1.
Bavaria
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Bavaria is a free state and one of 16 federal states of Germany. Located in the German southeast with an area of 70,548 square kilometres and its territory comprises roughly a fifth of the total land area of Germany, and, with 12.9 million inhabitants, it is Germanys second most populous state. Munich, Bavarias capital and largest city, is the third largest city in Germany, the Duchy of Bavaria dates back to the year 555. In the 17th century CE, the Duke of Bavaria became a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Bavaria existed from 1806 to 1918, when Bavaria became a republic. In 1946, the Free State of Bavaria re-organised itself on democratic lines after the Second World War, Bavaria has a unique culture, largely because of the states Catholic majority and conservative traditions. Bavarians have traditionally been proud of their culture, which includes such as Oktoberfest. The state also has the second largest economy among the German states by GDP figures, modern Bavaria also includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia, Upper Palatinate and Swabia. The Bavarians emerged in a north of the Alps, previously inhabited by Celts. The Bavarians spoke Old High German but, unlike other Germanic groups, rather, they seem to have coalesced out of other groups left behind by Roman withdrawal late in the 5th century. These peoples may have included the Celtic Boii, some remaining Romans, Marcomanni, Allemanni, Quadi, Thuringians, Goths, Scirians, Rugians, the name Bavarian means Men of Baia which may indicate Bohemia, the homeland of the Celtic Boii and later of the Marcomanni. They first appear in written sources circa 520, a 17th century Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the diocese was named after an ancient Bohemian king, Boiia, in the 14th century BCE. From about 554 to 788, the house of Agilolfing ruled the Duchy of Bavaria and their daughter, Theodelinde, became Queen of the Lombards in northern Italy and Garibald was forced to flee to her when he fell out with his Frankish overlords. Garibalds successor, Tassilo I, tried unsuccessfully to hold the frontier against the expansion of Slavs. Tassilos son Garibald II seems to have achieved a balance of power between 610 and 616, after Garibald II little is known of the Bavarians until Duke Theodo I, whose reign may have begun as early as 680. From 696 onwards he invited churchmen from the west to organize churches and his son, Theudebert, led a decisive Bavarian campaign to intervene in a succession dispute in the Lombard Kingdom in 714, and married his sister Guntrud to the Lombard King Liutprand. At Theodos death the duchy was divided among his sons, at Hugberts death the duchy passed to a distant relative named Odilo, from neighbouring Alemannia. He was defeated near Augsburg in 743 but continued to rule until his death in 748, saint Boniface completed the peoples conversion to Christianity in the early 8th century. Bavaria was in ways affected by the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century
2.
Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory
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After his accession in 1745 Maximilian III Joseph, Prince-Elector of Bavaria, commanded the establishment of manufacturing companies in order to bail out the state finances. From 1747 attempts were made to manufacture porcelain and at the end of year the former Neudeck Castle in the area now the Munich suburb of Au-Haidhausen was made available for that purpose. Up to 1754 the experiments were a failure and lost considerable amounts of money. In the same year the rococo porcelain sculptor Franz Anton Bustelli came to work at the factory, in 1755 the factory received its first commission from the Bavarian court and in 1756 came the first success in painting the porcelain in colour. The management of the jurist and entrepreneur Count Sigmund von Haimhausen from 1758 ensured that the factory was placed on a commercial footing. By 1761 it had moved to a house on the grand circle in front of the royal Nymphenburg Palace. Among the artists who followed Bustelli were Dominikus Auliczek the elder, a great promoter of the works was Ludwig I, who gave them many commissions. Particular favourites were dinner services with copies of paintings or with Bavarian landscapes in an antique style. In 1822 Friedrich von Gärtner, the architect, was appointed artistic director of the factory. In the middle of the 19th century its financial position deteriorated to the extent that in 1856 all artistic production was halted and it was leased out for the first time in 1862 and its focus shifted to the production of technical, medical and sanitary porcelain goods. In 1887 Albert Bäuml took a lease of the factory and his aim was to regain the previous high artistic level of the factorys products, it was Bäuml, for example, who rediscovered Bustelli. This aim was realised at around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and besides historical copies, since 1975 the factory has been leased by the Bavarian government to the Wittelsbach Compensation Fund. In 2011 it was taken over by Prince Luitpold of Bavaria, the Nymphenburg Palace also accommodates the Nymphenburg Porcelain Museum. Guided tours through the factory can be arranged by prior appointment, Nymphenburg Palace is known to have been the working place of artists and sculptors like Hanns Goebl and Franz Anton Bustelli. Kostbarkeiten aus der Sammlung Bäuml und dem Residenzmuseum München, Munich, Bayerische Verwaltung der staatlichen Schlösser, Gärten und Seen. Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory official website Porcelain manufacturing companies in Europe
3.
Porcelain
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Porcelain /ˈpɔːrsəlᵻn, ˈpɔːrslᵻn/ is a ceramic material made by heating materials, generally including kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C. Porcelain was first developed in China around 2,000 years ago, then spread to other East Asian countries, and finally Europe. It combines well with both glazes and paint, and can be modelled very well, allowing a range of decorative treatments in tablewares, vessels. It also has uses in technology and industry. The European name, porcelain in English, come from the old Italian porcellana because of its resemblance to the translucent surface of the shell, Porcelain is also referred to as china or fine china in some English-speaking countries, as it was first seen in imports from China. Porcelain has been described as being completely vitrified, hard, impermeable, white or artificially coloured, translucent, however, the term porcelain lacks a universal definition and has been applied in a very unsystematic fashion to substances of diverse kinds which have only certain surface-qualities in common. Terms such as porcellaneous or near-porcelain may be used in such cases, a high proportion of modern porcelain is made of the variant bone china. Kaolin is the material from which porcelain is made, even though clay minerals might account for only a small proportion of the whole. The word paste is an old term for both the unfired and fired material, a more common terminology these days for the unfired material is body, for example, when buying materials a potter might order an amount of porcelain body from a vendor. The composition of porcelain is highly variable, but the mineral kaolinite is often a raw material. Other raw materials can include feldspar, ball clay, glass, bone ash, steatite, quartz, petuntse, the clays used are often described as being long or short, depending on their plasticity. Long clays are cohesive and have high plasticity, short clays are cohesive and have lower plasticity. Clays used for porcelain are generally of lower plasticity and are shorter than many other pottery clays and they wet very quickly, meaning that small changes in the content of water can produce large changes in workability. Thus, the range of content within which these clays can be worked is very narrow. The following section provides information on the methods used to form, decorate, finish, glaze. Many types of glaze, such as the iron-containing glaze used on the wares of Longquan, were designed specifically for their striking effects on porcelain. Porcelain wares may be decorated under the glaze using pigments that include cobalt and copper or over the glaze using coloured enamels. Like many earlier wares, modern porcelains are often biscuit-fired at around 1,000 °C, coated with glaze, another early method is once-fired where the glaze is applied to the unfired body and the two fired together in a single operation
4.
