French Revolution
The French Revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France and its colonies beginning in 1789. The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, catalyzed violent periods of political turmoil, culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon who brought many of its principles to areas he conquered in Western Europe and beyond. Inspired by liberal and radical ideas, the Revolution profoundly altered the course of modern history, triggering the global decline of absolute monarchies while replacing them with republics and liberal democracies. Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history; the causes of the French Revolution are still debated among historians. Following the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution, the French government was in debt, it attempted to restore its financial status through unpopular taxation schemes, which were regressive.
Leading up to the Revolution, years of bad harvests worsened by deregulation of the grain industry and environmental problems inflamed popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the aristocracy and the Catholic clergy of the established church. Some historians hold something similar to what Thomas Jefferson proclaimed: that France had "been awakened by our Revolution." Demands for change were formulated in terms of Enlightenment ideals and contributed to the convocation of the Estates General in May 1789. During the first year of the Revolution, members of the Third Estate took control, the Bastille was attacked in July, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was passed in August, the Women's March on Versailles forced the royal court back to Paris in October. A central event of the first stage, in August 1789, was the abolition of feudalism and the old rules and privileges left over from the Ancien Régime; the next few years featured political struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the monarchy intent on thwarting major reforms.
The Republic was proclaimed in September 1792 after the French victory at Valmy. In a momentous event that led to international condemnation, Louis XVI was executed in January 1793. External threats shaped the course of the Revolution; the Revolutionary Wars beginning in 1792 featured French victories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian Peninsula, the Low Countries and most territories west of the Rhine – achievements that had eluded previous French governments for centuries. Internally, popular agitation radicalised the Revolution culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins; the dictatorship imposed by the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror, from 1793 until 1794, established price controls on food and other items, abolished slavery in French colonies abroad, de-established the Catholic church and created a secular Republican calendar, religious leaders were expelled, the borders of the new republic were secured from its enemies. After the Thermidorian Reaction, an executive council known as the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795.
They suspended elections, repudiated debts, persecuted the Catholic clergy, made significant military conquests abroad. Dogged by charges of corruption, the Directory collapsed in a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. Napoleon, who became the hero of the Revolution through his popular military campaigns, established the Consulate and the First Empire, setting the stage for a wider array of global conflicts in the Napoleonic Wars; the modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. All future revolutionary movements looked back to the Revolution as their predecessor, its central phrases and cultural symbols, such as La Marseillaise and Liberté, fraternité, égalité, ou la mort, became the clarion call for other major upheavals in modern history, including the Russian Revolution over a century later. The values and institutions of the Revolution dominate French politics to this day; the Revolution resulted in the suppression of the feudal system, emancipation of the individual, a greater division of landed property, abolition of the privileges of noble birth, nominal establishment of equality among men.
The French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not only national, for it intended to benefit all humanity. Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of democracies, it became the focal point for the development of most modern political ideologies, leading to the spread of liberalism, radicalism and secularism, among many others. The Revolution witnessed the birth of total war by organising the resources of France and the lives of its citizens towards the objective of military conquest; some of its central documents, such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, continued to inspire movements for abolitionism and universal suffrage in the next century. Historians have pointed to many events and factors within the Ancien Régime that led to the Revolution. Rising social and economic inequality, new political ideas emerging from the Enlightenment, economic mismanagement, environmental factors leading to agricultural failure, unmanageable national debt, political mismanagement on the part of King Louis XVI have all been cited as laying the groundwork for the Revolution.
Over the course of the 18th century, there emerged what the philosopher Jürgen Habermas called the idea of the "public sphere" in France and elsewhere
2024 Summer Olympics
The 2024 Summer Olympics known as the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, known as Paris 2024, is a forthcoming international multi-sport event, scheduled to take place from 26 July to 11 August 2024 in Paris, France. Having hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics, Paris will become the second city to host the Olympic Games three times, along with London; the 2024 Games mark the centennial of the 1924 Games. This will be the sixth overall Olympic Games held in France. Bidding to host these Games began in 2015 with five candidate cities in contention, but Hamburg and Budapest withdrew, leaving Paris and Los Angeles as the two candidates remaining. A proposal to elect the 2024 and 2028 Olympic host cities at the same time was approved by an Extraordinary IOC Session on 11 July 2017 in Lausanne. On 31 July 2017, the IOC made a deal with Los Angeles to host the 2028 Summer Olympics, making Paris the host of the 2024 Summer Olympics; the formal announcement of the hosts for both Olympiads took place at the 131st IOC Session in Lima, Peru, on 13 September 2017.
