Danish Golden Age
The Danish Golden Age covers a period of exceptional creative production in Denmark during the first half of the 19th century. Although Copenhagen had suffered from fires and national bankruptcy, the arts took on a new period of creativity catalysed by Romanticism from Germany; the period is most associated with the Golden Age of Danish Painting from 1800 to around 1850 which encompasses the work of Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg and his students, including Wilhelm Bendz, Christen Købke, Martinus Rørbye, Constantin Hansen and Wilhelm Marstrand, as well as the sculpture of Bertel Thorvaldsen. It saw the development of Danish architecture in the Neoclassical style. Copenhagen, in particular, acquired a new look, with buildings designed by Christian Frederik Hansen and Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll. In relation to music, the Golden Age covers figures inspired by Danish romantic nationalism including J. P. E. Hartmann, Hans Christian Lumbye, Niels W. Gade and the ballet master August Bournonville.
Literature centred on Romantic thinking, introduced in 1802 by the Norwegian-German philosopher Henrik Steffens. Key contributors were Adam Oehlenschläger, Bernhard Severin Ingemann, N. F. S. Grundtvig and, last but not least, Hans Christian Andersen, the proponent of the modern fairytale. Søren Kierkegaard furthered philosophy while Hans Christian Ørsted achieved fundamental progress in science; the Golden Age thus had a profound effect not only on life in Denmark but, with time, on the international front too. The origins of the Golden Age can be traced back to around the beginning of the 19th century, a rough period for Denmark. Copenhagen, the centre of the country's intellectual life, first experienced huge fires in 1794 and 1795 which destroyed both Christiansborg Palace and large areas of the inner city. In 1801, as a result of the country's involvement in the League of Armed Neutrality, the British fleet inflicted serious damage on the city during the Battle of Copenhagen. In 1807, on rumours that the French might force Denmark to close the Baltic to their shipping, the British once again bombarded Copenhagen, this time targeting the city and its civilian population.
In 1813, as a result of the country's inability to support the costs of war, Denmark declared a State bankruptcy. To make matters worse, Norway ceased to be part of the Danish realm when it was ceded to Sweden the following year. Copenhagen's devastation provided new opportunities. Architects and planners widened the streets, constructing beautifully designed Neoclassical buildings offering a brighter yet intimate look. At the time, with a population of only 100,000, the city was still quite small, built within the confines of the old ramparts; as a result, the leading figures of the day met sharing their ideas, bringing the arts and the sciences together. Henrik Steffens was the most effective proponent of the Romantic idea. In a series of lectures in Copenhagen, he conveyed the ideas behind German romanticism to the Danes. Influential thinkers, such as Oehlenschläger and Grundtvig were quick to take up his views, it was not long before Danes from all branches of the arts and sciences were involved in a new era of Romantic nationalism known as the Danish Golden Age.
In the field of painting, change became apparent. While art had served to uphold the monarchy and the establishment, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg and his students realized that, with the arrival of industrialization, the middle classes were gaining power and influence. Grand historical art gave way to more appealing but less pretentious genre paintings and landscapes; the Golden Age is believed to have lasted until about 1850. Around that time, Danish culture suffered from the outbreak of the First Schleswig War. In addition, political reforms involving the end of the absolute monarchy in 1848 and the adoption of the Danish constitution the following year signalled the beginning of a new era; the extension of Copenhagen beyond the old ramparts during the 1850s opened up new horizons for urban expansion. It was not until 1890 that the Danish philosopher Valdemar Vedel first used the term Guldalderen or Golden Age to describe the period. In 1896, author Vilhelm Andersen saw the Golden Age initiated by Henrich Steffens as the richest period in the cultural history of Denmark.
Around the beginning of the 19th century, the Golden Age of Danish Painting emerged to form a distinct national style for the first time since the Middle Ages. It has a style drawing on Dutch Golden Age painting its landscape painting, depicting northern light, soft but allows strong contrasts of colour; the treatment of scenes is an idealized version of reality, but unpretentiously so, appearing more realist than is the case. Interior scenes small portrait groups, are common, with a similar treatment of humble domestic objects and furniture of the artist's circle of friends. Little Danish art was seen outside the country although the Danish-trained leader of German Romantic painting Caspar David Friedrich was important in spreading its influence in Germany. A crucial figure was Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, who had studied in Paris with Jacques-Louis David and was further influenced towards Neo-Classicism by the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. Eckersberg taught at the Academy from 1818 to 1853, becoming director from 1827 to 1828, was an important influence on the following generation, in which landscape painting came to the fore.
