1.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
2.
Berlin
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Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
3.
Tapestry
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Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work. In tapestry weaving, weft yarns are typically discontinuous, the artisan interlaces each coloured weft back and it is a plain weft-faced weave having weft threads of different colours worked over portions of the warp to form the design. Most weavers use a warp thread, such as linen or cotton. The weft threads are usually wool or cotton, but may include silk, gold, silver, the earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek
4.
Neoclassicism
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The main Neoclassical movement coincided with the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, and continued into the early 19th century, laterally competing with Romanticism. In architecture, the style continued throughout the 19th, 20th, European Neoclassicism in the visual arts began c.1760 in opposition to the then-dominant Baroque and Rococo styles. Each neo-classicism selects some models among the range of classics that are available to it. They ignored both Archaic Greek art and the works of Late Antiquity, the Rococo art of ancient Palmyra came as a revelation, through engravings in Woods The Ruins of Palmyra. While the movement is described as the opposed counterpart of Romanticism. The case of the main champion of late Neoclassicism, Ingres, demonstrates this especially well. The revival can be traced to the establishment of formal archaeology, the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann were important in shaping this movement in both architecture and the visual arts. With the advent of the Grand Tour, a fad of collecting antiquities began that laid the foundations of many great collections spreading a Neoclassical revival throughout Europe, Neoclassicism in each art implies a particular canon of a classical model. In English, the term Neoclassicism is used primarily of the arts, the similar movement in English literature. This, which had been dominant for decades, was beginning to decline by the time Neoclassicism in the visual arts became fashionable. Though terms differ, the situation in French literature was similar, in music, the period saw the rise of classical music, and Neoclassicism is used of 20th-century developments. Ingress coronation portrait of Napoleon even borrowed from Late Antique consular diptychs and their Carolingian revival, much Neoclassical painting is more classicizing in subject matter than in anything else. A fierce, but often very badly informed, dispute raged for decades over the merits of Greek and Roman art, with Winckelmann. The work of artists, who could not easily be described as insipid, combined aspects of Romanticism with a generally Neoclassical style. Unlike Carstens unrealized schemes, the etchings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi were numerous and profitable and his main subject matter was the buildings and ruins of Rome, and he was more stimulated by the ancient than the modern. Neoclassicism in painting gained a new sense of direction with the success of Jacques-Louis Davids Oath of the Horatii at the Paris Salon of 1785. Despite its evocation of republican virtues, this was a commission by the royal government, David managed to combine an idealist style with drama and forcefulness. David rapidly became the leader of French art, and after the French Revolution became a politician with control of government patronage in art
5.
John Flaxman
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John Flaxman R. A. was a British sculptor and draughtsman, and a leading figure in British and European Neoclassicism. Early in his career he worked as a modeller for Josiah Wedgwoods pottery and he spent several years in Rome, where he produced his first book illustrations. He was a maker of funerary monuments. His father, also named John, was known as a moulder and seller of plaster casts at the sign of the Golden Head, New Street, Covent Garden. His wifes maiden name was Lee, and they had two children, William and John, within six months of Johns birth the family returned to London. He was a child, high-shouldered, with a head too large for his body. His mother died when he was nine, and his father remarried and he had little schooling, and was largely self-educated. He took delight in drawing and modelling from his fathers stock-in-trade and his fathers customers helped him with books, advice, and later with commissions. Particularly significant were the painter George Romney, and a clergyman, Anthony Stephen Mathew. In the same year,1770, he entered the Academy as a student, in the competition for the gold medal of the Academy in 1772, however, Flaxman was defeated, the prize being awarded by the president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, to a competitor named Engleheart. This episode seemed to help cure Flaxman of a tendency to conceit which led Thomas Wedgwood V to say of him in 1775, It is and he continued to work diligently, both as a student and as an exhibitor at the Academy, with occasional attempts at painting. To the Academy he contributed a wax model of Neptune, four models in wax, a terracotta bust, a wax figure of a child, an historical figure, a figure of Comedy. During this period he received a commission from a friend of the Mathew family for a statue of Alexander the Great, but he was unable to obtain a regular income from private contracts. From 1775 he was employed by the potter Josiah Wedgwood and his partner Bentley, for whom his father had also some work. The usual procedure was to model the reliefs in wax on slate or glass grounds before they cast for production, dHancarvilles engravings of Sir William Hamiltons collection of ancient Greek vases were an important influence on his work. By 1780 Flaxman had also begun to earn money by sculpting grave monuments, during the rest of Flaxmans career memorial bas-reliefs of this type made up the bulk of his output, and are to be found in many churches throughout England. One example, the monument to George Steevens, originally in St Matthais Old Church, is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, in 1782, aged 27, Flaxman married Anne Denman, who was to assist him throughout his career. She was well-educated, and a devoted companion and they set up house in Wardour Street, and usually spent their summer holidays as guests of the poet William Hayley, at Eartham in Sussex
6.
