1.
Somerset House
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Somerset House is a large Neoclassical building situated on the south side of the Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The building, originally the site of a Tudor palace, was designed by Sir William Chambers in 1776, the East Wing forms part of the adjacent Strand campus of Kings College London. In the sixteenth century, the Strand, the bank of the Thames between the City of London and the Palace of Westminster was a favoured site for the mansions of the nobility. In 1539 Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, obtained a grant of land at Chester Place, outside Temple Bar, when his nephew the boy-king Edward VI came to the throne in 1547, Seymour became Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector. Pauls Cathedral which were demolished partly at his behest as part of the ongoing Dissolution of the Monasteries and it was a two storey house built around a quadrangle with a gateway rising to three stories and was one of the earliest examples of Renaissance architecture in England. It is not known who designed the building, before it was finished, however, Somerset was overthrown, attainted by Parliament and in 1552 was executed on Tower Hill. Somerset Place then came into the possession of the Crown and his royal nephews half-sister the future Queen Elizabeth I lived there during the reign of her half-sister Queen Mary I. The process of completion and improvement was slow and costly, as late as 1598 Stow refers to it as yet unfinished. In the 17th century, the house was used as a residence by queens consort, during the reign of King James I, the building became the London residence of his wife, Anne of Denmark, and was renamed Denmark House. She commissioned a number of additions and improvements, some to designs by Inigo Jones. In particular, during the period between 1630 and 1635 he built a Chapel where Henrietta Maria of France, wife of King Charles I and this was in the care of the Capuchin Order and was on a site to the south-west of the Great Court. A small cemetery was attached and some of the tombstones are still to be built into one of the walls of a passage under the present quadrangle. Royal occupation of Somerset House was interrupted by the English Civil War and they failed to find a buyer, though a sale of the contents realised the very considerable sum of £118,000. Use was still found for it however, part of it served as an Army headquarters, General Fairfax being given official quarters there, lodgings were also provided for certain other Parliamentary notables. It was in Somerset House that Oliver Cromwells body lay in state after his death in 1658, however she returned to France in 1665 before it was finished. It was then used as a residence by Catherine of Braganza. During her time it received a certain notoriety as being, in the popular mind, Somerset House was refurbished by Sir Christopher Wren in 1685. After the Glorious Revolution in 1688, Somerset House entered on a period of decline, being used for grace
2.
Public university
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A public university is a university that is predominantly funded by public means through a national or subnational government, as opposed to private universities. Whether a national university is considered public varies from one country to another, in Egypt, Al-Azhar University opened in 975 AD as the second oldest university in the world. In Nigeria Public Universities can be established by both the Federal Government and by State Governments, students are enrolled after completing the 8-4-4 system of education and attaining a mark of C+ or above. They are also eligible for a low interest loan from the Higher Education Loan Board and they are expected to pay back the loan after completing higher education. South Africa has 23 public tertiary institutions, either categorised as a traditional university or a comprehensive university. Almost entire national universities in Brunei are public universities and these are major universities in Brunei, University of Brunei Darussalam Brunei Technological University Sultan Sharif Ali Islamic University There are 40 public universities in Bangladesh. The University Grant Commission is the body for all the public universities in Bangladesh. The universities do not deal directly with the government, but with the University Grants Commission, recently many private universities are established under the Private University Act of 1992. In mainland China, nearly all universities and research institutions are public and currently, the public universities are usually run by the provincial governments, there are also circumstances where the municipal governments administer the universities. Some public universities are national, which are administered by the central government. Private undergraduate colleges do exist, which are vocational colleges sponsored by private enterprises. The majority of universities are not entitled to award bachelors degrees. Public universities usually enjoy higher reputation domestically, eight institutions are funded by the University Grants Committee. The Academy for Performing Arts also receives funding from the government, the Open University of Hong Kong is also a public university, but it is largely self-financed. The Shue Yan University is the private institution with the status of a university. There are public and private institutes in Indonesia. The government provide public universities, institutes, high schools and academies in each province, the private educational institution usually provided by religious organizations, public organizations, and some big companies. In India, most universities and nearly all research institutions are public, There are some private undergraduate colleges, mostly engineering schools, but a majority of these are affiliated to public universities
3.