Paris, Budapest and Los Angeles were the five candidate cities. However, the process was hit by withdrawals, with political uncertainty and cost cited as deterring bidding cities. Hamburg withdrew its bid on 29 November 2015 after holding a referendum. Rome withdrew its bid on 21 September 2016 citing fiscal difficulties. On 22 February 2017, Budapest withdrew its bid after a petition against the bid collected more signatures than necessary for a referendum. Following these withdrawals, the IOC Executive Board met in Lausanne, Switzerland to discuss the 2024 and 2028 bid processes on 9 June 2017; the International Olympic Committee formally proposed electing the 2024 and 2028 Olympic host cities at the same time in 2017, a proposal, approved by an Extraordinary IOC Session on 11 July 2017 in Lausanne. The IOC set up a process whereby the LA 2024 and Paris 2024 bid committees would meet with the IOC to discuss who would host the 2024 Games, who would host the 2028 Games, whether it were possible to select the host city for both at the same time.
Following the decision to award the 2024 and 2028 Games Paris was understood to be the preferred host for the 2024 Games. On 31 July 2017, the IOC announced Los Angeles as the sole candidate for the 2028 Games, opening Paris up to be confirmed as hosts for the 2024 Games. Both decisions were ratified at the 131st IOC Session on 13 September 2017. Paris was elected as the host city on September 2017 at the 131st IOC Session in Lima, Peru; the two French IOC members, Guy Drut and Tony Estanguet were ineligible to vote in this host city election under the rules of the Olympic Charter. In 2007, the IOC established the concept of Olympics including 28 sports: 25 permanent'core' sports with 3 additional sports selected for each individual Games. On 8 September 2013, IOC added wrestling to the Olympic programme for the 2020 and 2024 Games, representing one of these additional sports. FILA changed freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling weight classes for men and decreased to 6 categories in order to add more weights for women.
However, in August 2016, the IOC added five sports to the 2020 Olympics, with plans to separately evaluate the existing 28 sports. No indication was given how this would affect the number of sports in 2024. In August 2017, it was reported that the Paris organizers held discussions with the IOC and various professional eSport organizations to study the possibility of introducing eSports as a medal-winning sport during the Olympics. On February 21, 2019, the Paris Organizing Committee announced they would propose breakdancing for inclusion in the program to the IOC, along with three of the sports that will debut at the 2020 Games: surfing and skateboarding. During the Lima Session, the IOC approved the Rio 2016 sports program for Paris 2024. New sports will be chosen during the 134th IOC Session in 2019 in Lausanne, subject to final approval by the IOC Executive Board in December 2020; the 2024 Summer Olympic programme is scheduled to feature 28 sports encompassing 319 events, though this is to change depending on success of the five additional sports added to the Tokyo Olympics.
This means there could be up to 33 sports, any new sports which are added to the Olympic programme. The number of events in each discipline is noted in parentheses. Most of the Olympic events will be held in and around Paris, including the suburbs of Saint-Denis, Le Bourget, Nanterre and Vaires-sur-Marne, just outside the city environs; the sailing and surfing events will be held in the remote coastal resorts of Marseille and Biarritz respectively. Football will be hosted in various cities around France. Notes Parc des Princes, 61,338, Paris Stade Vélodrome, 67,394, Parc Olympique Lyonnais, 59,186, Stade Pierre-Mauroy, 50,157, Stade Matmut Atlantique, 42,115, Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, 41,965, Saint-Étienne, YellowPark, 40,000, Allianz Riviera, 35,624, Stadium Municipal, 33,150, France A call for tenders was launched in October 2018 to create the new Visual identity of Paris 2024, including the logo, the derivative brands, the Olympic torch relay, the g
Renault 9 and 11
The Renault 9 and Renault 11 are small family cars produced by the French manufacturer Renault for model years 1981–1988 in saloon and hatchback configurations — both were styled by the French automobile designer, Robert Opron. Variants were manufactured by American Motors Corporation, as the Renault Alliance and Renault Encore for the North American market; the car was produced in Turkey until 2004. The models use a transverse front-wheel drive engine configuration, feature four wheel independent suspension, they were chosen the European Car of the Year for 1982, as well as the Motor Trend Car of the Year from Motor Trend and Car and Driver 10Best from Car and Driver for 1983. There were three facelifts given to the Renault 9/11 during its career. However, the Renault 11, released in 1983 was only available in phases 2, 3, 4. There was never a phase 1 Renault 11; the Phase 1 is the original model released in 1981 as the Renault 9, Phase 2 was released in 1983 when the Renault 11 was introduced, while the more aerodynamic Phase 3 appeared in 1987.