Joseph Anton Koch
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Joseph Anton Koch was an Austrian painter of Neoclassicism and later the German Romantic movement, he is perhaps the most significant neoclassical landscape painter. The Tyrolese painter was born in Elbigenalp and he early in his life he was tending cattle. Through the recommendation of Bishop Umgelder, he received training in the Karlsschule Stuttgart. In 1791, he ran away, and traveled through France and he arrived in Rome in 1795. Koch was close to the painter Asmus Jacob Carstens and carried on Carstens heroic art and he etched the pages of Carstens Les Argonautes, selon Pindar, Orphée et Apollonius de Rhode. After 1800, Koch developed as a landscape painter, in Rome, he espoused a new type of heroic landscape, revising the classical compositions of Poussin and Lorrain with a more rugged, mountainous scenery. In 1812, forced through inadequate income from his work, or in protest of the French invasion, he went to Vienna and he stayed in Vienna until 1815. During this period, he incorporated more non-classical themes in his work, in Vienna, he was influenced by Friedrich Schlegel and enthusiasts of old German art. In response, his style became harsher, Koch returned to Rome, and became a conspicuous figure in the German artists colony there. He wrote Moderne Kunstchronik oder die rumfordische Suppe gekocht und geschrieben von J. A. Koch which was directed humorously against unjustifiable criticism, kochs last years were spent in great poverty. He died in Rome, where he was buried in the Teutonic Cemetery and he contributed American landscape scenes to the works of Alexander von Humboldt. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, pp. 37–38, ISBN 0-300-02387-1 Attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Rines, George Edwin, ed. Koch, Joseph Anton. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Gilman. Thurston, H. T. Colby, F. M. eds
7.
Landscape painting
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In other works, landscape backgrounds for figures can still form an important part of the work. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather is often an element of the composition, detailed landscapes as a distinct subject are not found in all artistic traditions, and develop when there is already a sophisticated tradition of representing other subjects. The two main traditions spring from Western painting and Chinese art, going well over a thousand years in both cases. Landscape views in art may be imaginary, or copied from reality with varying degrees of accuracy. If the primary purpose of a picture is to depict an actual, specific place, especially including buildings prominently, within a few decades it was used to describe vistas in poetry, and eventually as a term for real views. However the cognate term landscaef or landskipe for a patch of land had existed in Old English. The earliest pure landscapes with no figures are frescos from Minoan Greece of around 1500 BCE. The frescos from the Tomb of Nebamun, now in the British Museum, are a famous example. These were frequently used, as in the illustrated, to bridge the gap between a foreground scene with figures and a distant panoramic vista, a persistent problem for landscape artists. The Chinese style generally showed only a distant view, or used dead ground or mist to avoid that difficulty, aesthetic theories in both regions gave the highest status to the works seen to require the most imagination from the artist. They were often also poets whose lines and images illustrated each other, a revival in interest in nature initially mainly manifested itself in depictions of small gardens such as the Hortus Conclusus or those in millefleur tapestries. The frescos of figures at work or play in front of a background of trees in the Palace of the Popes. Several frescos of gardens have survived from Roman houses like the Villa of Livia, a particular advance is shown in the less well-known Turin-Milan Hours, now largely destroyed by fire, whose developments were reflected in Early Netherlandish painting for the rest of the century. Landscape backgrounds for various types of painting became prominent and skilful during the 15th century. The Italian development of a system of graphical perspective was now known all over Europe. Indeed, certain styles were so popular that they became formulas that could be copied again and again, after the publication of the Small Landscapes, landscape artists in the Low Countries either continued with the world landscape or followed the new mode presented by the Small Landscapes. The popularity of landscape scenes can be seen in the success of the painter Frans Post. Salvator Rosa gave picturesque excitement to his landscapes by showing wilder Southern Italian country, there are different styles and periods, and subgenres of marine and animal painting, as well as a distinct style of Italianate landscape
8.
