, and were students of Wilhelm von Schadow, thurston, H. T. Colby, F. M. eds. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Rines, George Edwin, ed. Schirmer
10.
Anselm Feuerbach
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Anselm Feuerbach was a German painter. He was the leading classicist painter of the German 19th-century school, Feuerbach was born at Speyer, the son of the well-known archaeologist Joseph Anselm Feuerbach and the grandson of the legal scholar Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach. The house of his birth is now a small museum, between 1845 and 1848 he attended the Düsseldorf Academy, where he was taught by Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, Wilhelm von Schadow, and Carl Sohn. He went on to the Munich Academy, but in 1850, along with a number of dissatisfied students, he moved to the academy at Antwerp. Feuerbach moved to Paris in 1851, where he was a pupil of Thomas Couture until 1854 and it was in Paris that he produced his first masterpiece, Hafiz at the Fountain. From there he continued to Florence and then to Rome and he remained in Rome until 1873, making brief visits back to Germany. In 1861 he met Anna Risi, who sat as his model for the four years. In 1866 she was succeeded as his model by Lucia Brunacci. In 1862 Feuerbach met Count Adolf Friedrich von Schack, who commissioned copies of Italian old masters from him, the count introduced him to Arnold Böcklin and Hans von Marées. The three artists became known as the Deutschrömer because of their preference for Italian over German art, in 1873 Feuerbach moved to Vienna, having been appointed professor of history painting at the Academy. Feuerbach developed a disagreement with architect Theophil Hansen over his ceiling mural The Fall of the Titans, while in the Vienna he came to know Johannes Brahms. In 1877 he resigned from his post at the Vienna Academy and moved to Venice, Brahms composed Nänie, a piece for chorus and orchestra, in his memory. It proved enormously successful and greatly enhanced his posthumous reputation, according to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, He was steeped in classic knowledge, and his figure compositions have the statuesque dignity and simplicity of Greek art. His works are housed at leading public galleries in Germany, stuttgart has the second version of Iphigenia, Karlsruhe, the Dante at Ravenna, Munich, the Medea, and Berlin, The Concert, his last important painting. Other major works include The Battle of the Amazons, Pietà, The Symposium of Plato, Orpheus and Eurydice, list of German painters Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Feuerbach, Anselm. Rines, George Edwin, ed. Feuerbach, Anselm
11.
Antwerp
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Antwerp is a city in Belgium, the capital of Antwerp province in the region of Flanders. With a population of 510,610, it is the most populous city proper in Belgium and its metropolitan area houses around 1,200,000 people, which is second behind Brussels. Antwerp is on the River Scheldt, linked to the North Sea by the Westerschelde estuary, the Port of Antwerp is one of the biggest in the world, ranking second in Europe and within the top 20 globally. Antwerp has long been an important city in the Low Countries, the inhabitants of Antwerp are nicknamed Sinjoren, after the Spanish honorific señor or French seigneur, lord, referring to the Spanish noblemen who ruled the city in the 17th century. The city hosted the 1920 Summer Olympics, according to folklore, notably celebrated by a statue in front of the town hall, the city got its name from a legend about a giant called Antigoon who lived near the Scheldt river. He exacted a toll from passing boatmen, and for those who refused, he severed one of their hands, eventually the giant was killed by a young hero named Silvius Brabo, who cut off the giants own hand and flung it into the river. Hence the name Antwerpen, from Dutch hand werpen, akin to Old English hand and wearpan, a longstanding theory is that the name originated in the Gallo-Roman period and comes from the Latin antverpia. Antverpia would come from Ante Verpia, indicating land that forms by deposition in the curve of a river. Note that the river Scheldt, before a period between 600 and 750, followed a different track. This must have coincided roughly with the current ringway south of the city, however, many historians think it unlikely that there was a large settlement which would be named Antverpia, but more something like an outpost with a river crossing. However, John Lothrop Motley argues, and so do a lot of Dutch etymologists and historians, aan t werp is also possible. This warp is a hill or a river deposit, high enough to remain dry at high tide. Another word for werp is pol hence polders, historical Antwerp allegedly had its origins in a Gallo-Roman vicus. Excavations carried out in the oldest section near the Scheldt, 1952–1961, produced pottery shards, the earliest mention of Antwerp dates from the 4th century. In the 4th century, Antwerp was first named, having been settled by the Germanic Franks, the name was reputed to have been derived from anda and werpum. The Merovingian Antwerp was evangelized by Saint Amand in the 7th century, at the end of the 10th century, the Scheldt became the boundary of the Holy Roman Empire. Antwerp became a margraviate in 980, by the German emperor Otto I, in the 11th century Godfrey of Bouillon was for some years known as the marquis of Antwerp. In the 12th century, Norbert of Xanten established a community of his Premonstratensian canons at St. Michaels Abbey at Caloes
12.