The Phase 4, not sold in most of Europe, was released in Turkey in 1997. This final revision had more rounded head and tail lights, as well as ovoid body cladding around the bumpers and boot lid, which aimed to give the car a more modern look, it carried an "Broadway" badge as well as the Renault 9 designation, but note that "Broadway" had been used on special editions of the earlier phase models. The Renault 9 was launched in October 1981 as a four-door saloon, while the 11 was launched at the beginning of 1983 as a three or five door hatchback. Both had been developed under the Renault code name L42, were designed by Robert Opron. Renault had begun the conception of the Renault 9 in 1977, as a "four metre" model to fit between the Renault 5 and the Renault 14. Opron conceived a traditional three box design to appeal to the traditional customer and avoid the poor reception that had met the Renault 14's styling. Exhaustive consumer studies suggested that buyers rejected innovation, resulting in a rather nondescript design, albeit of modest elegance.
By the time the models entered production, Renault had assigned more than 500 people to the project, logging 14,500,000 hours of study and testing, constructing 44 prototypes, testing 130 engines, test driving prototypes more than 2.2 million km. Both cars were more conservatively engineered, although they retained front wheel drive, Renault abandoned the Douvrin transmission in sump engine which it had shared with Peugeot-Citroen in the Renault 14, in favour of its in house power unit – the venerable C-type "Cléon" engine with an end on mounted transmission; this mechanical layout, along with the 9/11's suspension design, was to become the basis of all small Renaults for the next 15 years or so. The Renault 9 was awarded the 1982 European Car of the Year, while the Alliance appeared on Car and Driver's Ten Best list for 1983, was the 1983 Motor Trend Car of the Year; the well-equipped Renault 11 TSE Electronic of 1983 was the first car in its class to have a synthetically voiced trip computer, but only because Renault moved up its launch date by a few days in order to get ahead of Austin's Maestro Vanden Plas.
Although the 9 and 11 cars had different names and body styles, they were identical under the skin, were intended to jointly replace the older Renault 14. The 11 was distinguishable from the 9 by its front end, which featured square twin headlights, introduced on the North American Alliance; the 9 received this new front end in 1985, both models were face lifted for a final time with matching nose and interior upgrades for the model year of 1987. A version of the 9 was manufactured and marketed by American Motors Corporation in the United States as the Renault Alliance and bearing a small AMC badge. With 623,573 examples manufactured for model years 1982–1987, AMC offered the Alliance as a four-door sedan, two door sedan and as a convertible, beginning in 1984; the Renault 9 and 11 continued in production in France until 1989, a year after the launch of the Renault 19. However, production continued in other countries, with the end coming after nearly twenty years when production in Turkey was discontinued in 2000.
The Renault 11 Turbo was used extensively by Renault Sport for their Group A car in the 1987 World Rally Championship. Frenchman Alain Oreille managed a Group N victory in the 1985 Rallye Monte Carlo, followed by the Group A victory in 1986. A Renault 11 Turbo was, piloted to a second and third-place finishes in the 1987 Portuguese Rally and San Remo Rally with Jean Ragnotti in the driver's seat; the 11 Turbo won the national Polish Rally Championship in 1985 and 1988, both the Swiss and Portuguese rally championships in 1987. Its last result of importance was Oreille's fourth place overall in the 1988 Rallye Monte Carlo. At launch, both cars used Renault's ageing Cléon-Fonte engine overhead valve engines in either 1.1 or 1.4 litre format, a basic suspension design which won few plaudits for the driving experience. The exceptions were the 9 Turbo and the 11 Turbo hot hatch, which used the turbocharged engine from the Renault 5; the 11 Turbo was introduced first, only with three door bodywork.