Rococo
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Rococo artists and architects used a more jocular, florid, and graceful approach to the Baroque. Their style was ornate and used light colours, asymmetrical designs, curves, unlike the political Baroque, the Rococo had playful and witty themes. By the end of the 18th century, Rococo was largely replaced by the Neoclassic style. In 1835 the Dictionary of the French Academy stated that the word Rococo usually covers the kind of ornament, style and design associated with Louis XVs reign and it includes therefore, all types of art from around the middle of the 18th century in France. The word is seen as a combination of the French rocaille and coquilles, the term may also be a combination of the Italian word barocco and the French rocaille and may describe the refined and fanciful style that became fashionable in parts of Europe in the 18th century. The Rococo love of shell-like curves and focus on decorative arts led some critics to say that the style was frivolous or merely modish, when the term was first used in English in about 1836, it was a colloquialism meaning old-fashioned. While there is some debate about the historical significance of the style to art in general. Italian architects of the late Baroque/early Rococo were wooed to Catholic Germany, Bohemia and Austria by local princes, an exotic but in some ways more formal type of Rococo appeared in France where Louis XIVs succession brought a change in the court artists and general artistic fashion. By the end of the long reign, rich Baroque designs were giving way to lighter elements with more curves. These elements are obvious in the designs of Nicolas Pineau. During the Régence, court life moved away from Versailles and this change became well established, first in the royal palace. The delicacy and playfulness of Rococo designs is seen as perfectly in tune with the excesses of Louis XVs reign. The 1730s represented the height of Rococo development in France, the style had spread beyond architecture and furniture to painting and sculpture, exemplified by the works of Antoine Watteau and François Boucher. The Rococo style was spread by French artists and engraved publications, william Hogarth helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not intentionally referencing the movement, he argued in his Analysis of Beauty that the lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace. The development of Rococo in Great Britain is considered to have connected with the revival of interest in Gothic architecture early in the 18th century. The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality, Blondel decried the ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants in contemporary interiors. By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order, in Germany, late 18th century Rococo was ridiculed as Zopf und Perücke, and this phase is sometimes referred to as Zopfstil
5.
Locarno
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It has a population of about 16,000, and about 56,000 for the agglomeration of the same name including Ascona besides other municipalities. The town of Locarno is located on the part of Maggias delta. It is the 74th largest city in Switzerland by population and the third largest in the Ticino canton, after Lugano, the official language of Locarno is Italian. The town is known for hosting the Locarno International Film Festival which takes place every year in August and involves open-air screenings at the main square and it is also known for the Locarno Treaties, a series of European territorial agreements negotiated here in October 1925. In January 2004, the Italian historian Marino Vigano speculated that Locarnos castle may have designed by Leonardo da Vinci. In 1934 in the vicinity of todays Via S. Jorio, some of the urns were directly buried, while others were placed in boxes of uncut stone. The urns contained, in addition to burned bones, bronze ornaments, similar urns were also discovered in the district of S. Antonio, which was probably also a small cemetery. The ceramic and bronze objects date from the Canegrate culture, however, no traces of the settlement have been discovered. In 1935, a necropolis was discovered at Solduno. The over 200 graves cover nearly a thousand years, from the La Tène culture to the 3rd century AD, many of the La Tène era grave goods are Celtic style Fibulae or brooches. These objects demonstrate a cultural influence from regions north of the Alps, however, the ceramic objects are indigenous to Golasecca culture which spread into Ticino and Lombardy. Between 1946 and 1949, a number of Roman era tombs were discovered on the terrace between the churches of Santa Maria in Selva and San Giovanni Battista in Solduno, the Roman city that became Locarno was therefore between the vicus of Muralto and this cemetery. Unfortunately, intensive construction and agricultural activity have destroyed most traces of the ancient city, in 1995 and 1997,57 graves were found in Via Valle Maggia. Nineteen were from the Roman period, which confirms that even in the 3rd century AD cremation, among other significant finds, a number of glass items were discovered. The Roman necropolis was used from the end of the prehistoric La Tène era until the middle of the 3rd century AD, the extensive Romanization of Locarno wiped out much of the local culture and replaced it with ancient Roman elements. However, it appears there was no Roman ruling class which could have dominated the local population. The capitanei were a group of prominent noble families who emerged in the early Middle Ages, the term is first mentioned in a document granting market rights to the town by the Emperor Frederick I in 1164. This title was reserved only the direct vassals of the kings fief
6.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
7.
Munich
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Munich is the capital and largest city of the German state of Bavaria, on the banks of River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg, the Munich Metropolitan Region is home to 5.8 million people. According to the Globalization and World Rankings Research Institute Munich is considered an alpha-world city, the name of the city is derived from the Old/Middle High German term Munichen, meaning by the monks. It derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who ran a monastery at the place that was later to become the Old Town of Munich, Munich was first mentioned in 1158. From 1255 the city was seat of the Bavarian Dukes, black and gold—the colours of the Holy Roman Empire—have been the citys official colours since the time of Ludwig the Bavarian, when it was an imperial residence. Following a final reunification of the Wittelsbachian Duchy of Bavaria, previously divided and sub-divided for more than 200 years, like wide parts of the Holy Roman Empire, the area recovered slowly economically. In 1918, during the German Revolution, the house of Wittelsbach, which governed Bavaria since 1180, was forced to abdicate in Munich. In the 1920s, Munich became home to political factions, among them the NSDAP. During World War II, Munich was heavily bombed and more than 50% of the entire city, the postwar period was characterised by American occupation until 1949 and a strong increase of population and economic power during the years of the Wirtschaftswunder after 1949. The city is home to corporations like BMW, Siemens, MAN, Linde, Allianz and MunichRE as well as many small. Munich is home to national and international authorities, major universities, major museums. Its numerous architectural attractions, international events, exhibitions and conferences. Munich is one of the most prosperous and fastest growing cities in Germany and it is a top-ranked destination for migration and expatriate location, despite being the municipality with the highest density of population in Germany. Munich nowadays hosts more than 530,000 people of foreign background, the year 1158 is assumed to be the foundation date, which is the earliest date the city is mentioned in a document. The document was signed in Augsburg, by that time the Guelph Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, had built a bridge over the river Isar next to a settlement of Benedictine monks—this was on the Old Salt Route and a toll bridge. In 1175, Munich was officially granted city status and received fortification, in 1180, with the trial of Henry the Lion, Otto I Wittelsbach became Duke of Bavaria and Munich was handed over to the Bishop of Freising. In 1240, Munich was transferred to Otto II Wittelsbach and in 1255, Duke Louis IV, a native of Munich, was elected German king in 1314 and crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in 1328. He strengthened the position by granting it the salt monopoly
8.