Brussels
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Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels which is the capital of Belgium. The Brussels-Capital Region is a part of both the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community, but is separate from the region of Flanders or Wallonia. The region has a population of 1.2 million and an area with a population of over 1.8 million. Brussels is the de facto capital of the European Union as it hosts a number of principal EU institutions, the secretariat of the Benelux and the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are also located in Brussels. Today, it is considered an Alpha global city, historically a Dutch-speaking city, Brussels has seen a language shift to French from the late 19th century onwards. Today, the majority language is French, and the Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. All road signs, street names, and many advertisements and services are shown in both languages, Brussels is increasingly becoming multilingual with increasing numbers of migrants, expatriates and minority groups speaking their own languages. The most common theory of the origin of Brussels name is that it derives from the Old Dutch Broekzele or Broeksel, meaning marsh, Saint Vindicianus, the bishop of Cambrai made the first recorded reference to the place Brosella in 695 when it was still a hamlet. The origin of the settlement that was to become Brussels lies in Saint Gaugericus construction of a chapel on an island in the river Senne around 580. The official founding of Brussels is usually situated around 979, when Duke Charles of Lower Lotharingia transferred the relics of Saint Gudula from Moorsel to the Saint Gaugericus chapel, Charles would construct the first permanent fortification in the city, doing so on that same island. Lambert I of Leuven, Count of Leuven gained the County of Brussels around 1000 by marrying Charles daughter, as it grew to a population of around 30,000, the surrounding marshes were drained to allow for further expansion. The Counts of Leuven became Dukes of Brabant at about this time, in the 13th century, the city got its first walls. After the construction of the city walls in the early 13th century, to let the city expand, a second set of walls was erected between 1356 and 1383. Today, traces of it can still be seen, mostly because the small ring, Brabant had lost its independence, but Brussels became the Princely Capital of the prosperous Low Countries, and flourished. In 1516 Charles V, who had been heir of the Low Countries since 1506, was declared King of Spain in St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral in Brussels. Upon the death of his grandfather, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 and it was in the Palace complex at Coudenberg that Charles V abdicated in 1555. This impressive palace, famous all over Europe, had expanded since it had first become the seat of the Dukes of Brabant. In 1695, during the Nine Years War, King Louis XIV of France sent troops to bombard Brussels with artillery, together with the resulting fire, it was the most destructive event in the entire history of Brussels
13.
Dutch Golden Age painting
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The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade, science, and art. Most work, including that for which the period is best known, a distinctive feature of the period is the proliferation of distinct genres of paintings, with the majority of artists producing the bulk of their work within one of these. The full development of specialization is seen from the late 1620s. A distinctive feature of the period, compared to earlier European painting, was the amount of religious painting. Dutch Calvinism forbade religious painting in churches, and though biblical subjects were acceptable in private homes, the development of many of these types of painting was decisively influenced by 17th-century Dutch artists. The widely held theory of the hierarchy of genres in painting, whereby some types were regarded as more prestigious than others, however this was the hardest to sell, as even Rembrandt found. Many were forced to produce portraits or genre scenes, which much more easily. In descending order of status the categories in the hierarchy were, history painting, including allegories, most paintings were relatively small – the only common type of really large paintings were group portraits. Painting directly onto walls hardly existed, when a wall-space in a public building needed decorating fitted framed canvas was normally used, painted delftware tiles were very cheap and common, if rarely of really high quality, but silver, especially in the auricular style, led Europe. With this exception, the best artistic efforts were concentrated on painting and printmaking, the volume of production meant that prices were fairly low, except for the best known artists, as in most subsequent periods there was a steep price gradient for more fashionable artists. In particular the French invasion of 1672, brought a depression to the art market. The distribution of pictures was very wide, yea many tymes, blacksmithes, cobblers etts. will have some picture or other by their Forge, such is the generall Notion, enclination and delight that these Countrie Native have to Painting reported an English traveller in 1640. There were for virtually the first time many professional art dealers, several significant artists, like Vermeer and his father, Jan van Goyen. Rembrandts dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh and his son Gerrit were among the most important, typically workshops were smaller than in Flanders or Italy, with only one or two apprentices at a time, the number often being restricted by guild regulations. In many cases involved the artists extricating themselves from medieval groupings where they shared a guild with several other trades. Several new guilds were established in the period, Amsterdam in 1579, Haarlem in 1590, the Leiden authorities distrusted guilds and did not allow one until 1648. The Hague, with the court, was an early example, there were many dynasties of artists, and many married the daughters of their masters or other artists. Many artists came from families, who paid fees for their apprenticeships
14.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
15.
Louvre
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The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
16.
Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
17.
Munich
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Munich is the capital and largest city of the German state of Bavaria, on the banks of River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg, the Munich Metropolitan Region is home to 5.8 million people. According to the Globalization and World Rankings Research Institute Munich is considered an alpha-world city, the name of the city is derived from the Old/Middle High German term Munichen, meaning by the monks. It derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who ran a monastery at the place that was later to become the Old Town of Munich, Munich was first mentioned in 1158. From 1255 the city was seat of the Bavarian Dukes, black and gold—the colours of the Holy Roman Empire—have been the citys official colours since the time of Ludwig the Bavarian, when it was an imperial residence. Following a final reunification of the Wittelsbachian Duchy of Bavaria, previously divided and sub-divided for more than 200 years, like wide parts of the Holy Roman Empire, the area recovered slowly economically. In 1918, during the German Revolution, the house of Wittelsbach, which governed Bavaria since 1180, was forced to abdicate in Munich. In the 1920s, Munich became home to political factions, among them the NSDAP. During World War II, Munich was heavily bombed and more than 50% of the entire city, the postwar period was characterised by American occupation until 1949 and a strong increase of population and economic power during the years of the Wirtschaftswunder after 1949. The city is home to corporations like BMW, Siemens, MAN, Linde, Allianz and MunichRE as well as many small. Munich is home to national and international authorities, major universities, major museums. Its numerous architectural attractions, international events, exhibitions and conferences. Munich is one of the most prosperous and fastest growing cities in Germany and it is a top-ranked destination for migration and expatriate location, despite being the municipality with the highest density of population in Germany. Munich nowadays hosts more than 530,000 people of foreign background, the year 1158 is assumed to be the foundation date, which is the earliest date the city is mentioned in a document. The document was signed in Augsburg, by that time the Guelph Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, had built a bridge over the river Isar next to a settlement of Benedictine monks—this was on the Old Salt Route and a toll bridge. In 1175, Munich was officially granted city status and received fortification, in 1180, with the trial of Henry the Lion, Otto I Wittelsbach became Duke of Bavaria and Munich was handed over to the Bishop of Freising. In 1240, Munich was transferred to Otto II Wittelsbach and in 1255, Duke Louis IV, a native of Munich, was elected German king in 1314 and crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in 1328. He strengthened the position by granting it the salt monopoly
18.