Unlike the 5 Turbo or the 205 GTi, the 11 Turbo had a more comfort oriented focus. Although the cars were heavier than the Renault 5, the increased power in models was enough to ensure higher performance, thanks to its 115 PS. T
River
A river is a natural flowing watercourse freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, lake or another river. In some cases a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of water. Small rivers can be referred to using names such as stream, brook and rill. There are no official definitions for the generic term river as applied to geographic features, although in some countries or communities a stream is defined by its size. Many names for small rivers are specific to geographic location. Sometimes a river is defined as being larger than a creek, but not always: the language is vague. Rivers are part of the hydrological cycle. Potamology is the scientific study of rivers, while limnology is the study of inland waters in general. Most of the major cities of the world are situated on the banks of rivers, as they are, or were, used as a source of water, for obtaining food, for transport, as borders, as a defensive measure, as a source of hydropower to drive machinery, for bathing, as a means of disposing of waste.
A river begins at a source, follows a path called a course, ends at a mouth or mouths. The water in a river is confined to a channel, made up of a stream bed between banks. In larger rivers there is also a wider floodplain shaped by flood-waters over-topping the channel. Floodplains may be wide in relation to the size of the river channel; this distinction between river channel and floodplain can be blurred in urban areas where the floodplain of a river channel can become developed by housing and industry. Rivers can flow down mountains, through valleys or along plains, can create canyons or gorges; the term upriver refers to the direction towards the source of the river, i.e. against the direction of flow. The term downriver describes the direction towards the mouth of the river, in which the current flows; the term left bank refers to the left bank in the direction of right bank to the right. The river channel contains a single stream of water, but some rivers flow as several interconnecting streams of water, producing a braided river.
Extensive braided rivers are now found in only a few regions worldwide, such as the South Island of New Zealand. They occur on peneplains and some of the larger river deltas. Anastamosing rivers are quite rare, they have multiple sinuous channels carrying large volumes of sediment. There are rare cases of river bifurcation in which a river divides and the resultant flows ending in different seas. An example is the bifurcation of Nerodime River in Kosovo. A river flowing in its channel is a source of energy which acts on the river channel to change its shape and form. In 1757, the German hydrologist Albert Brahms empirically observed that the submerged weight of objects that may be carried away by a river is proportional to the sixth power of the river flow speed; this formulation is sometimes called Airy's law. Thus, if the speed of flow is doubled, the flow would dislodge objects with 64 times as much submerged weight. In mountainous torrential zones this can be seen as erosion channels through hard rocks and the creation of sands and gravels from the destruction of larger rocks.
A river valley, created from a U-shaped glaciated valley, can easily be identified by the V-shaped channel that it has carved. In the middle reaches where a river flows over flatter land, meanders may form through erosion of the river banks and deposition on the inside of bends. Sometimes the river will cut off a loop, shortening the channel and forming an oxbow lake or billabong. Rivers that carry large amounts of sediment may develop conspicuous deltas at their mouths. Rivers whose mouths are in saline tidal waters may form estuaries. Throughout the course of the river, the total volume of water transported downstream will be a combination of the free water flow together with a substantial volume flowing through sub-surface rocks and gravels that underlie the river and its floodplain. For many rivers in large valleys, this unseen component of flow may exceed the visible flow. Most but not all rivers flow on the surface. Subterranean rivers flow underground in caverns; such rivers are found in regions with limestone geologic formations.