Anne, Princess Royal
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Anne, Princess Royal, KG KT GCVO GCStJ QSO GCL CD is the second child and only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. At the time of her birth, she was third in the line of succession, behind her mother – then Princess Elizabeth – and elder brother and she rose to second after her mothers accession, but is currently 12th in line. Anne is known for her work, and is patron of over 200 organisations. Princess Anne has held the title of Princess Royal since 1987 and is its seventh holder, Anne was married to Captain Mark Phillips in 1973, they divorced in 1992. They have two children and three grandchildren, in 1992, within months of her divorce, Anne married Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, whom she had met while he served as her mothers equerry between 1986 and 1989. Anne was born at Clarence House on 15 August 1950 at 11,50 am, as the child and only daughter of Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh. She was the grandchild of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Anne was baptised in the Music Room of Buckingham Palace on 21 October 1950, by Archbishop of York, after the death of George VI, Annes mother ascended the throne as Queen Elizabeth II. Given her young age at the time, she did not attend the coronation, the Company was active until 1963, when Anne went to boarding school. Anne enrolled at Benenden School in 1963, in 1968 she left school with six GCE O-Levels and two A-Levels. In the next couple of years, Anne started dating, in 1970 her first boyfriend was Andrew Parker Bowles, who later became the first husband of Camilla Shand. Following the wedding, Anne and her husband lived at Gatcombe Park and he was made acting captain by the start of 1974 when he was appointed a personal aide-de-camp to Queen Elizabeth II. By 1989, however, Princess Anne and Mark Phillips announced their intention to separate, the couple divorced on 23 April 1992. The Queen had offered Phillips an earldom on his wedding day, the couple had two children, Peter Phillips and Zara Phillips. As female-line descendants of royalty, the children have no title despite being the grandchildren of a monarch, Anne became a grandmother on 29 December 2010 when Peter and his wife Autumn had a daughter, Savannah. On 29 March 2012, the couple had daughter, Isla. Annes third granddaughter, Mia Grace, was born on 17 January 2014 to Zara and her husband Mike Tindall. As Princess Anne and Mark Phillips were returning to Buckingham Palace on 20 March 1974, from a charity event on Pall Mall, the driver of the Escort, Ian Ball, jumped out and began firing a pistol
4.
University of London
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The University of London is a collegiate research university located in London, England, consisting of 18 constituent colleges, nine research institutes and a number of central bodies. The university moved to a structure in 1900. The specialist colleges of the university include the London Business School, Imperial College London was formerly a member before leaving the university in 2007. City is the most recent constituent college, having joined on 1 September 2016, in post-nominals, the University of London is commonly abbreviated as Lond. or, more rarely, Londin. From the Latin Universitas Londiniensis, after its degree abbreviations, University College London was founded under the name London University in 1826 as a secular alternative to the religious universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In response to the controversy surrounding such educational establishment, Kings College London was founded and was the first to be granted a royal charter. Yet to receive a charter, UCL in 1834 renewed its application for a royal charter as a university. In response to this, opposition to exclusive rights grew among the London medical schools, the idea of a general degree awarding body for the schools was discussed in the medical press. And in evidence taken by the Select Committee on Medical Education, in 1835, the government announced the response to UCLs petition for a charter. Following the issuing of its charter on 28 November 1836, the university started drawing up regulations for degrees in March 1837. The death of William IV in June, however, resulted in a problem – the charter had been granted during our Royal will and pleasure, queen Victoria issued a second charter on 5 December 1837, reincorporating the university. The university awarded its first degrees in 1839, all to students from UCL, the university established by the charters of 1836 and 1837 was essentially an examining board with the right to award degrees in arts, laws and medicine. However, the university did not have the authority to grant degrees in theology, in medicine, the university was given the right to determine which medical schools provided sufficient medical training. Beyond the right to students for examination, there was no other connection between the affiliated colleges and the university. In 1849 the university held its first graduation ceremony at Somerset House following a petition to the senate from the graduates, about 250 students graduated at this ceremony. The London academic robes of this period were distinguished by their rich velvet facings, the list of affiliated colleges grew by 1858 to include over 50 institutions, including all other British universities. In that year, a new charter effectively abolished the affiliated colleges system by opening up the examinations to everyone whether they attended a college or not. The expanded role meant the university needed more space, particularly with the number of students at the provincial university colleges
5.