Franz von Lenbach
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Franz von Lenbach was a German painter of Realist style. He travelled to Italy and Spain and completed many notable portraits, Lenbach was born at Schrobenhausen, in Bavaria. His father was a mason, and the boy was destined for the building trade and he went to school at Landsberg, and then to the polytechnic at Augsburg. However, after seeing Hofner, the painter, executing some studies, he made various attempts at painting. Lenbach was already accomplished when he became the pupil of Piloty, a few works remain as the outcome of this first journey A Peasant seeking Shelter from Bad Weather, The Goatherd and The Arch of Titus. On returning to Munich, he was at once called to Weimar to take the appointment of professor at the Academy, but he did not need to teach for long, having made the acquaintance of Count Schack, who commissioned a great number of copies for his collection. Lenbach returned to Italy the same year, and there copied many famous pictures. At this time he took on Ernst Friedrich von Liphart who was the son of a Baltic German noble. He set out in 1867 for Spain with Liphart, where he copied not only the pictures by Velázquez in the Prado, but also some landscapes in the museums of Granada. This trip was funded by Lenbachs patron Count Schack, in the previous year he had exhibited at the great exhibition at Paris several portraits, one of which took a third-class medal. In 1882 Lenbach was ennobled, and since then known as von Lenbach, thereafter he exhibited frequently both at Munich and at Vienna, and in 1900 at the Paris exhibition was awarded a Grand Prix for painting. The British collections include portraits by Lenbach of Bismarck and Gladstone in the National Galleries of Scotland and another of Gladstone in the Palace of Westminster
19.
Bauhaus University, Weimar
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The Bauhaus-Universität Weimar is a university located in Weimar, Germany and specializes in the artistic and technical fields. Established in 1860 as the Great Ducal Saxon Art School, it gained collegiate status on 3 June 1910, in 1919 the school was renamed Bauhaus by its new director Walter Gropius and it received its present name in 1996. Approximately 4,000 students are enrolled at the university today, in 2010 the Bauhaus-Universität commemorated its 150th anniversary as an art school and college in Weimar. In 2019 the university will be celebrating the centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus, Weimar boasts a long tradition of art education and instruction in the areas of fine art, handicrafts, music and architecture. In 1776 the Weimar Princely Free Zeichenschule was established, but gradually lost significance after the Grand Ducal Saxon Art School was founded in 1860, the Free Zeichenschule was discontinued in 1930. In 1829 the architect Clemens Wenzeslaus Coudray established the Free School of Trades, in 1926, the school was incorporated into the Gotha School of Architecture. The Orchestra School, which opened in 1872, eventually became the College of Music Franz Liszt in Weimar, the history of the Bauhaus-Universität goes back to 1860 when Grand Duke Carl Alexander founded the Grand Ducal Saxon Art School. Although it became an institution in 1902, its ties with the ducal house remained strong for years. Students were instructed in a variety of subjects, including landscape, historical, portrait and animal painting. The school was raised to college status in 1910 and was renamed the Grand Ducal Saxon College of Fine Arts, the development of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar was also strongly influenced by the Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts which trained artisans in the handicrafts between 1907 and 1915. Both schools issued certificates of participation and conferred diplomas, the names of renowned artists, instructors and students can be found in the historical documents and records of both schools. It was the making of a new type of art school, a pioneer of modernity, in 1923 Gropius summarized his vision with the radical formula “Art and Technology – A New Unity. The Bauhaus only remained in Weimar until spring 1925 when it was forced to relocate to Dessau for political reasons, there the Bauhaus began a new, important chapter as a college of art and design. Although the College of Architecture continued to adhere to the idea of the Bauhaus and this corresponded to the “concept of a construction-based, productive working community, ” which represented one of the founding principles of this successor institution. The experimental and innovative focus of the Bauhaus fell somewhat to the wayside, in 1929 there were 88 students enrolled at the College of Architecture. After completing their education, graduates received a diploma in the Construction department, Paul Schultze-Naumburg rejected all phenomena of industrial, urban society. He strived to establish a new style that exuded “Gemütlichkeit”. In his opinion, it was necessary to preserve the German styles typical of the region, graduates of the Architecture course received the title “Diplom-Architekt”, while artists received a simple certificate and craftspeople received the title “Journeyman” or “Master”
20.
Florence
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Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the Metropolitan City of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants, Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time. It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, from 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. The Historic Centre of Florence attracts 13 million tourists each year and it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture, the city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florences artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in 2008, the city had the 17th highest average income in Italy. Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe, the language spoken in the city during the 14th century was, and still is, accepted as the Italian language. Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War and they similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European historys most important noble families, Lorenzo de Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century, Leo X, catherine de Medici married king Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future king Louis XIII, the Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de Medici in 1737. The Etruscans initially formed in 200 BC the small settlement of Fiesole and it was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century, Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to again and commerce prospered
21.
Galluzzo
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Galluzzo is part of quartiere 3 of the Italian city of Florence, Italy, located in the southern extremity of the Florentine commune. It is known for the celebrated Carthusian monastery, the Galluzzo or Florence Charterhouse, the remainder formed the present commune of Impruneta. Some trace the origin of the name of the suburb to the Galluzzo or Galluzzi noble family, who were the regional biadaioli. Others maintain that the name Galluzzo derives from the old tavern located on the leading to Rome from Florence. However, this sign was simply a reproduction of the carving of a cockerel on a milestone on the side of that same road, historically a zone inhabited by artesans and agricultural workers, Galluzzo had relatively few inhabitants until the mid-19th century. The women of the region had for a time offered laundry services, given the abundance of running water, in addition to which they also produced straw plaits. Today, the heart of the nucleus is Acciaioli Square. Galluzzo is cited by Dante Alighieri in the XVI canto of The Divine Comedy, oh quando fora meglio esser vicine quelle genti ch’io dico, ed al Galluzzo ed a Trespiano aver vostro confine Florence Charterhouse
22.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
23.