Johann Friedrich Overbeck
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Johann Friedrich Overbeck was a German painter and member of the Nazarene movement. Born in Lübeck, his ancestors for three generations had been Protestant pastors, his father Christian Adolph Overbeck was doctor of law, poet, mystic pietist and burgomaster of Lübeck. The young artist left Lübeck in March 1806, and entered as student the academy of Vienna, while Overbeck clearly accrued some of the polished technical aspects of the neoclassic painters, he was alienated by lack of religious spirituality in the themes chosen by his masters. After four years, their differences between his group and others in the academy had grown so irreconcilable, that Overbeck and his followers were expelled and he left for Rome, where he arrived in 1810, carrying his half-finished canvas of Christs Entry into Jerusalem. Rome became for 59 years the centre of his labor, Overbeck in 1813 joined the Roman Catholic Church, and thereby he believed that his art received Christian baptism. The subjects which fell to the lot of Overbeck were the Seven Years of Famine and Joseph sold by his Brethren, after ten years delay, the overtaxed and enfeebled painter delegated the completion of the frescoes to his friend Joseph von Führich. Overbeck was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and he was interred in the church of San Bernardo alle Terme. Portrait of the Painter Franz Pforra Vittoria Caldoni Christs Entry into Jerusalem, christus am Ölberg Italy and Germany Christs Agony in the Garden, in the great hospital, Hamburg. Lo Sposalizio, Muzeum Narodowe, Poznań, Poland, the Triumph of Religion in the Arts, in the Städel Institute, Frankfurt. Lamentation of Christ The Incredulity of St. Thomas, first in the possession of Beresford Hope, London, now in the Schäfer collection, Schweinfurt, the Assumption of the Madonna, in Cologne Cathedral. The Ascension of the Virgin Mary Christ Delivered from the Jews, tempera, the Seven Sacraments Baptism 1862–64, Neue Pinakothek, Munich Drawings for the frescoes for the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in Đakovo. His nephew Johannes Overbeck, a professor of archaeology at the University of Leipzig, was noted for his work in art history, in 1843 the Church of St. John the Baptist, Penymynydd, North Wales was built by the Glynne Family of Hawarden, Flintshire. The first vicar, Rev. Lionel Gossman, “Making of a Romantic Icon, The Religious Context of Friedrich Overbeck’s ‘Italia und Germania. ’” American Philosophical Society,2007. At dianepub. wordpress. com This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Overbeck. Thurston, H. T. Colby, F. M. eds, Johann Friedrich Overbeck in the History of Art Italy and Germany Reproduction Overbeck by J
9.
Poseidon
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Poseidon was one of the twelve Olympian deities of the pantheon in Greek mythology. His main domain was the ocean, and he is called the God of the Sea, additionally, he is referred to as Earth-Shaker due to his role in causing earthquakes, and has been called the tamer of horses. He is usually depicted as a male with curly hair. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology, both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon. According to some folklore, he was saved by his mother Rhea, who concealed him among a flock of lambs and pretended to have birth to a colt. There is a Homeric hymn to Poseidon, who was the protector of many Hellenic cities, according to the references from Plato in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias, the island of Atlantis was the chosen domain of Poseidon. The form Ποτειδάϝων appears in Corinth, the origins of the name Poseidon are unclear. Walter Burkert finds that the second element da- remains hopelessly ambiguous, another theory interprets the second element as related to the word *δᾶϝον dâwon, water, this would make *Posei-dawōn into the master of waters. There is also the possibility that the word has Pre-Greek origin, Plato in his dialogue Cratylus gives two alternative etymologies, either the sea restrained Poseidon when walking as a foot-bond, or he knew many things. If surviving Linear B clay tablets can be trusted, the name occurs with greater frequency than does di-u-ja. A feminine variant, po-se-de-ia, is found, indicating a lost consort goddess. Poseidon carries frequently the title wa-na-ka in Linear B inscriptions, as king of the underworld, the chthonic nature of Poseidon-Wanax is also indicated by his title E-ne-si-da-o-ne in Mycenean Knossos and Pylos, a powerful attribute. In the cave of Amnisos Enesidaon is related with the cult of Eileithyia and she was related with the annual birth of the divine child. During the Bronze Age, a goddess of nature, dominated both in Minoan and Mycenean cult, and Wanax was her companion in Mycenean cult. It is possible that Demeter appears as Da-ma-te in a Linear B inscription, in Linear B inscriptions found at Pylos, E-ne-si-da-o-ne is related with Poseidon, and Si-to Po-tini-ja is probably related with Demeter. Tablets from Pylos record sacrificial goods destined for the Two Queens, the Two Queens may be related with Demeter and Persephone, or their precursors, goddesses who were not associated with Poseidon in later periods. The violated Demeter was Demeter Erinys, in Arcadia, Demeters mare-form was worshiped into historical times. Her xoanon of Phigaleia shows how the local cult interpreted her, a Medusa type with a horses head with snaky hair, holding a dove and a dolphin, probably representing her power over air and water
10.