History of art
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The history of art is the history of any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview. The subsequent expansion of the list of arts in the 20th century reached to nine, architecture, dance, sculpture, music, painting, poetry, film, photography. The study of the history of art was developed during the Renaissance. Today, art enjoys a network of study, dissemination and preservation of all the artistic legacy of mankind throughout history. The rise of media has been crucial in improving the study, international events and exhibitions like the Whitney Biennial and biennales of Venice and São Paulo or the Documenta of Kassel have helped the development of new styles and trends. Institutions like UNESCO, with the establishment of the World Heritage Site lists, the field of art history was developed in the West, and originally dealt exclusively with European art history, with the High Renaissance as the defining standard. Gradually, over the course of the 20th century, a vision of art history has developed. This expanded version includes societies from across the globe, and it attempts to analyze artifacts in terms of the cultural values in which they were created. Thus, art history is now seen to all visual art. The history of art is often told as a chronology of masterpieces created in each civilization and it can thus be framed as a story of high culture, epitomized by the Wonders of the World. On the other hand, vernacular art expressions can also be integrated into art historical narratives, in the latter cases art objects may be referred to as archeological artifacts. One way to examine how art history is organized is by examining the major survey textbooks, information on canonical art history is also found in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, which is sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The first tangible artifacts of human art that have found are from the Stone Age. During the Paleolithic, humans practiced hunting and gathering and lived in caves, in the Bronze Age, the first protohistoric civilizations arose. The Paleolithic had its first artistic manifestation in 25,000 BCE, the first traces of human-made objects appeared in southern Africa, the Western Mediterranean, Central and Eastern Europe, Siberia, India and Australia. These first traces are generally worked stone, wood or bone tools, to paint in red, iron oxide was used, in black, manganese oxide and in ochre, clay. Surviving art from this period includes small carvings in stone or bone, cave paintings have been found in the Franco-Cantabrian region. There are pictures with magical-religious character and also pictures with a naturalistic sense, sculpture is represented by the so-called Venus figurines, feminine figures which were probably used in fertility cults, such as the Venus of Willendorf
6.
Conservation-restoration of cultural heritage
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The conservation-restoration of cultural heritage focuses on protection and care of tangible cultural heritage, including artworks, architecture, archaeology, and museum collections. Conservation activities include preventive conservation, examination, documentation, research, treatment and this field is closely allied with conservation science, curators and registrars. Conservation of cultural heritage can be described as a type of ethical stewardship, Conservation of cultural heritage applies simple ethical guidelines, Minimal intervention, Appropriate materials and reversible methods, Full documentation of all work undertaken. Often there are compromises between preserving appearance, maintaining original design and material properties, and ability to reverse changes, reversibility is now emphasized so as to reduce problems with future treatment, investigation, and use. The care of cultural heritage has a history, one that was primarily aimed at fixing and mending objects for their continued use. Until the early 20th century, artists were normally the ones called upon to repair damaged artworks, louis Pasteur carried out scientific analysis on paint as well. The society was founded by William Morris and Philip Webb, both of whom were influenced by the writings of John Ruskin. He not only developed an approach to the care of objects in the collections. The early development of conservation of heritage in any area of the world is usually linked to the creation of positions for chemists within museums. Lauries interests were fostered by William Holman Hunt, the creation of this department moved the focus for the development of conservation theory and practice from Germany to Britain, and made the latter a prime force in this fledgling field. In the United States, the development of conservation of heritage can be traced to the Fogg Art Museum. Importantly he also brought onto the staff chemists. Rutherford John Gettens was the first of usch in the US to be employed by an art museum. He worked with George L. Stout, the founder and first editor of Technical Studies, Gettens and Stout co-authored Painting Materials, A Short Encyclopaedia in 1942, reprinted in 1966. This compendium is still cited regularly, only a few dates and descriptions in Gettens and Stouts book are now outdated. George T. Oliver, of Oliver Brothers Art Restoration and Art Conservation-Boston invented the vacuum hot table for relining paintings in 1920s, taylors prototype table, which he designed and constructed, is still in operation. Oliver Brothers is believed to be the first and the oldest continuously operating art restoration company in the United States, the focus of conservation development then accelerated in Britain and America, and it was in Britain that the first International Conservation Organisations developed. Art historians and theorists such as Cesare Brandi have also played a significant role in developing conservation science theory, in recent years ethical concerns have been at the forefront of developments in conservation
7.