Maximilian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria
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Maximilian III Joseph was a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire and Duke of Bavaria from 1745 to 1777. Born in Munich, Maximilian was the eldest son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII and his wife, Maria Amalia of Austria, upon his fathers death in January 1745, he inherited a country in the process of being invaded by Austrian armies. During the Seven Years War Bavarian forces then fought on the Habsburg side, Maximilian Josephs sister Maria Josepha of Bavaria was married in 1765 to Maria Theresas son Emperor Joseph II. But long-term weakening of Prussia was not in the Bavarian interest, Maximilian Joseph tried, as far as possible, to keep Bavaria out of the wars. Apart from militia troops, he sent only a force of 4,000 men to join the Austrian army. In 1758/1759, he withdrew Bavarian auxiliary troops from Austrian service, together with the Wittelsbach Elector Charles Theodore of the Palatinate he enforced the neutrality of the Empire during the conflict. Maximilian Joseph was a progressive and enlightened ruler who did much to improve the development of his country and he encouraged agriculture, industry, and exploitation of the mineral wealth of the country, and abolished the Jesuit censorship of the press. In 1747 the Nymphenburg Porcelain Factory was established, while the Codex Maximilianeus bavaricus civilis was written in 1756, in 1759, he founded Munichs first academic institution, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. During the severe famine in 1770 Maximilian sold some of the jewels to pay for grain imports to relieve hunger. In that year, he issued an edict against the extravagant pomposity of the Church which contributed to the end of the era of Bavarian rococo. He also forbade the Oberammergau Passion Play, in 1771 the elector regulated general school attendance. In December 1777 Maximilian Joseph rode in his carriage through Munich, on the ride, as he passed one of the clocks, the mechanism broke. Commenting to the passengers, Max Joseph decided this was an omen, within days, he was stricken with a strange disease. None of his 15 doctors could diagnose it, but by Christmas, it had become clear that it was a virulent strain of smallpox. By the last day of the month he was dead without leaving an heir, Maximilian III Joseph is buried in the crypt of the Theatinerkirche in Munich. He was succeeded by his distant cousin, the Elector Palatine Charles Theodore from the branch of the dynasty. Maximilian III Joseph ordered in 1751 François de Cuvilliés to construct the splendid rococo Cuvilliés Theatre and he also ordered to decorate some rooms of the New Schleissheim Palace in rococo style. In 1775 La finta giardiniera, an Italian opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, received its first performance at the Salvatortheater in Munich
9.
Sigmund Graf von Haimhausen
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Sigmund von Haimhausen was a Bavarian aristocrat, mining operator, head of the Bavarian Mint and Mines commission, porcelain manufacturer and first president of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Sigmund Ferdinand Graf von und zu Haimhausen was born on 28 December 1708 in Munich and he came from a family ennobled by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. His father was Franz Joseph von und zu Haimhausen and his mother Maria Magdalena Baroness von Rehlin, Sigmund attended the Jesuit school in Munich, then in 1724 went with his older brother Charles Ferdinand to the University of Salzburg. After two years moved on to study law in Prague. In the late summer of 1728 the two began to travel, visiting Dresden, Berlin, Lübeck, Hamburg and Amsterdam. They spent a semester in Leyden where they and hundreds of young men heard Johann Jacob Vitriarius deliver his lectures on public law. They then visited London and spent eight months in Paris before returning home in July 1730 and their grandfather died on 11 January 1724 and left Sigmund his Bavarian and Bohemian properties, leaving only the title and a legacy to Charles. However, the government overrode the will and decreed that Charles should receive the possessions in Bavaria, sigmunds Bohemian properties included the Gute Kuttenplan copper mine and other mines. Haimhausen devoted himself to the study of mining and he attended the metallurgical lectures of Dr. Störr in Leipzig, traveled through the Saxon ore fields and Austrian mining towns, and talked or corresponded with leading experts in mining. When Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, died on 20 October 1740 Sigmund joined in the homage of Bohemia in Prague and attended the coronation of Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor, in Frankfurt. He moved temporarily to Bavaria, and this became permanent under Maximilian III Joseph. In 1751 the Elector Max III Joseph appointed Haimhausen Master of the Mint and he was appointed to the privy council the same year. Starting in 1747, with the support of the Elector Max III Joseph, the Elector gave up funding the venture, but Haimhausen took over management and invested about 10,000 Bavarian Gulden in the enterprise from 1751-55. In 1753 he employed the skilled manufacturer Joseph Jakob Ringler, on 30 May 1754 the factory was incorporated into the Bavarian state system, and made a department of the Mint and Mining Commission headed by Haimhausen. In 1754 the factory hired Franz Anton Bustelli from Ticino in Switzerland as head of the modelling shop and he became model master, and contributed greatly to the early success of the factory. In 1761 the Churfürstliche Porcelain-Fabrique was transferred to the Nymphenburg Palace in Munich, after some difficulties, the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory became successful and delivered high-quality products. The factory was best known for its Rococo figures, including Bustellis Chinese and Turkish figures, Bustellis successor Dominik Auliczek was known for groups of fighting animals, such as one of a bear being attacked by hounds. The factory did not make much tableware, but the Haimhausen and Electoral Court services are excellent, richly decorated in floral sprays, butterflies, the elector awarded Haimhausen a medal for his achievements
10.