He taught most of the leading artists of the period, including: Wilhel
Gesamtkunstwerk
A Gesamtkunstwerk is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so. The term is a German word; the term was first used by the German writer and philosopher K. F. E. Trahndorff in an essay in 1827; the German opera composer Richard Wagner used the term in two 1849 essays, the word has become associated with his aesthetic ideals. It is unclear. In the twentieth century, some writers applied the term to some forms of architecture, while others have applied it to film and mass media; some elements of opera, seeking a more "classical" formula, had begun at the end of the 18th century. After the lengthy domination of opera seria, the da capo aria, a movement began to advance the librettist and the composer in relation to the singers, to return the drama to a more intense and less moralistic focus; this movement, "reform opera" is associated with Christoph Willibald Gluck and Ranieri de' Calzabigi. The themes in the operas produced by Gluck's collaborations with Calzabigi continue throughout the operas of Carl Maria von Weber, until Wagner, rejecting both the Italian bel canto tradition and the French "spectacle opera", developed his union of music, theatrical effects, dance.
However these trends had developed fortuitously, rather than in response to a specific philosophy of art. Previous to Wagner, others who had expressed ideas about union of the arts, a familiar topic among German Romantics, as evidenced by the title of Trahndorff's essay, in which the word first occurred, "Aesthetics, or Theory of Philosophy of Art". Others who wrote on syntheses of the arts included Ludwig Tieck and Novalis. Carl Maria von Weber's enthusiastic review of E. T. A. Hoffmann's opera Undine admired it as'an art work complete in itself, in which partial contributions of the related and collaborating arts blend together, and, in disappearing, somehow form a new world'. Wagner used the exact term'Gesamtkunstwerk' on only two occasions, in his 1849 essays "Art and Revolution" and "The Artwork of the Future", where he speaks of his ideal of unifying all works of art via the theatre, he used in these essays many similar expressions such as'the consummate artwork of the future' and'the integrated drama', referred to'Gesamtkunst'.
Such a work of art was to be the clearest and most profound expression of folk legend, though abstracted from its nationalist particulars to a universal humanist fable. Wagner felt that the Greek tragedies of Aeschylus had been the finest examples so far of total artistic synthesis, but that this synthesis had subsequently been corrupted by Euripides. Wagner felt that during the rest of human history up to the present day the arts had drifted further and further apart, resulting in such "monstrosities" as Grand Opera. Wagner felt that such works celebrated bravura singing, sensational stage effects, meaningless plots. In "Art and Revolution" Wagner applies the term'Gesamtkunstwerk' in the context of Greek tragedy. In "The Art-Work of the Future" he uses it to apply to his own, as yet unrealised, ideal. In his extensive book Opera and Drama he takes these ideas further, describing in detail his idea of the union of opera and drama, in which the individual arts are subordinated to a common purpose.
Wagner's own opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, its components Das Rheingold and Die Walküre represent the closest he, or anyone else, came to realising these ideals. Some architectural writers have used the term Gesamtkunstwerk to signify circumstances where an architect is responsible for the design and/or overseeing of the building's totality: shell, accessories and landscape, it is difficult to make a claim for when the notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk was first employed from the point of view of a building and its contents. It has been argued by historian Robert L. Delevoy that Art Nouveau represented an decorative trend that thus lent itself to the idea of the architectural Gesamtkunstwerk, but it is possible it was born from social theories that arose out of a fear of the rise of industrialism. However, evidence of complete interiors that typify the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk can be seen some time before the 1890s. There was an increasing trend amongst architects in the 18th and 19th centuries to control every facet of an architectural commission.
