Louvre
The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces.
The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa.
After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
Physiognomy
Physiognomy is the assessment of character or personality from a persons outer appearance, especially the face. Credence of such study has varied from time to time, the practice was well accepted by the ancient Greek philosophers, but fell into disrepute in the Middle Ages when practised by vagabonds and mountebanks. It was revived and popularised by Johann Kaspar Lavater before falling from favour again in the late 19th century, Physiognomy as understood in the past meets the contemporary definition of a pseudoscience. No clear evidence indicates physiognomy works, though recent studies have suggested that facial appearances do contain a kernel of truth about a persons personality, Physiognomy is sometimes referred to as anthroposcopy, though the expression was more common in the 19th century when the word originated. Notions of the relationship between an individuals appearance and inner character are historically ancient, and occasionally appear in early Greek poetry. Siddhars from ancient India are known to have defined samudrika lakshanam that identifies personal characteristics with body features, chinese physiognomy or face reading reaches back at least to the Northern Song period.
The first indications of a developed physiognomic theory appear in fifth century BC Athens, with the works of Zopyrus, by the fourth century BC, the philosopher Aristotle made frequent reference to theory and literature concerning the relationship of appearance to character. The first systematic treatise to survive to the present day is a slim volume, Physiognomonica. The volume is divided into two parts, conjectured to have been two separate works. The first section discusses arguments drawn from nature or other races, the second section focuses on animal behavior, dividing the animal kingdom into male and female types. From these are deduced correspondences between human form and character, socrates put the issue to rest by saying that originally he was given to all these vices, but had particularly strong self-discipline. Physiognomys validity was once widely accepted, michael Scot, a court scholar for Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, wrote Liber physiognomiae in the early 13th century concerning the subject.
English universities taught it until Henry VIII of England outlawed beggars and vagabonds playing subtile, around this time, scholastic leaders settled on the more erudite Greek form physiognomy and began to discourage the whole concept of fisnamy. Leonardo da Vinci dismissed physiognomy in the early 16th century as false, Leonardo believed that lines caused by facial expressions could indicate personality traits. For example, he wrote that those who have deep and noticeable lines between the eyebrows are irascible, the principal promoter of physiognomy in modern times was the Swiss pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater who was briefly a friend of Goethe. Lavaters essays on physiognomy were first published in German in 1772 and these influential essays were translated into French and English. R. M. we often observe that Men do most act those Creatures, whose constitution and complexion do most predominate in their mixtures. This is a corner-stone in Physiognomy… there are therefore Provincial Faces, National Lips and Noses, which not only the Natures of those Countries
Simon Vouet
Simon Vouet was a French painter and draftsman, who today is perhaps best remembered for helping to introduce the Italian Baroque style of painting to France. Simon Vouet was born on January 9,1590 in Paris and his father Laurent was a painter in Paris and taught him the rudiments of art. Simons brother Aubin Vouet and his grandson Ludovico Dorigny were painters, Simon began his painting career as a portrait painter. At a young age he travelled to England and was part of the entourage of the Baron de Sancy, from there he went to Venice and was in Rome in 1614. He spent a period of time in Italy, from 1613 to 1627. He was mostly in Rome where the Baroque style was emerging during these years and he received a pension from the King of France and his patrons included the Barberini family, Cassiano dal Pozzo, Paolo Giordano Orsini and Vincenzo Giustiniani. He visited other parts of Italy, Bologna, Vouets immense success in Rome led to his election as president of the Accademia di San Luca in 1624.