Nymphenburg Palace
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Castle of the Nymph, is a Baroque palace in Munich, Bavaria, southern Germany. The palace is the summer residence of the former rulers of Bavaria of the House of Wittelsbach. The central pavilion was completed in 1675, as a building material it utilised limestone from Kelheim. The castle was expanded and transformed over the years. Starting in 1701, Max Emanuel, the heir to Bavaria, two pavilions were added each in the south and north of Barellis palace by Enrico Zucalli and Giovanni Antonio Viscardi and connected with the centre pavilion by two gallery wings. In 1716 Joseph Effner redesigned the facade of the pavilion in French Baroque style with pilasters. Later, the section of the palace was further extended to form the court stables. For the sake of balance, the building was added to the north. Finally, a circle with Baroque mansions was erected under Max Emanuels son Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII Albert. In 1795 the Elector Charles Theodore ordered the widening of the galleries on the park side, with the Treaty of Nymphenburg signed in July 1741, Charles Albert allied with France and Spain against Austria. Two of the children were born here, Maria Antonia in 1724. Charles Albert lived during his time in Munich as Holy Roman Emperor in Nymphenburg Palace, Joseph founded the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory. In 1792 Elector Charles Theodor opened the park for the public, for a long time the palace was the favourite summer residence of the rulers of Bavaria. King Max I Joseph died there in 1825 and his great-grandson King Ludwig II was born there in 1845, in 1863 the only meeting between Ludwig and Otto von Bismarck was held in Nymphenburg, although they remained connected in a lifelong friendship. Today Nymphenburg is open to the public but also continues to be a home and chancery for the head of the house of Wittelsbach, currently Franz, the palace, together with its park, is now one of the most famous sights of Munich. The baroque facades comprise an overall width of about 700 metres, some rooms still show their original baroque decoration while others were later redesigned in rococo or neoclassical style. The Steinerner Saal in the pavilion, with ceiling frescoes by Johann Baptist Zimmermann and F. Zimmermann. Acting as a hall, it occupies over three floors of the central pavilion of the palace
11.
Meissen porcelain
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Meissen porcelain or Meissen china is the first European hard-paste porcelain. It was developed starting in 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, after his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger continued von Tschirnhauss work and brought porcelain to the market. Its signature logo, the swords, was introduced in 1720 to protect its production. It dominated the style of European porcelain until 1756, at the beginning of the eighteenth century Johann Friedrich Böttger pretended he had solved the dream of the alchemists, to produce gold from worthless materials. When King Augustus II of Poland heard of it, he kept him in protective custody, for years Johann Friedrich Böttger was unsuccessful in this effort. At the same time, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, a mathematician and scientist, experimented with the manufacture of glass, Tschirnhaus supervised Böttger and by 1707 Böttger reluctantly started to help in the experiments by Tschirnhaus. When Tschirnhaus suddenly died, the recipe apparently was handed over to Böttger, Böttger refined the formula and with some Dutch co-workers, experienced in firing and painting tiles, the stage was set for the manufacturing of porcelain. In 1709, the King established the Royal-Polish and Electoral-Saxon Porcelain Manufactory, placed Böttgers laboratory at Albrechtsburg castle in Meissen, the first type of porcelain produced by Böttger was a refined and extremely hard red stoneware known in Germany as Böttgersteinzeug. It retained very crisp definition in its mold-cast applied details, on bodies that could be polished to a gloss before firing, models were derived from Baroque silver shapes and Chinese ceramic examples. Meissens production of a hard paste white porcelain that could be glazed and painted soon followed, Böttgers experimental wares rapidly gained quality but never achieved successful painted and fired decor. The first successful ornaments were gold decorations applied upon the fired body, multicolor enamelled painting was introduced by Johann Gregorius Höroldt in 1723, with an increasingly broad palette of colors that marked the beginning of the classic phase of Meissen porcelain. His enamel paints are still the basis for ceramic paints today, initially paintings often imitated oriental patterns. The signature underglaze Meissen Blue was introduced by Friedrich August Köttig, soon minutely detailed landscapes and port scenes, animals, flowers, galante courtly scenes and chinoiseries— fanciful Chinese-inspired decorations— were to be found on Meissen porcelain. The Kakiemon vases and tea wares of kilns in Arita, Japan were imitated as Indianische Blume, wares were also sold in solid glazed colors, to be enamelled in private workshops and independently retailed. The support of Augustus patronage attracted to Meissen some of the finest painters and modelers of Europe as staff artists, the Albrechtsburg was utilized to protect the secrets of the manufacture of the white gold. As a further precaution, very few knew the special secret of how to make porcelain. Thus, for a few years, Meissen retained its monopoly on the production of porcelain in Europe. By 1717, however, a production was set up at Vienna, as Samuel Stöltzel sold the secret recipe
12.
Saxony
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Its capital is Dresden, and its largest city is Leipzig. Saxony is the tenth largest of Germanys sixteen states, with an area of 18,413 square kilometres, located in the middle of a large, formerly all German-speaking part of Europe, the history of the state of Saxony spans more than a millennium. It has been a medieval duchy, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, a kingdom, the area of the modern state of Saxony should not be confused with Old Saxony, the area inhabited by Saxons. Old Saxony corresponds approximately to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony is divided into 10 districts,1. After a reform in 2008, these regions - with some alterations of their respective areas - were called Direktionsbezirke, in 2012, the authorities of these regions were merged into one central authority, the Landesdirektion Sachsen. The Erzgebirgskreis district includes the Ore Mountains, and the Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district includes Saxon Switzerland, the largest cities in Saxony according to the 31 December 2015 estimate. To this can be added that Leipzig forms a metropolitan region with Halle. The latter city is located just across the border to Saxony-Anhalt, Leipzig shares for instance an S-train system and an airport with Halle. Saxony has, after Saxony Anhalt, the most vibrant economy of the states of the former East Germany and its economy grew by 1. 9% in 2010. Nonetheless, unemployment remains above the German average, the eastern part of Germany, excluding Berlin, qualifies as an Objective 1 development-region within the European Union, and is eligible to receive investment subsidies of up to 30% until 2013. FutureSAX, a business competition and entrepreneurial support organisation, has been in operation since 2002. Microchip makers near Dresden have given the region the nickname Silicon Saxony, the publishing and porcelain industries of the region are well known, although their contributions to the regional economy are no longer significant. Today the automobile industry, machinery production and services contribute to the development of the region. Saxony is also one of the most renowned tourist destinations in Germany - especially the cities of Leipzig and Dresden, new tourist destinations are developing, notably in the lake district of Lausitz. Saxony reported an unemployment of 8. 8% in 2014. By comparison the average in the former GDR was 9. 8% and 6. 7% for Germany overall, the unemployment rate reached 8. 2% in May 2015. The Leipzig area, which recently was among the regions with the highest unemployment rate, could benefit greatly from investments by Porsche. With the VW Phaeton factory in Dresden, and many part suppliers, zwickau is another major Volkswagen location
13.