Romanticism
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Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical. It was embodied most strongly in the arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble, Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievements of heroic individualists and artists, whose examples, it maintained, would raise the quality of society. It also promoted the individual imagination as a critical authority allowed of freedom from classical notions of form in art, there was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a Zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas. In the second half of the 19th century, Realism was offered as a polar opposite to Romanticism, the decline of Romanticism during this time was associated with multiple processes, including social and political changes and the spread of nationalism. Defining the nature of Romanticism may be approached from the point of the primary importance of the free expression of the feelings of the artist. The importance the Romantics placed on emotion is summed up in the remark of the German painter Caspar David Friedrich that the feeling is his law. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others believed there were laws that the imagination—at least of a good creative artist—would unconsciously follow through artistic inspiration if left alone. As well as rules, the influence of models from other works was considered to impede the creators own imagination, so that originality was essential. The concept of the genius, or artist who was able to produce his own work through this process of creation from nothingness, is key to Romanticism. This idea is called romantic originality. Not essential to Romanticism, but so widespread as to be normative, was a strong belief, however, this is particularly in the effect of nature upon the artist when he is surrounded by it, preferably alone. Romantic art addressed its audiences with what was intended to be felt as the voice of the artist. So, in literature, much of romantic poetry invited the reader to identify the protagonists with the poets themselves. In both French and German the closeness of the adjective to roman, meaning the new literary form of the novel, had some effect on the sense of the word in those languages. It is only from the 1820s that Romanticism certainly knew itself by its name, the period typically called Romantic varies greatly between different countries and different artistic media or areas of thought. Margaret Drabble described it in literature as taking place roughly between 1770 and 1848, and few dates much earlier than 1770 will be found. In English literature, M. H. Abrams placed it between 1789, or 1798, this latter a very typical view, and about 1830, however, in most fields the Romantic Period is said to be over by about 1850, or earlier
24.
English Cemetery, Florence
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The English Cemetery in Florence, Italy is at Piazzale Donatello. Before 1827 non-Catholics and non-Jews who died in Florence were buried in the Old English Cemetery, carlo Reishammer, a young architectural student, landscaped the cemetery, then Giuseppe Poggi shaped it as its present oval when Florence became capital of Italy. He surrounded it with studios for artists, including that of Michele Gordigiani and these two tombs were toppled in the great storm of 19 September 2014 and are now restored. The cemetery is also the subject of Arnold Boecklins Isle of the Dead, from its burial of his seven-month daughter. In turn, the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff made use of Boecklins painting for his Op.29, thus this cemetery forms a compendious memorial of western creativity, from America to Russia, from Scandinavia to Nubia, during Italys 19th-century Risorgimento. The Cemetery had to be closed in 1877, when the law forbade burials of bodies within city limits. Research has been carried out on the records in Britain, Russia and Italy. The Scorpioni, a group of elderly English ladies who lived in Florence in the 1930s and 1940s. The Comune of Florence has now allowed the Swiss Church, which owns the cemetery, to reopen it for burials, protestant Cemetery, Rome Old English Cemetery, Livorno Catalogue of Tombs in Cemetery
25.
Clement Greenberg
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In particular, he is best remembered for his promotion of the abstract expressionist movement and was among the first published critics to praise the work of painter Jackson Pollock. Clement Greenberg was born in the borough of the Bronx, NYC and his parents were middle-class Jewish immigrants, and he was the eldest of their three sons. Since childhood, Greenberg sketched compulsively, until becoming a young adult, Greenberg attended Erasmus Hall High School, the Marquand School for Boys, then Syracuse University, graduating with an A. B. in 1930, cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. After college, already as fluent in Yiddish as English since childhood, Greenberg taught himself Italian and German in addition to French and Latin. During the next few years, Greenberg travelled the U. S. working for his fathers dry-goods business, Greenberg married in 1934, had a son the next year, and was divorced the year after that. It was then that Greenberg began to seriously, and soon after began getting published in a handful of small magazines. Greenberg writes, Kitsch, using for raw material the debased and academicized simulacra of genuine culture and it is the source of its profits. Kitsch is mechanical and operates by formulas, Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations. Kitsch changes according to style, but remains always the same, Kitsch is the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of our times. Kitsch pretends to demand nothing of its customers except their money – not even their time, for Greenberg, avant garde art was too innocent to be effectively used as propaganda or bent to a cause, while kitsch was ideal for stirring up false sentiment. Greenberg wrote several essays that defined his views on art history in the 20th century. In 1940, Greenberg joined Partisan Review as an editor and he became art critic for the Nation in 1942. He was associate editor of Commentary from 1945 until 1957, in December 1950, he joined the government funded American Committee for Cultural Freedom. Greenberg believed Modernism provided a commentary on experience. It was constantly changing to adapt to kitsch pseudo-culture, which was itself always developing, in the years after World War II, Greenberg pushed the position that the best avant-garde artists were emerging in America rather than Europe. Particularly, he championed Jackson Pollock as the greatest painter of his generation, Greenberg helped to articulate a concept of medium specificity. In Greenbergs view, after World War II the United States had become the guardian of advanced art and he was particularly impressed by the potential of painters William Ronald and Jack Bush, and later developed a close friendship with Bush. Greenberg expressed mixed feelings about pop art, on the one hand he expressed that pop art partook of a trend toward openness and clarity as against the turgidities of second generation Abstract Expressionism
26.