Impressionism
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Impressionism originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s. The Impressionists faced harsh opposition from the art community in France. The development of Impressionism in the arts was soon followed by analogous styles in other media that became known as impressionist music. Radicals in their time, early Impressionists violated the rules of academic painting and they constructed their pictures from freely brushed colours that took precedence over lines and contours, following the example of painters such as Eugène Delacroix and J. M. W. Turner. They also painted scenes of modern life, and often painted outdoors. Previously, still lifes and portraits as well as landscapes were painted in a studio. The Impressionists found that they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting en plein air, the Impressionists, however, developed new techniques specific to the style. The public, at first hostile, gradually came to believe that the Impressionists had captured a fresh and original vision, even if the art critics and art establishment disapproved of the new style. In the middle of the 19th century—a time of change, as Emperor Napoleon III rebuilt Paris, the Académie was the preserver of traditional French painting standards of content and style. Historical subjects, religious themes, and portraits were valued, landscape, the Académie preferred carefully finished images that looked realistic when examined closely. Paintings in this style were made up of brush strokes carefully blended to hide the artists hand in the work. Colour was restrained and often toned down further by the application of a golden varnish, the Académie had an annual, juried art show, the Salon de Paris, and artists whose work was displayed in the show won prizes, garnered commissions, and enhanced their prestige. The standards of the juries represented the values of the Académie, represented by the works of artists as Jean-Léon Gérôme. In the early 1860s, four young painters—Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and they discovered that they shared an interest in painting landscape and contemporary life rather than historical or mythological scenes. A favourite meeting place for the artists was the Café Guerbois on Avenue de Clichy in Paris, where the discussions were led by Édouard Manet. They were soon joined by Camille Pissarro, Paul Cézanne, during the 1860s, the Salon jury routinely rejected about half of the works submitted by Monet and his friends in favour of works by artists faithful to the approved style. In 1863, the Salon jury rejected Manets The Luncheon on the Grass primarily because it depicted a woman with two clothed men at a picnic. While the Salon jury routinely accepted nudes in historical and allegorical paintings, the jurys severely worded rejection of Manets painting appalled his admirers, and the unusually large number of rejected works that year perturbed many French artists
8.
Post-Impressionism
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Post-Impressionism is a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction against Impressionists concern for the depiction of light. The movement was led by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, the term Post-Impressionism was first used by art critic Roger Fry in 1906. Three weeks later, Roger Fry used the term again when he organized the 1910 exhibition, Manet, the Post-Impressionists were dissatisfied with what they felt was the triviality of subject matter and the loss of structure in Impressionist paintings, though they did not agree on the way forward. Georges Seurat and his followers concerned themselves with Pointillism, the use of tiny dots of colour. Paul Cézanne set out to restore a sense of order and structure to painting, to make of Impressionism something solid and durable and he achieved this by reducing objects to their basic shapes while retaining the saturated colours of Impressionism. The Impressionist Camille Pissarro experimented with Neo-Impressionist ideas between the mid-1880s and the early 1890s, Vincent van Gogh used colour and vibrant swirling brush strokes to convey his feelings and his state of mind. Although they often exhibited together, Post-Impressionist artists were not in agreement concerning a cohesive movement, yet, the abstract concerns of harmony and structural arrangement, in the work of all these artists, took precedence over naturalism. Artists such as Seurat adopted a scientific approach to colour. Younger painters during the early 20th century worked in geographically disparate regions and in various categories, such as Fauvism and Cubism. Most of the artists in Frys exhibition were younger than the Impressionists, Fry later explained, For purposes of convenience, it was necessary to give these artists a name, and I chose, as being the vaguest and most non-committal, the name of Post-Impressionism. This merely stated their position in time relatively to the Impressionist movement, john Rewald limited the scope to the years between 1886 and 1892 in his pioneering publication on Post-Impressionism, From Van Gogh to Gauguin. This volume would extend the period covered to other artistic movements derived from Impressionism, though confined to the late 19th, Rewald focused on such outstanding early Post-Impressionists active in France as van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, and Redon. Pont-Aven School, implying more than that the artists involved had been working for a while in Pont-Aven or elsewhere in Brittany. Symbolism, a highly welcomed by vanguard critics in 1891. Rewald wrote that the term Post-Impressionism is not a precise one. Convenient, when the term is by definition limited to French visual arts derived from Impressionism since 1886, rewalds approach to historical data was narrative rather than analytic, and beyond this point he believed it would be sufficient to let the sources speak for themselves. Rival terms like Modernism or Symbolism were never as easy to handle, for they covered literature, architecture and other arts as well, Symbolism, however, is considered to be a concept which emerged a century later in France, and implied an individual approach
9.