Putto
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A putto is a figure in a work of art depicted as a chubby male child, usually naked and sometimes winged. However, in the Baroque period of art, the putto came to represent the omnipresence of God, a putto representing a cupid is also called an amorino. The more commonly found form putti is the plural of the Italian word putto, the Italian word comes from the Latin word putus, meaning boy or child. Today, in Italian, putto means either toddler winged angel or, rarely, toddler boy. It may have derived from the same Indo-European root as the Sanskrit word putra, Avestan puθra-, Old Persian puça-, Pahlavi pus and pusar, all meaning son. Putti, in the ancient classical world of art, were winged infants that were believed to influence human lives. Putti are a motif found primarily on child sarcophagi of the 2nd century. Since then, Donatello has been called the originator of the putto because of the contribution to art he made in restoring the form of putto. He gave putto a distinct character by infusing the form with Christian meanings, putti also began to feature in works showing figures from classical mythology, which became popular in the same period. Most Renaissance putti are essentially decorative and they ornament both religious and secular works, without taking any actual part in the events depicted in narrative paintings. There are two forms of the putto as the main subject of a work of art in 16th-century Italian Renaissance art, the sleeping putto. So many artists have depicted them that a list would be pointless, but among the best-known are the sculptor Donatello, the two relaxed and curious putti who appear at the foot of Raphaels Sistine Madonna are often reproduced. They also experienced a revival in the 19th century, where they gamboled through paintings by French academic painters. The iconography of putti is deliberately unfixed, so that it is difficult to tell the difference between putti, cupids, and various forms of angels and they have no unique, immediately identifiable attributes, so that putti may have many meanings and roles in the context of art. In popular culture, putto is also used as a decorative art found on buildings, gardens, a putto smoking a cigarette served as the cover art for Van Halens album 1984. A putto is the protagonist of the 2000 third person shooter Messiah, in the British TV series Doctor Who, infants of the species Weeping Angels appear as putti. In the 1st-person shooter Team Fortress 2, the Meet the Pyro video has the BLU Team appear as putti in Pyroland, in the 2003 video game Drakengard, a group of malevolent god-like figures known as the Watchers appear as putti. The historiography of this matter is very short
14.
Hawker (trade)
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A hawker is a vendor of merchandise that can be easily transported, the term is roughly synonymous with peddler or costermonger. In most places where the term is used, a hawker sells inexpensive items, whether stationary or mobile, hawkers often advertise by loud street cries or chants, and conduct banter with customers, so to attract attention and enhance sales. When accompanied by a demonstration or detailed explanation of the product, most of them are immigrants or laid-off workers, work for an average 10–12 hours a day, and remain impoverished. Though the prevalent license-permit raj in Indian bureaucracy ended for most retailing in the 1990s, in Kolkata, the profession was a cognisable and non-bailable offense. Over the years the street vendors have organized themselves into trade unions and associations, in fact, The National Association of Street Vendors of India based in Delhi, is a federation of 715 street vendor organizations, trade unions and non-governmental organizations. Kolkata has two such unions, namely the Bengal Hawkers Association and the Calcutta Hawkers Men Union, in September,2012, long-awaited Street Vendors Act was introduced in the Lok Sabha aimed at providing social security and livelihood rights, and regulated the prevalent license system. The Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on 6 September 2013, the bill received the assent of the President of India on 4 March 2014. The commencement of the Act has not been notified, balut is a popular dish sold by hawkers in the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. In both China and Hong Kong, hawkers inventories often include fish ball, beef ball, butzaigo, roasted chestnuts, in Singapore and Malaysia, these stands have become so successful that many have chosen to set up shop more permanently in a hawker center. Across Asia, stalls have been set up with little to no government monitoring, due to health concerns and other liability problems, the food culture has been seriously challenged in Indonesia, though without marked success. However, in Hong Kong, the lease versus licensed hawker restrictions have put a burden on this mobile food culture, the term Jau Gwei has been used to describe vendors often running away from local police. The costermongers of London, England were at their peak in the 19th century, organised, yet semi-obvious, they were ubiquitous, and their street cries could be heard everywhere. Street vendors in Latin America are known in local Spanish and Portuguese variously as vendedores ambulantes or simply ambulantes, in Argentina they are known as manteros. In Brazil, they are known as camelôs. Some ambulantes set up in a location while others are mobile. Some ambulantes sell their goods door-to-door, puestos are market stalls or stands. Street vendors face various regulations and fees, there are sometimes disputes between established merchants and ambulantes. In order to avoid overwhelming tourists or shoppers, ambulantes are known to establish territories, thieves stealing their goods can be a problem
15.
Crucifixion
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It is principally known from classical antiquity, but remains in occasional use in some countries. The crucifixion of Jesus is a narrative in Christianity. Ancient Greek has two verbs for crucify, ana-stauro, from stauros, stake, and apo-tumpanizo crucify on a plank, in earlier pre-Roman Greek texts anastauro usually means impale. New Testament Greek uses four verbs, three of them based upon stauros, usually translated cross, prospegnumi, to fix or fasten to, impale, crucify occurs only once at the Acts of the Apostles 2,23. The English term cross derives from the Latin word crux, the Latin term crux classically referred to a tree or any construction of wood used to hang criminals as a form of execution. The term later came to specifically to a cross. The English term crucifix derives from the Latin crucifixus or cruci fixus, past participle passive of crucifigere or cruci figere, Crucifixion was often performed in order to terrorize and dissuade its witnesses from perpetrating particularly heinous crimes. Victims were left on display after death as warnings to others who might attempt dissent, Crucifixion was usually intended to provide a death that was particularly slow, painful, gruesome, humiliating, and public, using whatever means were most expedient for that goal. Crucifixion methods varied considerably with location and time period, in some cases, the condemned was forced to carry the crossbeam to the place of execution. A whole cross would weigh well over 135 kg, but the crossbeam would not be quite as burdensome, weighing around 45 kg. Upright posts would presumably be fixed permanently in place. Objects used in the crucifixion of criminals, such as nails, were sought as amulets with perceived medicinal qualities, while a crucifixion was an execution, it was also a humiliation, by making the condemned as vulnerable as possible. Although artists have depicted the figure on a cross with a loin cloth or a covering of the genitals. Writings by Seneca the Younger state some victims suffered a stick forced upwards through their groin, despite its frequent use by the Romans, the horrors of crucifixion did not escape mention by some of their eminent orators. Frequently, the legs of the executed were broken or shattered with an iron club, an act called crurifragium. This act hastened the death of the person but was meant to deter those who observed the crucifixion from committing offenses. The gibbet on which crucifixion was carried out could be of many shapes, at times the gibbet was only one vertical stake, called in Latin crux simplex. This was the simplest available construction for torturing and killing the condemned, frequently, however, there was a cross-piece attached either at the top to give the shape of a T or just below the top, as in the form most familiar in Christian symbolism
16.