Subglacial streams are the braided rivers that flow at the beds of glaciers and ice sheets, permitting meltwater to be discharged at the front of the glacier. Because of the gradient in pressure due to the overlying weight of the glacier, such streams can flow uphill. An intermittent river only flows and can be dry for several years at a time; these rivers are found in regions with limited or variable rainfall, or can occur because of geologic conditions such as a permeable river bed. Some ephemeral rivers flow during the summer months but not in the winter; such rivers are fed from chalk aquifers which recharge from winter rainfall. In England these rivers are called bournes and give their name to places such as Bournemouth and Eastbourne. In humid regions, the location where flow begins in the smallest tributary streams moves upstream in response to precipitation and downstream in its absence or when active summer vegetation diverts water for evapotrans
Seine
The Seine is a 777-kilometre-long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Source-Seine, 30 kilometres northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre, it is navigable by ocean-going vessels as far as Rouen, 120 kilometres from the sea. Over 60 percent of its length, as far as Burgundy, is negotiable by commercial riverboats, nearly its whole length is available for recreational boating. There are 37 bridges within dozens more spanning the river outside the city. Examples in Paris include the Pont Alexandre III and Pont Neuf, the latter of which dates back to 1607. Outside the city, examples include the Pont de Normandie, one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world, which links Le Havre to Honfleur; the Seine rises in the commune of Source-Seine, about 30 kilometres northwest of Dijon. The source has been owned by the city of Paris since 1864. A number of associated small ditches or depressions provide the source waters, with an artificial grotto laid out to highlight and contain a deemed main source.
The grotto includes a statue of a nymph, a dog, a dragon. On the same site are the buried remains of a Gallo-Roman temple. Small statues of the dea Sequana "Seine goddess" and other ex voti found at the same place are now exhibited in the Dijon archaeological museum; the Seine can artificially be divided into five parts: the Petite Seine "Small Seine" from the sources to Montereau-Fault-Yonne the Haute Seine "Upper Seine" from Montereau-Fault-Yonne to Paris the Traversée de Paris "the Paris waterway" the Basse Seine "Lower Seine" from Paris to Rouen the Seine maritime "Maritime Seine" from Rouen to the English channel. The Seine is dredged and ocean-going vessels can dock at Rouen, 120 kilometres from the sea. Commercial craft can use the river from 516 kilometres to its mouth. At Paris, there are 37 bridges; the river is only 24 metres above sea level 446 kilometres from its mouth, making it slow flowing and thus navigable. The Seine Maritime, 123 kilometres from the English Channel at Le Havre to Rouen, is the only portion of the Seine used by ocean-going craft.
The tidal section of the Seine Maritime is followed by a canalized section with four large multiple locks until the mouth of the Oise at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. Smaller locks at Bougival and at Suresnes lift the vessels to the level of the river in Paris, where the junction with the Canal Saint-Martin is located; the distance from the mouth of the Oise is 72 km. The Haute Seine, from Paris to Montereau-Fault-Yonne, has 8 locks. At Charenton-le-Pont is the mouth of the Marne. Upstream from Paris seven locks ensure navigation to Saint Mammès, where the Loing mouth is situated. Through an eighth lock the river Yonne is reached at Montereau-Fault-Yonne. From the mouth of the Yonne, larger ships can continue upstream to Nogent-sur-Seine. From there on, the river is navigable only by small craft to Marcilly-sur-Seine. At Marcilly-sur-Seine the ancient Canal de la Haute-Seine used to allow vessels to continue all the way to Troyes; this canal has been abandoned since 1957. The average depth of the Seine today at Paris is about 9.5 metres.
Until locks were installed to raise the level in the 1800s, the river was much shallower within the city most of the time, consisted of a small channel of continuous flow bordered by sandy banks. Today the depth is controlled and the entire width of the river between the built-up banks on either side is filled with water; the average flow of the river is low, only a few cubic metres per second, but much higher flows are possible during periods of heavy runoff. Special reservoirs upstream help to maintain a constant level for the river through the city, but during periods of extreme runoff significant increases in river level may occur. A severe period of high water in January 1910 resulted in extensive flooding throughout the city; the Seine again rose to threatening levels in 1924, 1955, 1982, 1999–2000, June 2016, January 2018. After a first-level flood alert in 2003, about 100,000 works of art were moved out of Paris, the largest relocation of art since World War II. Much of the art in Paris is kept in underground storage rooms.