As well as being responsible for the structure they tried to extend their role to include designing every aspect of the interior work as well. This included not only the interior architectural features but was extended to the design of furniture, wallpaper, light fixtures and door-handles. Robert Adam and Augustus Welby Pugin are examples of this trend to create an overall harmonising effect which in
Opéra comique
Opéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged from the popular opéras comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent, which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections. Associated with the Paris theatre of the same name, opéra comique is not always comic or light in nature; the term opéra comique is complex in meaning and cannot be translated as "comic opera". The genre originated in the early 18th century with humorous and satirical plays performed at the theatres of the Paris fairs which contained songs, with new words set to existing music; the phrase opéra comique en vaudevilles or similar was applied to these early stage works. In the middle of the 18th century, composers began to write original music to replace the vaudevilles, under the influence of the lighter types of Italian opera; this form of opéra comique was known as comédie mêlée d'ariettes, but the range of subject matter it covered expanded beyond the comic.
By the 19th century, opéra comique meant little more than works with spoken dialogue performed at the Opéra-Comique theatre, as opposed to works with recitative delivery which appeared at the Paris Opéra. Thus, the most famous of all opéras comiques, Georges Bizet's Carmen, is on a tragic subject; as Elizabeth Bartlet and Richard Langham Smith note in their Grove article on the subject and librettists rejected the use of the umbrella term opéra comique in favour of more precise labels. Opéra comique began in the early eighteenth century in the theatres of the two annual Paris fairs, the Foire Saint Germain and the Foire Saint Laurent. Here plays began to include musical numbers called vaudevilles, which were existing popular tunes refitted with new words; the plays were humorous and contained satirical attacks on the official theatres such as the Comédie Française. In 1715 the two fair theatres were brought under the aegis of an institution called the Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique. In spite of fierce opposition from rival theatres the venture flourished and leading playwrights of the time, including Alain René Lesage and Alexis Piron, contributed works in the new form.
The Querelle des Bouffons, a quarrel between advocates of French and Italian music, was a major turning-point for opéra comique. Members of the pro-Italian faction, such as the philosopher and musician Jean-Jacques Rousseau, attacked serious French opera, represented by the tragédies en musique of Jean-Philippe Rameau, in favour of what they saw as the simplicity and "naturalness" of Italian comic opera, exemplified by Pergolesi's La serva padrona, performed in Paris by a travelling Italian troupe. In 1752, Rousseau produced a short opera influenced by Pergolesi, Le devin du village, in an attempt to introduce his ideals of musical simplicity and naturalness to France, its success attracted the attention of the Foire theatres. The next year, the head of the Saint Laurent theatre, Jean Monnet, commissioned the composer Antoine Dauvergne to produce a French opera in the style of La serva padrona; the result was Les troqueurs, which Monnet passed off as the work of an Italian composer living in Vienna, fluent in French, thus fooling the partisans of Italian music into giving it a warm welcome.
Dauvergne's opera, with a simple plot, everyday characters, Italianate melodies, had a huge influence on subsequent opéra comique, setting a fashion for composing new music, rather than recycling old tunes. Where it differed from opéras comiques, was that it contained no spoken dialogue. In this, Dauvergne was following the example of Pergolesi's La serva padrona; the short, catchy melodies which replaced the vaudevilles were known as ariettes and many opéras comiques in the late 18th century were styled comédies mêlées d'ariettes. Their librettists were playwrights, skilled at keeping up with the latest trends in the theatre. Louis Anseaume, Michel-Jean Sedaine and Charles Simon Favart were among the most famous of these dramatists. Notable composers of opéras comiques in the 1750s and 1760s include Egidio Duni, Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny and François-André Danican Philidor. Duni, an Italian working at the francophile court of Parma, composed Le peintre amoureux de son modèle in 1757 with a libretto by Anseaume.
Its success encouraged the composer to move to Paris permanently and he wrote 20 or so more works for the French stage. Monsigny collaborated with Sedaine in works which mixed comedy with a serious social and political element. Le roi et le fermier contains Enlightenment themes such as the virtues of the common people and the need for liberty and equality, their biggest success, Le déserteur, concerns the story of a soldier, condemned to death for deserting the army. Philidor's most famous opéra comique was Tom Jones, based on Henry Fielding's novel of the same name, it is notable for its many ensembles. The most important and popular composer of opéra comique in the late 18th century was André Ernest Modeste Grétry. Grétry blended Italian tunefulness with a careful setting of the French language, he was a versatile composer who expanded the range of opéra comique to cover a wide variety of subjects from the Oriental fairy tale Zémire et Azor to the musical satire of Le jugement de Midas and the domestic farce of L'amant jaloux.