Leipzig
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Leipzig is the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany. With a population of 570,087 inhabitants it is Germanys tenth most populous city, Leipzig is located about 160 kilometres southwest of Berlin at the confluence of the White Elster, Pleisse, and Parthe rivers at the southern end of the North German Plain. Leipzig has been a city since at least the time of the Holy Roman Empire. The city sits at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, Leipzig was once one of the major European centers of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing. Leipzig became an urban center within the German Democratic Republic after the Second World War. Leipzig later played a significant role in instigating the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, through events which took place in, Leipzig today is an economic center and the most livable city in Germany, according to the GfK marketing research institution. Since the opening of the Leipzig City Tunnel in 2013, Leipzig forms the centerpiece of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland public transit system, Leipzig is currently listed as Gamma World City and Germanys Boomtown. Outside of Leipzig the Neuseenland district forms a lake area of approximately 300 square kilometres. Leipzig is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means settlement where the linden trees stand, an older spelling of the name in English is Leipsic. The Latin name Lipsia was also used, the name is cognate with Lipetsk in Russia and Liepāja in Latvia. In 1937 the Nazi government officially renamed the city Reichsmessestadt Leipzig, the common usage of this nickname for Leipzig up until the present is reflected, for example, in the name of a popular blog for local arts and culture, Heldenstadt. de. Leipzig was first documented in 1015 in the chronicles of Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg as urbs Libzi and endowed with city, Leipzig Trade Fair, started in the Middle Ages, became an event of international importance and is the oldest remaining trade fair in the world. During the Thirty Years War, two battles took place in Breitenfeld, about 8 kilometres outside Leipzig city walls, the first Battle of Breitenfeld took place in 1631 and the second in 1642. Both battles resulted in victories for the Swedish-led side, on 24 December 1701, an oil-fueled street lighting system was introduced. The city employed light guards who had to follow a schedule to ensure the punctual lighting of the 700 lanterns. The Leipzig region was the arena of the 1813 Battle of Leipzig between Napoleonic France and a coalition of Prussia, Russia, Austria and Sweden. It was the largest battle in Europe prior to the First World War, in 1913 the Monument to the Battle of the Nations celebrating the centenary of this event was completed. The railway station has two entrance halls, the eastern one for the Royal Saxon State Railways and the western one for the Prussian state railways
11.
Fresco
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Fresco is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly-laid, or wet lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the fresco technique has been employed since antiquity and is closely associated with Italian Renaissance painting. Buon fresco pigment mixed with water of temperature on a thin layer of wet, fresh plaster, for which the Italian word for plaster. Because of the makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required, as the pigment mixed solely with the water will sink into the intonaco. The pigment is absorbed by the wet plaster, after a number of hours, many artists sketched their compositions on this underlayer, which would never be seen, in a red pigment called sinopia, a name also used to refer to these under-paintings. Later, new techniques for transferring paper drawings to the wall were developed. The main lines of a drawing made on paper were pricked over with a point, the paper held against the wall, if the painting was to be done over an existing fresco, the surface would be roughened to provide better adhesion. This area is called the giornata, and the different day stages can usually be seen in a large fresco, buon frescoes are difficult to create because of the deadline associated with the drying plaster. Once a giornata is dried, no more buon fresco can be done, if mistakes have been made, it may also be necessary to remove the whole intonaco for that area—or to change them later, a secco. An indispensable component of this process is the carbonatation of the lime, the eyes of the people of the School of Athens are sunken-in using this technique which causes the eyes to seem deeper and more pensive. Michelangelo used this technique as part of his trademark outlining of his central figures within his frescoes, in a wall-sized fresco, there may be ten to twenty or even more giornate, or separate areas of plaster. After five centuries, the giornate, which were nearly invisible, have sometimes become visible, and in many large-scale frescoes. Additionally, the border between giornate was often covered by an a secco painting, which has fallen off. One of the first painters in the period to use this technique was the Isaac Master in the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. A person who creates fresco is called a frescoist, a secco or fresco-secco painting is done on dry plaster. The pigments thus require a medium, such as egg. Blue was a problem, and skies and blue robes were often added a secco, because neither azurite blue nor lapis lazuli. By the end of the century this had largely displaced buon fresco
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Genelli, Giovanni Buonaventura". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
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