Chinoiserie
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Chinoiserie is the European interpretation and imitation of Chinese and East Asian artistic traditions, especially in the decorative arts, garden design, architecture, literature, theatre, and music. First appearing in the 17th century, this trend was popularized in the 18th century due to the rise in trade with China, as a style, chinoiserie is related to the Rococo style. Chinoiserie entered European art and decoration in the mid-to-late 17th century and it was also popularized by the influx of Chinese and Indian goods brought annually to Europe aboard English, Dutch, French, and Swedish East India Companies. There was a revival of popularity for chinoiserie in Europe and the United States from mid-19th Century through the 1920s, though usually understood as a European style, chinoiserie was a global phenomenon. Local versions of chinoiserie were developed in India, Japan, Persia and those products then inspired local artists and artisans such as ceramicists making Talavera pottery at Puebla de Los Angeles. There were many reasons why chinoiserie gained such popularity in Europe in the 18th century, Europeans had a fascination with the exotic East due to their increased, but still restricted, access to new cultures through expanded trade with East Asia, especially China. While Europeans frequently held inaccurate ideas about East Asian, this did not necessarily preclude their fascination, in particular, the Chinese who had exquisitely finished art. Whose court ceremonial was even more elaborate than that of Versailles were viewed as highly civilized. According to Voltaire in his Art de la Chine, The fact remains that four years ago. In other words, somewhere, on the side of the world, there existed a culture so rich that it rivaled the civilizations of Rome. Chinoiserie created a juxtaposition between something new and exotic for Europeans while at the same time reflecting the values of the 4,000 year old culture from which these objects came. Some critics saw the style as …a retreat from reason and taste and it was viewed as lacking the logic and reason upon which Antique art had been founded. Architect and author Robert Morris claimed that it …consisted of mere whims and chimera, without rules or order, it requires no fertility of genius to put into execution. Those with an archaeological view of the East, considered the chinoiserie style, with its distortions and whimsical approach, to be a mockery of the actual Chinese art. Finally, still believed that an interest in chinoiserie indicated a pervading cultural confusion in European society. Chinoiserie persisted into the 19th and 20th centuries but declined in popularity, there was a notable loss of interest in Chinese-inspired décor after the death in 1830 of King George IV, a great proponent of the style. The First Opium War of 1839-1842 between Britain and China disrupted trade and caused a decline of interest in the Oriental. China closed its doors to exports and imports and for many people became a fashion of the past
17.
Orientalism
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In particular, Orientalist painting, representing the Middle East, was a genre of Academic art in the 19th century. Orientalism refers to the Orient, in reference and opposition to the Occident, the East, the word Orient entered the English language as the Middle French orient. In the “Monks Tale”, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote, “That they conquered many regnes grete / In the orient, with many a fair citee. ”The term “orient” refers to countries east of the Mediterranean Sea and Southern Europe. In Place of Fear, Aneurin Bevan used an expanded denotation of the Orient that comprehended East Asia, “the awakening of the Orient under the impact of Western ideas”. Edward Said said that Orientalism “enables the political, economic, cultural and social domination of the West, not just during colonial times, but also in the present. ”In art history, the term Orientalism refers to the works of the Western artists who specialized in Oriental subjects, produced from their travels in Western Asia, during the 19th century. In that time, artists and scholars were described as Orientalists, especially in France, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the term Orientalist identified a scholar who specialized in the languages and literatures of the Eastern world. Among such scholars is the philologist William Jones, whose studies of Indo-European languages established modern philology, additionally, Hebraism and Jewish studies gained popularity among British and German scholars in the 18th and 19th century. The academic field of Oriental studies, which comprehended the cultures of the Near East, the thesis of Orientalism develops Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony, and Michel Foucaults theorisation of discourse to criticise the scholarly tradition of Oriental studies. Said criticised contemporary scholars who perpetuated the tradition of outsider-interpretation of Arabo-Islamic cultures, especially Bernard Lewis, the analyses are of Orientalism in European literature, especially French literature, and do not analyse visual art and Orientalist painting. In that vein, the art historian Linda Nochlin applied Said’s methods of analysis to art. In the academy, the book Orientalism became a text of post-colonial cultural studies. Early architectural use of motifs lifted from the Indian subcontinent is known as Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture, one of the earliest examples is the façade of Guildhall, London. The style gained momentum in the west with the publication of views of India by William Hodges, examples of Hindoo architecture are Sezincote House in Gloucestershire, built for a nabob returned from Bengal, and the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. Venice, the trading partner of the Ottomans, was the earliest centre. Chinoiserie is the term for the fashion for Chinese themes in decoration in Western Europe, beginning in the late 17th century and peaking in waves, especially Rococo Chinoiserie. From the Renaissance to the 18th century, Western designers attempted to imitate the technical sophistication of Chinese ceramics with only partial success, Early hints of Chinoiserie appeared in the 17th century in nations with active East India companies, England, Denmark, the Netherlands and France. Tin-glazed pottery made at Delft and other Dutch towns adopted genuine Ming-era blue, Early ceramic wares made at Meissen and other centers of true porcelain imitated Chinese shapes for dishes, vases and teawares. Pleasure pavilions in Chinese taste appeared in the formal parterres of late Baroque and Rococo German palaces, Thomas Chippendales mahogany tea tables and china cabinets, especially, were embellished with fretwork glazing and railings, ca 1753–70
18.