Gottfried Keller-Stiftung
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By letter dated 6 September 1890, shortly before the end of her tragic life, Lydia Escher offered to the federal government a generous donation. The entire Federal Council declared on 16 September 1890 the adoption of the gift, the donation consisted of securities and land including the Villa Belvoir which had a total value of 3.46 million Swiss francs at the end of 1890. The in the beginning Welti-Escher-Stiftung, was named Gottfried Keller-Stiftung after Gottfried Keller to whom her father gave consistent support, according to the will of Lydia Escher, the foundation was managed by the Swiss Federal Council, thus, Lydia Escher wished to accomplish a patriotic work. The foundation should also promote the independent work of women, at least in the field of the applied of Arts and this purpose was adopted – but at the urging of Welti not in the deed of the foundation. The Gottfried Keller Foundation became though an important collection institution for art, the five members of the foundation are nominated by the Swiss Federal Council every four years. That so-called Foundation Commission decides on the acquisition of works of art, either, the foundation pays for a work of art the full purchase price and places it in a museum of its choice, or it is involved in Museum purchases. Nevertheless, the remains the property of the Swiss Confederation. Among other, the acquired the St. Georgen Abbey in Stein am Rhein in 1926. The collection comprises more than 8,500 paintings, sculptures, the market value of the collection can only be approximately quantified, according to the experts the market value ranges between 500 and 1,500 million Swiss Francs in 2009. The applied federal government financial assets of the GKS was about 4.5 million Swiss Francs at the end of 2007. The art dealer Martin Usteri acquired 32 glass panes in 1796, which were sold from his legacy in 1829, GKS entrusted the six windows to the Swiss National Museum on deposit. The foundations assets has diminished in the course of the 20th century, in fact, the foundations financial problems, as well as the cause to fulfill its purpose according to Lydia Eschers will, occurred also due to mismanagement. In 1922 the remaining shares were also sold, placing the mentioned current value of the art collection of the original donation of the 3.46 million Swiss Francs, represents an annual growth rate of the nominal value between 4. 3% and 5. 3%. In fact, the security in the real value of the endowment would necessarily implies a growth of capital in the amount of inflation. In retrospect it was very short-sighted to use the income of the fund usually in full for the purchase of works of art. In addition, the purchase of the St. Georgen Abbey, in 2009, the currently available capital amounted to 4.5 million Swiss Francs, did not allow to fulfill the will of Lydia Escher. The ordinary annual income of GKS is currently around 215,000 Swiss Francs, extraordinary income achieved the GKS only exceptionally. New acquisitions occur only sporadically and with limited resources given by the current financial situation
27.
Giorgio de Chirico
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Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian artist and writer. In the years before World War I, he founded the scuola metafisica art movement, after 1919, he became interested in traditional painting techniques, and worked in a neoclassical or neo-Baroque style, while frequently revisiting the metaphysical themes of his earlier work. De Chirico was born in Volos, Greece, to a Genoan mother and he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he studied under Max Klinger and read the writings of the philosophers Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer and Otto Weininger. There, he studied the works of Arnold Böcklin. He returned to Italy in the summer of 1909 and spent six months in Milan and he also painted The Enigma of the Oracle while in Florence. In July 1911 he spent a few days in Turin on his way to Paris, De Chirico was profoundly moved by what he called the metaphysical aspect of Turin, especially the architecture of its archways and piazzas. De Chirico moved to Paris in July 1911, where he joined his brother Andrea. Through his brother he met Pierre Laprade, a member of the jury at the Salon dAutomne, where he exhibited three of his works, Enigma of the Oracle, Enigma of an Afternoon and Self-Portrait. During 1913 he exhibited paintings at the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d’Automne, his work was noticed by Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, in 1914, through Apollinaire, he met the art dealer Paul Guillaume, with whom he signed a contract for his artistic output. At the outbreak of World War I, he returned to Italy, upon his arrival in May 1915, he enlisted in the army, but he was considered unfit for work and assigned to the hospital at Ferrara. Here he met with Carlo Carrà and together founded the pittura metafisica movement. He continued to paint, and in 1918, he transferred to Rome, starting from 1918, his work was exhibited extensively in Europe. De Chirico is best known for the paintings he produced between 1909 and 1919, his period, which are characterized by haunted, brooding moods evoked by their images. In autumn,1919, De Chirico published an article in Valori Plastici entitled The Return of Craftsmanship, in which he advocated a return to traditional methods and iconography. In the early 1920s, the Surrealist writer André Breton discovered one of De Chiricos metaphysical paintings on display in Guillaumes Paris gallery, numerous young artists who were similarly affected by De Chiricos imagery became the core of the Paris Surrealist group centered around Breton. In 1924 De Chirico visited Paris and was accepted into the group, De Chirico met and married his first wife, the Russian ballerina Raissa Gurievich in 1925, and together they moved to Paris. His relationship with the Surrealists grew increasingly contentious, as they publicly disparaged his new work, by 1926 he had come to them as cretinous. They soon parted ways in acrimony, in 1928 he held his first exhibition in New York City and shortly afterwards, London
28.
Surrealism
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Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for its visual artworks and writings. The aim was to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream, leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a revolutionary movement. Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities during World War I, the word surrealist was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire and first appeared in the preface to his play Les Mamelles de Tirésias, which was written in 1903 and first performed in 1917. The Dadaists protested with anti-art gatherings, performances, writings and art works, after the war, when they returned to Paris, the Dada activities continued. Meeting the young writer Jacques Vaché, Breton felt that Vaché was the son of writer. He admired the young writers anti-social attitude and disdain for established artistic tradition, later Breton wrote, In literature, I was successively taken with Rimbaud, with Jarry, with Apollinaire, with Nouveau, with Lautréamont, but it is Jacques Vaché to whom I owe the most. Back in Paris, Breton joined in Dada activities and started the literary journal Littérature along with Louis Aragon and they began experimenting with automatic writing—spontaneously writing without censoring their thoughts—and published the writings, as well as accounts of dreams, in the magazine. Breton and Soupault delved deeper into automatism and wrote The Magnetic Fields, continuing to write, they came to believe that automatism was a better tactic for societal change than the Dada form of attack on prevailing values. They also looked to the Marxist dialectic and the work of such theorists as Walter Benjamin, freuds work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious was of utmost importance to the Surrealists in developing methods to liberate imagination. They embraced idiosyncrasy, while rejecting the idea of an underlying madness, as Salvador Dalí later proclaimed, There is only one difference between a madman and me. Beside the use of analysis, they emphasized that one could combine inside the same frame, elements not normally found together to produce illogical. The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be−the greater its emotional power, the group aimed to revolutionize human experience, in its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects. They wanted to people from false rationality, and restrictive customs. Breton proclaimed that the aim of Surrealism was long live the social revolution. To this goal, at various times Surrealists aligned with communism and anarchism, in 1924 two Surrealist factions declared their philosophy in two separate Surrealist Manifestos. That same year the Bureau of Surrealist Research was established, leading up to 1924, two rival surrealist groups had formed. Each group claimed to be successors of a revolution launched by Guillaume Apollinaire, the other group, led by Breton, included Louis Aragon, Robert Desnos, Paul Éluard, Jacques Baron, Jacques-André Boiffard, Jean Carrive, René Crevel and Georges Malkine, among others. Goll and Breton clashed openly, at one point literally fighting, at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, in the end, Breton won the battle through tactical and numerical superiority
29.