His most famous work was the historical "rescue opera", Richard Coeur-de-lion, which achieved international popularity, reachin
Hudson River School
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings for which the movement is named depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area, including the Catskill and White Mountains. Neither the originator of the term Hudson River School nor its first published use has been fixed with certainty; the term is thought to have originated with the New York Tribune art critic Clarence Cook or the landscape painter Homer Dodge Martin. As used, the term was meant disparagingly, as the work so labeled had gone out of favor after the plein-air Barbizon School had come into vogue among American patrons and collectors. Hudson River School paintings reflect three themes of America in the 19th century: discovery and settlement; the paintings depict the American landscape as a pastoral setting, where human beings and nature coexist peacefully. Hudson River School landscapes are characterized by their realistic and sometimes idealized portrayal of nature juxtaposing peaceful agriculture and the remaining wilderness, fast disappearing from the Hudson Valley just as it was coming to be appreciated for its qualities of ruggedness and sublimity.
In general, Hudson River School artists believed that nature in the form of the American landscape was an ineffable manifestation of God, though the artists varied in the depth of their religious conviction. They took as their inspiration such European masters as Claude Lorrain, John Constable and J. M. W. Turner, their reverence for America's natural beauty was shared with contemporary American writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Several painters were members of the Düsseldorf school of painting, others were educated by the German Paul Weber. While the elements of the paintings were rendered realistically, many of the scenes were composed as a synthesis of multiple scenes or natural images observed by the artists. In gathering the visual data for their paintings, the artists would travel to extraordinary and extreme environments, which had conditions that would not permit extended painting at the site. During these expeditions, the artists recorded sketches and memories, returning to their studios to paint the finished works later.
A number of women artists were associated with the Hudson River School, though they tend to be less well known because they were excluded from formal training during most of the 19th century and had fewer exhibition opportunities. Notable women painters of the Hudson River School include Susie M. Barstow, an avid mountain-climber who painted the mountain scenery of the Catskills and the White Mountains; the artist Thomas Cole is acknowledged as the founder of the Hudson River School. Cole took a steamship up the Hudson in the autumn of 1825, the same year the Erie Canal opened, stopping first at West Point at Catskill landing, he hiked west high up into the eastern Catskill Mountains of New York State to paint the first landscapes of the area. The first review of his work appeared in the New York Evening Post on November 22, 1825. At that time, only the English native Cole, born in a landscape where autumnal tints were of browns and yellows, found the brilliant autumn hues of the area to be inspirational.
Cole's close friend, Asher Durand, became a prominent figure in the school as well. An important part of the popularity of the Hudson River School was its celebration of its themes of nationalism and property. However, adherents of the movement were suspicious of the economic and technological development of the age; the second generation of Hudson River school artists emerged to prominence after Cole's premature death in 1848. Works by artists of this second generation are described as examples of Luminism. In addition to pursuing their art, many of the artists, including Kensett and Church, were among the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Most of the finest works of the second generation were painted between 1855 and 1875. During that time, artists such as Frederic Edwin Church and Albert Bierstadt were celebrities, they were both influenced by the Düsseldorf school of painting, Bierstadt had studied in that city for several years. When Church exhibited paintings such as Niagara or The Icebergs, thousands of people paid twenty-five cents a head to view the solitary works.
The epic size of these landscapes, unexampled in earlier American painting, reminded Americans of the vast, but magnificent wilderness areas in their country. Such works were being painted during the period of settlement of the American West, preservation of national parks, establishment of green city parks. Along with museum collections, Hudson River School art has had minor periods of resurgence in popularity. Philip Verre, director of the Hudson River Museum, described that the school gained interest after World War I due to nationalist attitudes. A decline in interest took place until the 1960s, the regrowt
Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence, or Aix, is a city and commune in Southern France, about 30 km north of Marseille. A former capital of Provence, it is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture; the population of Aix-en-Provence numbers 143,000. Its inhabitants are called Aixois or, less Aquisextains. Aix was founded in 123 BC by the Roman consul Sextius Calvinus, who gave his name to its springs, following the destruction of the nearby Gallic oppidum at Entremont. In 102 BC its vicinity was the scene of the Battle of Aquae Sextiae, where the Romans under Gaius Marius defeated the Cimbri and Teutones, with mass suicides among the captured women, which passed into Roman legends of Germanic heroism. In the 4th century AD it became the metropolis of Narbonensis Secunda, it was occupied by the Visigoths in 477. In the succeeding century, the town was plundered by the Franks and Lombards, was occupied by the Saracens in 731 and by Charles Martel in 737.