Courtauld Gallery
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The Courtauld Gallery UK /ˈkɔərtoʊld/ is an art museum in Somerset House, on the Strand in central London. It houses the art collection of the Courtauld Institute of Art, in total, the collection contains some 530 paintings and over 26,000 drawings and prints. The Head of the Courtauld Gallery is Ernst Vegelin, the art collection at the Courtauld was begun by Samuel Courtauld, who in the same year presented an extensive collection of paintings, mainly French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works. He made further gifts later in the 1930s and a bequest in 1948, further bequests were added after the Second World War, most notably the collection of Old Master paintings assembled by Lord Lee, a founder of the Institute. This included Cranachs Adam and Eve and a sketch in oils by Peter Paul Rubens for what is arguably his masterpiece, Sir Robert Witt, also a founder of the Courtauld Institute, was an outstanding benefactor and bequeathed his important collection of Old Master and British drawings in 1952. His bequest included 20,000 prints and more than 3000 drawings and his son, Sir John Witt, later gave more English watercolours and drawings to the Gallery. M. W. Turner, Peter De Wint and others, in 1978 the Courtauld received the Princes Gate Collection of Old Master paintings and drawings formed by Count Antoine Seilern. The collection rivals the Samuel Courtauld Collection in importance and it includes paintings by Bernardo Daddi, Robert Campin, Bruegel, Quentin Matsys, Van Dyck and Tiepolo, but is strongest in the works of Rubens. The bequest also included a group of 19th- and 20th‑century works by Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, more recently the Lillian Browse and Alastair Hunter collections have given the Courtauld more late 19th- and 20th‑century paintings, drawings and sculptures. A collection of more than 50 British watercolours, including eight by Turner, was left to the Gallery by Dorothy Scharf in 2004, the Courtauld Gallery is open to the public. The Royal Academy occupied them from their completion in 1780 until it moved to the new National Gallery building in Trafalgar Square in 1837. Inscribed over the entrance to the Great Room, in which the annual Royal Academy summer exhibition was held, is the formidable inscription ΟΥΔΕΙΣ ΑΜΟΥΣΟΣ ΕΙΣΙΤΩ. Many of his purchases were made on trips to the continent, especially Italy, but he bought from dealers and auctions in England. The Courtauld Gallery website shows images and descriptions of 324 objects from the 1966 bequest, there are two further predella panels by Lorenzo Monaco, and many other small panels by lesser-known masters. Later Renaissance works include ones by Il Garofalo, Sassoferrato, there are a number of illuminated manuscript pages from the workshop of the Boucicaut Master. The sculptures include three fine 15th-century marble reliefs of the Virgin and Child, the most significant by Mino da Fiesole, there is a Limoges enamel book cover panel, a number of Renaissance Limoges items, and several small Gothic ivories. The Courtauld publishes an online collection, artandarchitecture. org. The site was developed with the support of the New Opportunities Fund, two other websites courtauldimages. com and courtauldprints. com sell high resolution digital files to scholars, publishers and broadcasters, and photographic prints to the general public
10.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
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