Max Ernst
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Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a pioneer of the Dada movement. Max Ernst was born in Brühl, near Cologne, the third of nine children of a middle-class Catholic family and his father Philipp was a teacher of the deaf and an amateur painter, a devout Christian and a strict disciplinarian. He inspired in Max a penchant for defying authority, while his interest in painting and sketching in nature influenced Max to take up painting himself, in 1909 Ernst enrolled in the University of Bonn, studying philosophy, art history, literature, psychology and psychiatry. In 1911 Ernst befriended August Macke and joined his Die Rheinischen Expressionisten group of artists, in 1912 he visited the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne, where works by Pablo Picasso and post-Impressionists such as Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin profoundly influenced his approach to art. His own work was exhibited the same year together with that of the Das Junge Rheinland group, at Galerie Feldman in Cologne, in 1914 Ernst met Hans Arp in Cologne. The two soon became friends and their relationship lasted for fifty years, after Ernst completed his studies in the summer, his life was interrupted by World War I. Ernst was drafted and served both on the Western and the Eastern front, such was the devastating effect of the war on the artist that in his autobiography he referred to his time in the army thus, On the first of August 1914 M. E. died. He was resurrected on the eleventh of November 1918, however, for a brief period on the Western Front, Ernst was assigned to chart maps, which allowed him to continue painting. Several German Expressionist painters died in action during the war, among them Macke, Ernst was demobilized in 1918 and returned to Cologne. He soon married art history student Luise Straus, whom he had met in 1914, in 1919, Ernst visited Paul Klee in Munich and studied paintings by Giorgio de Chirico, which deeply impressed him. Also in 1919 Ernst, social activist Johannes Theodor Baargeld, in 1919–20 Ernst and Baargeld published various short-lived magazines such as Der Strom and die schammade, and organized Dada exhibitions. Ernst and Luises son Ulrich Jimmy Ernst was born on 24 June 1920, Ernsts marriage to Luise was short-lived. In 1921 he met Paul Éluard, who became a lifelong friend. Éluard bought two of Ernsts paintings and selected six collages to illustrate his poetry collection Répétitions, a year later the two collaborated on Les malheurs des immortels, and then with André Breton, whom Ernst met in 1921, on the magazine Litterature. During his first two years in Paris Ernst took various odd jobs to make a living and continued to paint, in 1923 the Éluards moved to a new home in Eaubonne, near Paris, where Ernst painted numerous murals. The same year his works were exhibited at Salon des Indépendants, although apparently accepting the ménage à trois at first, Éluard eventually became more concerned about the affair. In 1924 he abruptly left, first for Monaco, and then for Saigon and he soon asked his wife and Max Ernst to join him, both had to sell numerous paintings to finance the trip
30.
Marcel Duchamp
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Duchamp has had an immense impact on twentieth-century and twenty first-century art. By World War I, he had rejected the work of many of his artists as retinal art. Instead, Duchamp wanted to use art to serve the mind, Marcel Duchamp was born at Blainville-Crevon in Normandy, France, and grew up in a family that enjoyed cultural activities. The art of painter and engraver Émile Frédéric Nicolle, his grandfather, filled the house, and the family liked to play chess, read books, paint. Of Eugene and Lucie Duchamps seven children, one died as an infant, Marcel Duchamp was the brother of, Jacques Villon, painter, printmaker Raymond Duchamp-Villon, sculptor Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti, painter. At 8 years old, Duchamp followed in his brothers footsteps when he left home and began schooling at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille, two other students in his class also became well-known artists and lasting friends, Robert Antoine Pinchon and Pierre Dumont. For the next 8 years, he was locked into a regime which focused on intellectual development. Though he was not a student, his best subject was mathematics. He also won a prize for drawing in 1903, and at his commencement in 1904 he won a coveted first prize and he learned academic drawing from a teacher who unsuccessfully attempted to protect his students from Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and other avant-garde influences. However, Duchamps true artistic mentor at the time was his brother Jacques Villon, whose fluid, at 14, his first serious art attempts were drawings and watercolors depicting his sister Suzanne in various poses and activities. That summer he painted landscapes in an Impressionist style using oils. Duchamps early art works align with Post-Impressionist styles and he experimented with classical techniques and subjects. He studied art at the Académie Julian from 1904 to 1905, during this time Duchamp drew and sold cartoons which reflected his ribald humor. Many of the drawings use verbal puns, visual puns, or both, such play with words and symbols engaged his imagination for the rest of his life. In 1905, he began his military service with the 39th Infantry Regiment. There he learned typography and printing processes—skills he would use in his later work, due to his eldest brother Jacques membership in the prestigious Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture Duchamps work was exhibited in the 1908 Salon dAutomne. The following year his work was featured in the Salon des Indépendants, of Duchamps pieces in the show, critic Guillaume Apollinaire—who was to become a friend—criticized what he called Duchamps very ugly nudes. The group came to be known as the Puteaux Group, or the Section dOr, uninterested in the Cubists seriousness or in their focus on visual matters, Duchamp did not join in discussions of Cubist theory, and gained a reputation of being shy
31.