A 2002 report by the French government stated the worst-case Seine flood scenario would cost 10 billion euros and cut telephone service for a million Parisians, leaving 200,000 without electricity and 100,000 without gas. In January 2018 the Seine again flooded. An official warning was issued on January 24 that heavy rainfall was to cause the river to flood. By January 27, the river was rising; the Deputy Mayor of Paris, Colombe Brossel, warned that the heavy rain was caused by climate change, that "We have to understand that climatic change is not a word, it's a reality." The basin area is 78,910 square kilometres, 2 percent of, forest and 78 percent cultivated land. In addition to Paris, three other cities with a population over 100,000 are in the Seine watershed: Le Havre at the estuary, Rouen in the Seine valley and Reims at the northern limit—with an annual urban growth rate of 0.2 percent. The population density is 201 per square kilometer. Periodically
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward classical austerity and severity and heightened feeling, harmonizing with the moral climate of the final years of the Ancien Régime. David became an active supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Maximilien Robespierre, was a dictator of the arts under the French Republic. Imprisoned after Robespierre's fall from power, he aligned himself with yet another political regime upon his release: that of Napoleon, The First Consul of France. At this time he notable for its use of warm Venetian colours. After Napoleon's fall from Imperial power and the Bourbon revival, David exiled himself to Brussels in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, where he remained until his death. David had a large number of pupils, making him the strongest influence in French art of the early 19th century academic Salon painting.
Jacques-Louis David was born into a prosperous French family in Paris on 30 August 1748. When he was about nine his father was killed in a duel and his mother left him with his well-off architect uncles, they saw to it that he received an excellent education at the Collège des Quatre-Nations, University of Paris, but he was never a good student—he had a facial tumor that impeded his speech, he was always preoccupied with drawing. He covered his notebooks with drawings, he once said, "I was always hiding behind the instructor's chair, drawing for the duration of the class". Soon, he desired to be a painter, he overcame the opposition, went to learn from François Boucher, the leading painter of the time, a distant relative. Boucher was a Rococo painter, but tastes were changing, the fashion for Rococo was giving way to a more classical style. Boucher decided that instead of taking over David's tutelage, he would send David to his friend, Joseph-Marie Vien, a painter who embraced the classical reaction to Rococo.
There, David attended the Royal Academy, based in. Each year the Academy awarded an outstanding student the prestigious Prix de Rome, which funded a 3- to 5-year stay in the Eternal City. Since artists were now revisiting classical styles, the trip to Rome provided its winners the opportunity to study the remains of classical antiquity and the works of the Italian Renaissance masters at first hand; each pensionnaire was lodged in the French Academy's Roman outpost, which from the years 1737 to 1793 was the Palazzo Mancini in the Via del Corso. David competed for, failed to win, the prize for three consecutive years; each failure contributed to his lifelong grudge against the institution. After his second loss in 1772, David went on a hunger strike, which lasted two and a half days before the faculty encouraged him to continue painting. Confident he now had the support and backing needed to win the prize, he resumed his studies with great zeal—only to fail to win the Prix de Rome again the following year.
In 1774, David was awarded the Prix de Rome on the strength of his painting of Erasistratus Discovering the Cause of Antiochus' Disease, a subject set by the judges. In October 1775 he made the journey to Italy with his mentor, Joseph-Marie Vien, who had just been appointed director of the French Academy at Rome. While in Italy, David studied the works of 17th-century masters such as Poussin and the Carracci. Although he declared, "the Antique will not seduce me, it lacks animation, it does not move", David filled twelve sketchbooks with drawings that he and his studio used as model books for the rest of his life, he was introduced to the painter Raphael Mengs, who opposed the Rococo tendency to sweeten and trivialize ancient subjects, advocating instead the rigorous study of classical sources and close adherence to ancient models. Mengs' principled, historicizing approach to the representation of classical subjects profoundly influenced David's pre-revolutionary painting, such as The Vestal Virgin from the 1780s.
Mengs introduced David to the theoretical writings on ancient sculpture by Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the German scholar held to be the founder of modern art history. As part of the Prix de Rome, David toured the newly excavated ruins of Pompeii in 1779, which deepened his belief that the persistence of classical culture was an index of its eternal conceptual and formal power. During the trip David assiduously studied the High Renaissance painters, Raphael making a profound and lasting impression on the young French artist. Although David's fellow students at the academy found him difficult to get along with, they recognized his genius. David's stay at the French Academy in Rome was extended by a year. In July 1780, he returned to Paris. There, he found people ready to use their influence for him, he was made an official member of the Royal Academy, he sent the Academy two paintings, both were included in the Salon of 1781, a high honor. He was praised by his famous contemporary painters, but the administration of the Royal Academy was hostile to this young upstart.