In 1626 he married Virginia da Vezzo who modelled Madonnas for Vouets religious commissions, despite his success in Rome, Vouet suddenly returned to France in 1627, following pressing recommendations from the Duc de Béthunes and a summons from the King. Vouets new style was distinctly Italian, importing the Italian Baroque style into France, in 1632, he worked for Cardinal Richelieu at the Palais-Royal and the Château de Malmaison. In Paris, Vouet was the dominating force in French painting, producing numerous public altarpieces. Vouets other students included Valentin de Boulogne, Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, Pierre Mignard, Eustache Le Sueur, Nicolas Chaperon, Claude Mellan, Vouet was a friend of Claude Vignon. A number of Vouets decorative schemes have been lost but are recorded in engravings by Claude Mellan,1990, retrospective of Simon Vouets work at the Galeries nationales of the Grand Palais. 2002-2003, Simon Vouet ou léloquence sensible at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, 2008-2009, Simon Vouet, les années italiennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, in collaboration with the Musée des Beaux-Arts et darchéologie de Besançon
Netherlands Institute for Art History
The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in documentation and books on Western art from the late Middle Ages until modern times, all of this is open to the public, and much of it has been digitized and is available on their website. The main goal of the bureau is to collect, via the available databases, the visitor can gain insight into archival evidence on the lives of many artists of past centuries. The library owns approximately 450,000 titles, of which ca.150,000 are auction catalogs, there are ca.3,000 magazines, of which 600 are currently running subscriptions. Though most of the text is in Dutch, the record format includes a link to library entries and images of known works. The RKD manages the Dutch version of the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, the original version is an initiative of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. Their bequest formed the basis for both the art collection and the library, which is now housed in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek.
Though not all of the holdings have been digitised, much of its metadata is accessible online. The website itself is available in both a Dutch and an English user interface, in the artist database RKDartists, each artist is assigned a record number. To reference an artist page directly, use the code listed at the bottom of the record, usually of the form, for example, the artist record number for Salvador Dalí is 19752, so his RKD artist page can be referenced. In the images database RKDimages, each artwork is assigned a record number, to reference an artwork page directly, use the code listed at the bottom of the record, usually of the form, https, //rkd. nl/en/explore/images/ followed by the artworks record number. For example, the record number for The Night Watch is 3063. The Art and Architecture Thesaurus assigns a record for each term, they are used in the databases and the databases can be searched for terms. For example, the painting called The Night Watch is a militia painting, the thesaurus is a set of general terms, but the RKD contains a database for an alternate form of describing artworks, that today is mostly filled with biblical references.
To see all images that depict Miriams dance, the associated iconclass code 71E1232 can be used as a search term. Official website Direct link to the databases The Dutch version of the Art and Architecture Thesaurus
Virtual International Authority File
The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
National Library of the Czech Republic
The National Library of the Czech Republic is the central library of the Czech Republic. It is directed by the Ministry of Culture, the librarys main building is located in the historical Clementinum building in Prague, where approximately half of its books are kept. The other half of the collection is stored in the district of Hostivař, the National Library is the biggest library in the Czech Republic, in its funds there are around 6 million documents. The library has around 60,000 registered readers, as well as Czech texts, the library stores older material from Turkey and India. The library houses books for Charles University in Prague, the library won international recognition in 2005 as it received the inaugural Jikji Prize from UNESCO via the Memory of the World Programme for its efforts in digitising old texts. The project, which commenced in 1992, involved the digitisation of 1,700 documents in its first 13 years, the most precious medieval manuscripts preserved in the National Library are the Codex Vyssegradensis and the Passional of Abbes Kunigunde.
In 2006 the Czech parliament approved funding for the construction of a new building on Letna plain. In March 2007, following a request for tender, Czech architect Jan Kaplický was selected by a jury to undertake the project, in 2007 the project was delayed following objections regarding its proposed location from government officials including Prague Mayor Pavel Bém and President Václav Klaus. Later in 2008, Minister of Culture Václav Jehlička announced the end of the project, the library was affected by the 2002 European floods, with some documents moved to upper levels to avoid the excess water. Over 4,000 books were removed from the library in July 2011 following flooding in parts of the main building, there was a fire at the library in December 2012, but nobody was injured in the event. List of national and state libraries Official website
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 499–500.