Commedia dell'arte
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Commedia dellarte translates to theatre of the professional and is known as the first form of professional theatre. Commedia dellarte also is considered commedia alla maschera, commedia improvviso, a commedia, such as The Tooth Puller, is both scripted and improvised. Characters entrances and exits are scripted, a special characteristic of commedia dellarte are the lazzi. A lazzo is a joke or something foolish or witty, another characteristic of commedia dellarte is pantomime, which is mostly used by the character Arlecchino. The characters of the commedia usually represent fixed social types, stock characters, such as old men, devious servants. The main categories of characters include servants, old men, lovers. The characters are exaggerated real characters, such as a know it all doctor called Il Dottore, many troupes were formed to perform commedia dellarte, including I Gelosi, Confidenti Troupe, Desioi Troupe, and Fedeli Troupe. Commedia dellarte was often performed outside on platforms or in areas such as a piazza. The form of theatre originated in Italy, but travelled throughout Europe, the commedia genesis may be related to carnival in Venice, where by 1570 the author/actor Andrea Calmo had created the character Il Magnifico, the precursor to the vecchio Pantalone. In the Flaminio Scala scenario for example, Il Magnifico persists and is interchangeable with Pantalone, while Calmos characters were not masked, it is uncertain at what point the characters donned the mask. However, the connection to carnival would suggest that masking was a convention of carnival and was applied at some point, the tradition in Northern Italy is centered in Mantua, Florence, and Venice, where the major companies came under the aegis of the various dukes. Concomitantly, a Neapolitan tradition emerged in the south and featured the prominent stage figure Pulcinella, Pulcinella has been long associated with Naples, and derived into various types elsewhere—the most famous as the puppet character Punch in England. Although commedia dellarte flourished in Italy during the Mannerist period, there has been a tradition of trying to establish historical antecedents in antiquity. While we can detect formal similarities between the commedia dellarte and earlier theatrical traditions, there is no way to establish certainty of origin, some date the origins to the period of the Roman Republic or the Empire. The Atellan Farces of the Roman Empire featured crude types wearing masks with grossly exaggerated features, some historians argue that Atellan stock characters, Pappus, Maccus+Buccus, and Manducus, are the primitive versions of the Commedia characters Pantalone, Pulcinella, and il Capitano. More recent accounts establish links to the medieval jongleurs, and prototypes from medieval moralities, the first recorded commedia dellarte performances came from Rome as early as 1551. This view may be somewhat romanticized since records describe the Gelosi performing Tassos Aminta, for example, by the mid-16th century, specific troupes of commedia performers began to coalesce, and by 1568 the Gelosi became a distinct company. In keeping with the tradition of the Italian Academies, I Gelosi adapted as their impress the two-faced Roman god Janus, Janus symbolized both the comings and goings of this traveling troupe, and the dual nature of the actor who impersonates the other
19.
Engraving
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Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it. Wood engraving is a form of printing and is not covered in this article. Engraving was an important method of producing images on paper in artistic printmaking, in mapmaking. Other terms often used for printed engravings are copper engraving, copper-plate engraving or line engraving, hand engraving is a term sometimes used for engraving objects other than printing plates, to inscribe or decorate jewellery, firearms, trophies, knives and other fine metal goods. Traditional engravings in printmaking are also engraved, using just the same techniques to make the lines in the plate. Each graver is different and has its own use, engravers use a hardened steel tool called a burin, or graver, to cut the design into the surface, most traditionally a copper plate. Modern professional engravers can engrave with a resolution of up to 40 lines per mm in high grade work creating game scenes, dies used in mass production of molded parts are sometimes hand engraved to add special touches or certain information such as part numbers. In addition to engraving, there are engraving machines that require less human finesse and are not directly controlled by hand. They are usually used for lettering, using a pantographic system, there are versions for the insides of rings and also the outsides of larger pieces. Such machines are used for inscriptions on rings, lockets. Gravers come in a variety of shapes and sizes that yield different line types, the burin produces a unique and recognizable quality of line that is characterized by its steady, deliberate appearance and clean edges. The angle tint tool has a curved tip that is commonly used in printmaking. Florentine liners are flat-bottomed tools with multiple lines incised into them, ring gravers are made with particular shapes that are used by jewelry engravers in order to cut inscriptions inside rings. Flat gravers are used for work on letters, as well as wriggle cuts on most musical instrument engraving work, remove background. Knife gravers are for line engraving and very deep cuts, round gravers, and flat gravers with a radius, are commonly used on silver to create bright cuts, as well as other hard-to-cut metals such as nickel and steel. Square or V-point gravers are typically square or elongated diamond-shaped and used for cutting straight lines, V-point can be anywhere from 60 to 130 degrees, depending on purpose and effect. These gravers have very small cutting points, other tools such as mezzotint rockers, roulets and burnishers are used for texturing effects. Burnishing tools can also be used for stone setting techniques
20.
Chemistry
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Chemistry is a branch of physical science that studies the composition, structure, properties and change of matter. Chemistry is sometimes called the science because it bridges other natural sciences, including physics. For the differences between chemistry and physics see comparison of chemistry and physics, the history of chemistry can be traced to alchemy, which had been practiced for several millennia in various parts of the world. The word chemistry comes from alchemy, which referred to a set of practices that encompassed elements of chemistry, metallurgy, philosophy, astrology, astronomy, mysticism. An alchemist was called a chemist in popular speech, and later the suffix -ry was added to this to describe the art of the chemist as chemistry, the modern word alchemy in turn is derived from the Arabic word al-kīmīā. In origin, the term is borrowed from the Greek χημία or χημεία and this may have Egyptian origins since al-kīmīā is derived from the Greek χημία, which is in turn derived from the word Chemi or Kimi, which is the ancient name of Egypt in Egyptian. Alternately, al-kīmīā may derive from χημεία, meaning cast together, in retrospect, the definition of chemistry has changed over time, as new discoveries and theories add to the functionality of the science. The term chymistry, in the view of noted scientist Robert Boyle in 1661, in 1837, Jean-Baptiste Dumas considered the word chemistry to refer to the science concerned with the laws and effects of molecular forces. More recently, in 1998, Professor Raymond Chang broadened the definition of chemistry to mean the study of matter, early civilizations, such as the Egyptians Babylonians, Indians amassed practical knowledge concerning the arts of metallurgy, pottery and dyes, but didnt develop a systematic theory. Greek atomism dates back to 440 BC, arising in works by such as Democritus and Epicurus. In 50 BC, the Roman philosopher Lucretius expanded upon the theory in his book De rerum natura, unlike modern concepts of science, Greek atomism was purely philosophical in nature, with little concern for empirical observations and no concern for chemical experiments. Work, particularly the development of distillation, continued in the early Byzantine period with the most famous practitioner being the 4th century Greek-Egyptian Zosimos of Panopolis. He formulated Boyles law, rejected the four elements and proposed a mechanistic alternative of atoms. Before his work, though, many important discoveries had been made, the Scottish chemist Joseph Black and the Dutchman J. B. English scientist John Dalton proposed the theory of atoms, that all substances are composed of indivisible atoms of matter. Davy discovered nine new elements including the alkali metals by extracting them from their oxides with electric current, british William Prout first proposed ordering all the elements by their atomic weight as all atoms had a weight that was an exact multiple of the atomic weight of hydrogen. The inert gases, later called the noble gases were discovered by William Ramsay in collaboration with Lord Rayleigh at the end of the century, thereby filling in the basic structure of the table. Organic chemistry was developed by Justus von Liebig and others, following Friedrich Wöhlers synthesis of urea which proved that organisms were, in theory
21.