H. R. Giger
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Hans Rudolf H. R. Giger was a Swiss surrealist painter, whose style was adapted for many forms of media, including record albums, furniture and tattoos. The Zurich-based artist was best known for images of humans. Later he abandoned airbrush work for pastels, markers, and ink and he was part of the special effects team that won an Academy Award for design work on the film Alien. In Switzerland there are two bars that reflect his interior designs, and his work is on permanent display at the H. R. Giger Museum at Gruyères. Giger was born in 1940 in Chur, capital city of Graubünden and his father, a pharmacist, viewed art as a breadless profession and strongly encouraged him to enter pharmacy, Giger recalled. He moved to Zürich in 1962, where he studied architecture, Gigers first success was when H. H. Kunz, co-owner of Switzerlands first poster publishing company, printed and distributed Gigers first posters, beginning in 1969. Gigers style and thematic execution were influential and he was part of the special effects team that won an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects for their design work on the film Alien. His design for the Alien was inspired by his painting Necronom IV and his books of paintings, particularly Necronomicon and Necronomicon II and the frequent appearance of his art in Omni magazine continued his rise to international prominence. Giger was admitted to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2013 and he is also well known for artwork on several music recording albums including Brain Salad Surgery of Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Deborah Harrys KooKoo. In 1998 Giger acquired the Château St. Germain in Gruyères, Switzerland, and it now houses the H. R. Giger Museum, Giger had a relationship with Swiss actress Li Tobler until she committed suicide in 1975. Lis image appears in many of his paintings and he married Mia Bonzanigo in 1979, they divorced a year and a half later. The artist lived and worked in Zürich with his wife, Carmen Maria Scheifele Giger. On 12 May 2014, Giger died in a hospital in Zürich after having suffered injuries in a fall, in addition to his awards, Giger was recognized by a variety of festivals and institutions. On the one year anniversary of his death, the Museum of Arts, dark Star, H. R. Gigers World, a biographical documentary by Belinda Sallin, debuted 27 September 2014 in Zurich, Switzerland. Giger started with small ink drawings before progressing to oil paintings, for most of his career, Giger had worked predominantly in airbrush, creating monochromatic canvasses depicting surreal, nightmarish dreamscapes. However, he largely abandoned large airbrush works in favor of works with pastels. Gigers most distinctive stylistic innovation was that of a representation of human bodies and machines in a cold, interconnected relationship and his main influences were painters Dado, Ernst Fuchs and Salvador Dalí. He met Salvador Dalí, to whom he was introduced by painter Robert Venosa, Giger was also influenced by the work of the sculptor Stanislas Szukalski, and by the painters Austin Osman Spare and Mati Klarwein
32.
Sergei Rachmaninoff
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Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian pianist, composer, and conductor of the late-Romantic period, some of whose works are among the most popular in the classical repertoire. Born into a family, Rachmaninoff took up the piano at age four. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892 and had composed several piano, in 1897, following the critical reaction to his Symphony No. 1, Rachmaninoff entered a depression and composed little until successful therapy allowed him to complete his enthusiastically received Piano Concerto No.2 in 1901. After the Russian Revolution, Rachmaninoff and his family left Russia and resided in the United States, in 1942, Rachmaninoff moved to Beverly Hills, California. One month before his death from advanced melanoma, Rachmaninoff acquired American citizenship, the piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoffs compositional output, and through his own skills as a performer he explored the expressive possibilities of the instrument. Rachmaninoff was born at an estate in the Novgorod province in north-western Russia. It is unclear if he was born in the estate of Oneg, near Veliky Novgorod, or Semyonovo, near Staraya Russa, the Rachmaninoffs had strong musical and military leanings. The composers grandfather on the line, Arkady Alexandrovich, was a musician. His father, Vasily Arkadyevich Rachmaninoff, was an army officer and he married Lyubov Petrovna Butakova, the daughter of a wealthy army general who gave her five estates as part of her dowry. The couple had three sons and three daughters, Rachmaninoff being their fourth child, Rachmaninoff began piano and music lessons organised by his mother at the age of four. She became impressed with her sons musical ability to recite passages from memory without playing a wrong note. Rachmaninoff later dedicated Spring Waters, Song No.32 to Ornatskaya, in 1882, Rachmaninoffs father had to auction off their Oneg estate due to his financial incompetence—the familys five estates had been reduced to one. Rachmaninoff described his father as a wastrel, a gambler, a pathological liar. The family moved to a flat in Saint Petersburg. When Rachmaninoffs course of lessons with Ornatskaya neared its end, she arranged for him to music at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. That year, his sister Sofia died of diphtheria and his left the family, with their approval. In 1885, Rachmaninoffs sister Yelena died of pernicious anemia at eighteen and she was an important musical influence to Rachmaninoff who introduced him to the works of Tchaikovsky
33.
Isle of the Dead (Rachmaninoff)
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Isle of the Dead, Op.29, is a symphonic poem composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff, written in the key of A minor. He concluded the composition while staying in Dresden in 1908 and it is considered a classic example of Russian late-Romanticism of the beginning of the 20th century. The piece was inspired by a black and white reproduction of Arnold Böcklins painting, Isle of the Dead, which Rachmaninoff saw in Paris in 1907. Rachmaninoff was disappointed by the painting when he later saw it, saying, If I had seen first the original, I, probably. I like it in black and white, the music begins by suggesting the sound of the oars as they meet the waters on the way to the Isle of the Dead. The slowly heaving and sinking music could also be interpreted as waves, in contrast to the theme of death, the 5/8 time also depicts breathing, creating a holistic reflection on how life and death are intertwined. This recording was made in the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, using one microphone, rodda, Richard E. Mellon Grand Classics, Sublime & Spectacular. Wehrmeyer, A. Rakhmaninov, London, Haus Publishing, toteninsel. net, an encyclopedia in progress dedicated to A. Bocklins Isle of the Dead, copies, parodies, inspirations
34.