Aix, which during the Middle Ages was the capital of Provence, did not reach its zenith until after the 12th century, under the houses of Barcelona/Aragon and Anjou, it became an artistic centre and seat of learning. Aix passed to the crown of France with the rest of Provence in 1487, in 1501 Louis XII established there the parliament of Provence, which existed until 1789. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the town was the seat of the Intendance of Provence. Current archeological excavations in the Ville des Tours, a medieval suburb of Aix, have unearthed the remains of a Roman amphitheatre. A deposit of fossil bones from the Upper Continental Miocene gave rise to a Christian dragon legend. Aix-en-Provence is situated in the south of France, in a plain overlooking the Arc river, about a mile from the right bank of the river; the city slopes from north to south and the Montagne Sainte-Victoire can be seen to the east. Aix's position in the south of France gives it a warm climate, though more extreme than Marseille due to the inland location.
It has an average January temperature of 5 °C and a July average of 23 °C. It has an average of only 91 days of rain. While it is protected from the Mistral, Aix still experiences the cooler and gusty conditions it brings. Unlike most of France which has an oceanic climate, Aix-en-Provence has a Mediterranean climate; the Cours Mirabeau is a wide thoroughfare, planted with double rows of plane trees, bordered by fine houses and decorated by fountains. It follows the line of the old city wall, divides the town into two sections; the new town extends to the west. Situated on this avenue, lined on one side with banks and on the other with cafés, is the Deux Garçons, the most famous brasserie in Aix. Built in 1792, it was frequented by the likes of Émile Zola and Ernest Hemingway; the Cathedral of the Holy Saviour is situated to the north in the medieval part of Aix. Built on the site of a former Roman forum and an adjacent basilica, it contains a mixture of all styles from the 5th to the 17th century, including a richly decorated portal in the Gothic style with doors elaborately carved in walnut.
The interior contains 16th-century tapestries, a 15th-century triptych, depicting King René and his wife on the side panels, as well as a Merovingian baptistery, its Renaissance dome supported by original Roman columns. The archbishop's palace and a Romanesque cloister adjoin the cathedral on its south side; the Archbishopric of Aix is now shared with Arles. Among its other public institutions, Aix has the second most important Appeal Court outside of Paris, located near the site of the former Palace of the Counts of Provence; the Hôtel de Ville, a building in the classical style of the middle of the 17th century, looks onto a picturesque square. It contains tapestries. At its side rises a handsome clock-tower erected in 1510. On the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville is the former Corn Exchange; this ornately decorated 18th-century building was designed by the Vallon brothers. Nearby are the remarkable thermal springs, containing lime and carbonic acid, that first drew the Romans to Aix and gave it the name Aquae Sextiae.
A spa was built in 1705 near the remains of the ancient Roman baths of Sextius. South of the Cours Mirabeau is the Quartier Mazarin; this residential district was constructed for the gentry of Aix by Archbishop Michele Mazzarino brother of Cardinal Jules Mazarin in the last half of the 17th century and contains several notable hôtels particuliers. The 13th-century church of Saint-Jean-de-Malte contains valuable pictures and a restored organ. Next to it is the Musée Granet, devoted to European sculpture. Aix is referred to as the city of a thousand fountains. Among the most notable are the 17th-century Fontaine des Quatre Dauphins in the Quartier Mazarin, designed by Jean-Claude Rambot, three of the fountains down the central Cours Mirabeau: At the top, a 19th-century fountain depicts the "good king" René holding the Muscat grapes that he introduced to Provence in the 15th century.