After the Salon, the King granted David lodging in the Louvre, an ancient and much desired privilege of great artists. When the contractor of the King's buildings, M. Pécoul, was arranging with David, he asked the artist to marry his daughter, Marguerite Charlotte; this marriage brought him money and four children
Exposition Universelle (1900)
The Exposition Universelle of 1900, better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition, was a world's fair held in Paris, from 14 April to 12 November 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next. The style, universally present in the Exposition was Art Nouveau; the fair, visited by nearly 50 million, displayed many machines and architecture that are now nearly universally known, including the Grande Roue de Paris Ferris wheel, Russian nesting dolls, diesel engines, talking films and the telegraphone. The staging of the first Exposition Universelle was motivated by a desire to re-establish pride and faith in the nation after a period of war; the succession of expositions followed the same theme: the regeneration of nationality after war. Eight years before the launch of the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, the Republic of France announced the exhibition to be one that welcomed and celebrated the coming of a new century. Countries from around the world were invited by France to showcase their achievements and lifestyles.
It presented the opportunity for foreigners to realize the similarities between nations as well as their unique differences. New cultures were experienced and an overall better understanding of the values each country had to offer was gained; the learning atmosphere aided in attempts to increase cultural tolerance, deemed necessary after a period of war. The early announcement and the massively positive response disenchanted the interest, circling around the first German International Exposition. Support for the exhibition was widespread, it is suspected that the Exposition Universelle did not do as well financially as expected because the general public did not have the funds to participate in the fair. The 1900 Paris Exposition was so expensive to organize and run that the cost per visitor ended up being about six hundred francs more than the price of admission; the exhibition lost a grand total of 82,000 francs after six months in operation. Many Parisians had invested money in shares sold to raise money for the event and therefore lost their investment.
With a much larger expected turnout the exhibit sites had gone up in value. Continuing to pay rent for the sites became hard for concessionaires as they were receiving fewer customers than anticipated; the concessionaires went on strike, which resulted in the closure of a large part of the exposition. To resolve the matter, the concessionaires were given a fractional refund of the rent; the financial consequences of the 1900 Exposition Universelle were devastating for many Parisians and led to the decision to end the streak of international fairs with the 1900 loss. The 1900 Paris Exposition was where talking films and escalators were first publicized, where Campbell's Soup was awarded a gold medal. At the exposition Rudolf Diesel exhibited his diesel engine. Brief films of excerpts from opera and ballet were the first films exhibited publicly with projection of both image and recorded sound; the exposition featured many panoramic paintings and extensions of the panorama technique, such as the Cinéorama and Trans-Siberian Railway Panorama.
The centrepiece of the Palais de l'Optique was the 1.25-metre-diameter "Great Exposition Refractor". This telescope was the largest refracting telescope at that time; the optical tube assembly was 60 meters long and 1.5 meters in diameter, was fixed in place due to its mass. Light from the sky was sent into the tube by a movable 2-meter mirror; the Exposition included "The Exhibit of American Negroes", during which photos by Frances Benjamin Johnston, a friend of Booker T. Washington, of his black students of the Hampton Institute were presented. Organized by Booker Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, this exhibition aimed at showing African Americans' positive contributions to American society. Many of the buildings constructed for the Exposition Universelle were demolished after the conclusion of the exposition. Many of the buildings were built on a framework of wood, covered with staff, formed into columns, walls, etc. After the fair was over, the buildings were demolished and all items and materials that could be salvaged and sold were "recycled".
The Finnish Pavilion at the Exposition was designed by the architectural firm of Gesellius and Saarinen. A special committee, led by Gustave Eiffel, awarded a gold medal to Lavr Proskuryakov's project for the Yenisei Bridge in Krasnoyarsk. Russian sparkling wine defeated all the French entries to claim the internationally coveted "Grand Prix de Champagne"; the exposition was the showcasing of another Russian entry, the famous matryoshka doll. The Art Nouveau style began to develop in the 1880s and became fashionable in Europe and the United States during the 1890s; the art form takes inspiration from the natural world, drawing references from botanical studies and deep sea organisms. Fluid twisting, curving lines and a "whiplash" effect are the trademarks of the natural art form; the art form took shape in works ranging from painting to sculpture and most notably architecture, appearing throughout the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle. Structures such as the Porte Monumentale entrance, the Pavillon Bleu and the Grand and Petit Palais were lar
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