Max Reger
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Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger, commonly known as Max Reger, was a German composer, pianist, organist, conductor, and academic teacher. Reger first composed mainly Lieder, chamber music, choral music and works for piano and he later turned to orchestral compositions, such as the popular Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart, and to works for choir and orchestra such as Gesang der Verklärten, Der 100. Psalm, Der Einsiedler and the Hebbel Requiem, born in Brand, Bavaria, Reger studied music theory in Sondershausen, then piano and theory in Wiesbaden. The first compositions to which he assigned numbers were chamber music. A concert pianist himself, he composed works for piano and organ. His first work for choir and piano to which he assigned a number was Drei Chöre. Reger returned to his home in 1898, where he composed his first work for choir and orchestra, Hymne an den Gesang. From 1899, he courted Elsa von Bercken who first rejected him and he composed many songs such as Sechs Lieder, Op.35, on love poems by five authors. Reger moved to Munich in September 1901, where he obtained concert offers, during his first Munich season, Reger appeared in ten concerts as an organist, chamber pianist and accompanist. Income from publishers, concerts and private teaching enabled him to marry in 1902, because his wife Elsa was a divorced Protestant, he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. He continued to compose without interruption, for example Gesang der Verklärten, in 1907, Reger was appointed musical director at the Leipzig University Church, a position he held until 1908, and professor at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig. In 1908 he began to compose Der 100, Psalm, Op.106, a setting of Psalm 100 for mixed choir and orchestra, for the 350th anniversary of Jena University. Part I was premiered on 31 July that year, Reger completed the composition in 1909, premiered in 1910 simultaneously in both Chemnitz and Breslau. In 1911 Reger was appointed Hofkapellmeister at the court of Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen and he retained his master class at the Leipzig conservatory. In 1913 he composed four poems on paintings by Arnold Böcklin, including Die Toteninsel. He gave up the position in 1914 for health reasons. In response to World War I, he thought in 1914 already to compose a work to commemorate the fallen of the war. He began to set the Latin Requiem but abandoned the work as a fragment and he composed eight motets forming Acht geistliche Gesänge für gemischten Chor, Op.138, as a master of new simplicity
35.
Mark Robson
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Mark Robson was a Canadian-born film director, producer and editor. Robson began his 45-year career in Hollywood as a film editor and he later began working as a director and producer. He directed thirty-four films during his career including The Bridges at Toko-Ri, Peyton Place, for which he earned his first Academy Award nomination, Von Ryans Express, Robson died of a heart attack after shooting his final film, Avalanche Express, in 1978. The film was released a year after his death, born in Montreal, Quebec, he attended Roslyn High School and Westmount High School in Montreal. He later studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, Robson then found work in the prop department at 20th Century Fox studios. He eventually went to work at RKO Pictures where he began training as a film editor, in 1940 he worked as an assistant to Robert Wise on the editing of Citizen Kane in addition to several other films. Both he and Wise benefited tremendously from producer and screenwriter Val Lewton, later, Lewton was instrumental in promoting Robson to the directors chair for films such as The Seventh Victim, Robsons first directing credit and the troubled Isle of the Dead. That same year, he directed the popular romance My Foolish Heart and Home of the Brave, Robson was nominated by the DGA again for the war drama The Bridges at Toko-Ri, starring William Holden and Grace Kelly. For these films he also received his third and fourth Directors Guild of America nominations, Robson also produced a number of films which he also directed including Von Ryans Express in 1965. He directed 1967s Valley of the Dolls, a film panned by the critics, in 1974 he directed Earthquake, the film that introduced Sensurround. On 20 June 1978, Robson died of an attack in London after completing Avalanche Express. The film was released a year after his death and he is interred in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. For his contribution to the picture industry, Mark Robson has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1722 Vine Street
36.
Isle of the Dead (film)
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Isle of the Dead is a horror film made for RKO Radio Pictures by producer Val Lewton. The movie had an inspired by the painting Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin. It was written by frequent Lewton collaborator Ardel Wray and directed by Mark Robson and it was the fourth of five pictures Robson directed for Lewton and starred Boris Karloff. Karloff would work on two pictures with Lewton, although the Isle of the Dead came out of second. An onscreen text warns of the belief in a vorvolaka. The film proper begins during the Balkan Wars of 1912, while his troops are burying their dead, General Pherides and American reporter Oliver Davis visit the Isle of the Dead to pay their respects to the Generals long-dead wife. They discover the crypt despoiled, hearing a woman singing on the uninhabited island. Aubrecht apologizes for his part 15 years before in inspiring local peasants to rob graves for valuable Greek artifacts, Kyra whispers to Pherides that a vorvolaka, in the guise of the red and rosy Thea, is in their midst. Pherides laughs at such superstition and accepts Aubrechts invitation to spend the night as his guest, the next morning, Robbins is dead. Dr. Drossos is summoned, he determines the cause to be septicemic plague and he explains how plague is passed and how it may be eradicated in one day if the hot, dry sirocco winds arrive. The archeologist says that Kyras explanation – that God sends the plague to them for harboring a vorvolaka – makes just as much sense. When Mr. St. Aubyn dies, the General demands that his body be buried immediately, to the horror of the cataleptic Mrs. St. Aubyn, who fears premature burial. Next to die is Dr. Drossos, proving that the advice of modern science does not guarantee victory over the disease, suspicion returns to Thea, and Kyra harasses her with taunts and threats. Pherides vows that he will kill Thea if evidence appears that she is vorvolaka, fearing for Theas life, Oliver plans to escape with her, but Pherides destroys the only boat. Mrs. St. Aubyn falls into a trance, everyone believes her to be dead. Oliver and Aubrecht believe the cause to be plague but Kyra, Oliver advises Thea to stay away from Pherides. The winds change and the sirocco has arrived, but it is too late for Pherides, Mrs. St. Aubyn awakens from her catalepsy but has been driven insane by being buried alive. Escaping the tomb, she kills Kyra, stabs Pherides as he attempts to kill Thea, as Pherides is dying, he swears that he has seen the vorvolaka and warns that she must be killed
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One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Frantz, Henri (1911). "Böcklin, Arnold". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 107–108. This cites:
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the 