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle in the company of like-minded people and with few permanent ties. It involves musical, literary or spiritual pursuits. In this context, Bohemians may or may not be wanderers, adventurers, or vagabonds; this use of the word bohemian first appeared in the English language in the 19th century to describe the non-traditional lifestyles of marginalized and impoverished artists, journalists and actors in major European cities. Bohemians were associated with unorthodox or anti-establishment political or social viewpoints, which were expressed through free love, and—in some cases—voluntary poverty. A more economically privileged, wealthy, or aristocratic bohemian circle is sometimes referred to as haute bohème; the term bohemianism emerged in France in the early 19th century when artists and creators began to concentrate in the lower-rent, lower class, Romani neighborhoods. Bohémien was a common term for the Romani people of France, who were mistakenly thought to have reached France in the 15th century via Bohemia.
Literary bohemians were associated in the French imagination with roving Romani people, outsiders apart from conventional society and untroubled by its disapproval. The term carries a connotation of arcane enlightenment, carries a less intended, pejorative connotation of carelessness about personal hygiene and marital fidelity; the title character in Carmen, a French opera set in the Spanish city of Seville, is referred to as a "bohémienne" in Meilhac and Halévy's libretto. Her signature aria declares love itself to be a "gypsy child", going where it pleases and obeying no laws; the term bohemian has come to be commonly accepted in our day as the description of a certain kind of literary gypsy, no matter in what language he speaks, or what city he inhabits.... A Bohemian is an artist or "littérateur" who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art. Henri Murger's collection of short stories "Scènes de la Vie de Bohème", published in 1845, was written to glorify and legitimize Bohemia.
Murger's collection formed the basis of Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème. In England, bohemian in this sense was popularised in William Makepeace Thackeray's novel, Vanity Fair, published in 1848. Public perceptions of the alternative lifestyles led by artists were further molded by George du Maurier's romanticized best-selling novel of Bohemian culture Trilby; the novel outlines the fortunes of three expatriate English artists, their Irish model, two colourful Central European musicians, in the artist quarter of Paris. In Spanish literature, the Bohemian impulse can be seen in Ramón del Valle-Inclán's play Luces de Bohemia, published in 1920. In his song La Bohème, Charles Aznavour described the Bohemian lifestyle in Montmartre; the film Moulin Rouge! reflects the Bohemian lifestyle in Montmartre at the turn of the 20th century. In the 1850s, aesthetic bohemians began arriving in the United States. In New York City in 1857, a group of 15 to 20 young, cultured journalists flourished as self-described bohemians until the American Civil War began in 1861.
This group gathered at a German bar on Broadway called Pfaff's beer cellar. Members included their leader Henry Clapp, Jr. Ada Clare, Walt Whitman, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, actress Adah Isaacs Menken. Similar groups in other cities were broken up as well by the Civil War and reporters spread out to report on the conflict. During the war, correspondents began to assume the title bohemian, newspapermen in general took up the moniker. Bohemian became synonymous with newspaper writer. In 1866, war correspondent Junius Henri Browne, who wrote for the New York Tribune and Harper's Magazine, described bohemian journalists such as he was, as well as the few carefree women and lighthearted men he encountered during the war years. San Francisco journalist Bret Harte first wrote as "The Bohemian" in The Golden Era in 1861, with this persona taking part in many satirical doings, the lot published in his book Bohemian Papers in 1867. Harte wrote, "Bohemia has never been located geographically, but any clear day when the sun is going down, if you mount Telegraph Hill, you shall see its pleasant valleys and cloud-capped hills glittering in the West..."Mark Twain included himself and Charles Warren Stoddard in the bohemian category in 1867.
By 1872, when a group of journalists and artists who gathered for cultural pursuits in San Francisco were casting about for a name, the term bohemian became the main choice, the Bohemian Club was born. Club members who were established and successful, pillars of their community, respectable family men, redefined their own form of bohemianism to include people like them who were bons vivants and appreciators of the fine arts. Club member and poet George Sterling responded to this redefinition: Any good mixer of convivial habits considers he has a right to be called a bohemian. But, not a valid claim. There are two elements, at least; the first is addiction to one or more of the Seven Arts. Other factors suggest themselves: for instance, I like to think of my Bohemians as young, as radical in their outlook on art and life. Despite his views, Sterling associated with the Bohemian Club, caroused with artist and industrialist alike at the B
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a scholarly religious congregation of the Catholic Church for men founded by Ignatius of Loyola and approved by Pope Paul III. The members are called Jesuits; the society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations. Jesuits work in education, intellectual research, cultural pursuits. Jesuits give retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, sponsor direct social ministries, promote ecumenical dialogue. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, a Basque nobleman from the Pyrenees area of northern Spain, founded the society after discerning his spiritual vocation while recovering from a wound sustained in the Battle of Pamplona, he composed the Spiritual Exercises to help others follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. In 1534, Ignatius and six other young men, including Francis Xavier and Peter Faber and professed vows of poverty and obedience, including a special vow of obedience to the Pope in matters of mission direction and assignment. Ignatius's plan of the order's organization was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540 by a bull containing the "Formula of the Institute".
Ignatius was a nobleman who had a military background, the members of the society were supposed to accept orders anywhere in the world, where they might be required to live in extreme conditions. Accordingly, the opening lines of the founding document declared that the society was founded for "whoever desires to serve as a soldier of God to strive for the defence and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine." Jesuits are thus sometimes referred to colloquially as "God's soldiers", "God's marines", or "the Company", which evolved from references to Ignatius' history as a soldier and the society's commitment to accepting orders anywhere and to endure any conditions. The society participated in the Counter-Reformation and in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council; the Society of Jesus is consecrated under the patronage of Madonna Della Strada, a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is led by a Superior General. The headquarters of the society, its General Curia, is in Rome.
The historic curia of Ignatius is now part of the Collegio del Gesù attached to the Church of the Gesù, the Jesuit mother church. In 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the first Jesuit to be elected Pope, taking the name Pope Francis; as of 2012, the Jesuits formed the largest single religious order of priests and brothers in the Catholic Church. The Jesuits have experienced a decline in numbers in recent decades; as of 2017 the society had 16,088 members, 11,583 priests and 4,505 Jesuits in formation, which includes brothers and scholastics. This represents a 42.6 percent decline since 1977, when the society had a total membership of 28,038, of which 20,205 were priests. This decline is most pronounced in Europe and the Americas, with modest membership gains occurring in Asia and Africa. There seems to be no "Pope Francis effect" in counteracting the fall of vocations among the Jesuits; the society is divided into 83 provinces along with six independent regions and ten dependent regions. On 1 January 2007, members served in 112 nations on six continents with the largest number in India and the US.
Their average age was 57.3 years: 63.4 years for priests, 29.9 years for scholastics, 65.5 years for brothers. The current Superior General of the Jesuits is Arturo Sosa; the society is characterized by its ministries in the fields of missionary work, human rights, social justice and, most notably, higher education. It operates colleges and universities in various countries around the world and is active in the Philippines and India. In the United States the Jesuits have historical ties to 28 colleges and universities and 61 high schools; the degree to which the Jesuits are involved in the administration of each institution varies. As of September 2018, 15 of the 28 Jesuit universities in the US had non-Jesuit lay presidents. According to a 2014 article in The Atlantic, "the number of Jesuit priests who are active in everyday operations at the schools isn’t nearly as high as it once was". Worldwide it runs 172 colleges and universities. A typical conception of the mission of a Jesuit school will contain such concepts as proposing Christ as the model of human life, the pursuit of excellence in teaching and learning, lifelong spiritual and intellectual growth, training men and women for others.
Ignatius laid out his original vision for the new order in the "Formula of the Institute of the Society of Jesus", "the fundamental charter of the order, of which all subsequent official documents were elaborations and to which they had to conform." He ensured that his formula was contained in two papal bulls signed by Pope Paul III in 1540 and by Pope Julius III in 1550. The formula expressed the nature, community life, apostolate of the new religious order, its famous opening statement echoed Ignatius' military background: Whoever desires to serve as a soldier of God beneath the banner of the Cross in our Society, which we desire to be designated by the Name of Jesus, to serve the Lord alone and the Church, his spouse, under the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ on earth, after a solemn vow of perpetual chastity and obedience, keep what follows in mind. He is a member of a Society founded chiefly for this purpose: to strive for the defence and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine, by means of public preaching and any other ministration whatsoever of the Word of God, further by means of ret