Bavarian National Museum
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The Bavarian National Museum in Munich is one of the most important museums of decorative arts in Europe and one of the largest art museums in Germany. Since the beginning the collection has been divided into two groups, the art historical collection and the folklore collection. The museum was founded by King Maximilian II of Bavaria in 1855 and it houses a large collection of European artifacts from the late antiquity until the early 20th century with particular strengths in the medieval through early modern periods. The building, erected in the style of historicism by Gabriel von Seidl 1894-1900, is one of the most original and it is situated in the Prinzregentenstrasse, one of the citys four royal avenues. The house replaced a building which houses today the Museum Five Continents. Already in 1905/06, the museum was expanded to the north by a few rooms, German Bestelmeyer added a wing at the southeast corner in 1937. The main building of the Bavarian National Museum includes on three floors exhibition rooms with in total about 13,000 square meters, the core of the collection dates from the art collection of the Wittelsbach family. This gives the National Museum an importance far beyond the local area, diversity and breadth of the collections, however, were particularly motivated by the new additions to the subsequent period. To date, the inventory is updated continuously not only through acquisitions, support experienced by the National Museum, in particular, by the 1960 launched club Friends of the Bavarian National Museum. The National Museum has several museums throughout Bavaria. The western side wing of the museum houses The Bollert Collection with late medieval sculptures, the museum is especially noted for its collections of carved ivory, goldsmith works, textiles, glass painting, tapestries and shrines. The museum is famous for its collections of courtly culture, musical instruments, furniture, oil paintings, sketches, clocks, stoneware, majolica, miniatures, porcelain and faience and it has probably the worlds best collection of the Nymphenburg porcelain figures of Franz Anton Bustelli. The Romanesque period is represented by sculptures from the monastery of Wessobrunn. Important pieces of Romanesque art include wooden figures of crucifixion groups from Bamberg, Schongau and Kaufbeuren, the Kasten der Heiligen Kunigunde, is a unique masterpiece made in the year 1000 in Scandinavia of wood, bronze and narwhal tusk. Key works of art, important stained glass windows. On display are also historic Gothic chamber ensembles such as the magnificently painted Zunftstube of Augsburg weavers, the Bavarian National Museum displays one of the largest and most important collections of late medieval sculpture from the German-speaking countries. Special attractions are the knights hall with the ceremonial armor of the 15th and 16th Century. The portrait art of the Renaissance is represented by medals, miniatures, paintings, many items come from the art chamber of the Wittelsbach family
22.
Asteroid belt
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The asteroid belt is the circumstellar disc in the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets, the asteroid belt is also termed the main asteroid belt or main belt to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the Solar System such as near-Earth asteroids and trojan asteroids. About half the mass of the belt is contained in the four largest asteroids, Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, the total mass of the asteroid belt is approximately 4% that of the Moon, or 22% that of Pluto, and roughly twice that of Plutos moon Charon. Ceres, the belts only dwarf planet, is about 950 km in diameter, whereas Vesta, Pallas. The remaining bodies range down to the size of a dust particle, the asteroid material is so thinly distributed that numerous unmanned spacecraft have traversed it without incident. Nonetheless, collisions between large asteroids do occur, and these can form a family whose members have similar orbital characteristics. Individual asteroids within the belt are categorized by their spectra. The asteroid belt formed from the solar nebula as a group of planetesimals. Planetesimals are the precursors of the protoplanets. Between Mars and Jupiter, however, gravitational perturbations from Jupiter imbued the protoplanets with too much energy for them to accrete into a planet. Collisions became too violent, and instead of fusing together, the planetesimals, as a result,99. 9% of the asteroid belts original mass was lost in the first 100 million years of the Solar Systems history. Some fragments eventually found their way into the inner Solar System, Asteroid orbits continue to be appreciably perturbed whenever their period of revolution about the Sun forms an orbital resonance with Jupiter. At these orbital distances, a Kirkwood gap occurs as they are swept into other orbits. Classes of small Solar System bodies in other regions are the objects, the centaurs, the Kuiper belt objects, the scattered disc objects, the sednoids. On 22 January 2014, ESA scientists reported the detection, for the first definitive time, of water vapor on Ceres, the detection was made by using the far-infrared abilities of the Herschel Space Observatory. The finding was unexpected because comets, not asteroids, are considered to sprout jets. According to one of the scientists, The lines are becoming more and more blurred between comets and asteroids. This pattern, now known as the Titius–Bode law, predicted the semi-major axes of the six planets of the provided one allowed for a gap between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter
23.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
24.
Time (magazine)
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Time is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It was founded in 1923 and for decades was dominated by Henry Luce, a European edition is published in London and also covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong, the South Pacific edition, which covers Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, is based in Sydney, Australia. In December 2008, Time discontinued publishing a Canadian advertiser edition, Time has the worlds largest circulation for a weekly news magazine, and has a readership of 26 million,20 million of which are based in the United States. As of 2012, it had a circulation of 3.3 million making it the eleventh most circulated magazine in the United States reception room circuit, as of 2015, its circulation was 3,036,602. Richard Stengel was the editor from May 2006 to October 2013. Nancy Gibbs has been the editor since October 2013. Time magazine was created in 1923 by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce, the two had previously worked together as chairman and managing editor respectively of the Yale Daily News. They first called the proposed magazine Facts and they wanted to emphasize brevity, so that a busy man could read it in an hour. They changed the name to Time and used the slogan Take Time–Its Brief and it set out to tell the news through people, and for many decades the magazines cover depicted a single person. More recently, Time has incorporated People of the Year issues which grew in popularity over the years, notable mentions of them were Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Matej Turk, etc. The first issue of Time was published on March 3,1923, featuring Joseph G. Cannon, the retired Speaker of the House of Representatives, on its cover, a facsimile reprint of Issue No. 1, including all of the articles and advertisements contained in the original, was included with copies of the February 28,1938 issue as a commemoration of the magazines 15th anniversary. The cover price was 15¢ On Haddens death in 1929, Luce became the dominant man at Time, the Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1923–1941. In 1929, Roy Larsen was also named a Time Inc. director, J. P. Morgan retained a certain control through two directorates and a share of stocks, both over Time and Fortune. Other shareholders were Brown Brothers W. A. Harriman & Co. the Intimate History of a Changing Enterprise 1957–1983. According to the September 10,1979 issue of The New York Times, after Time magazine began publishing its weekly issues in March 1923, Roy Larsen was able to increase its circulation by utilizing U. S. radio and movie theaters around the world. It often promoted both Time magazine and U. S. political and corporate interests, Larsen next arranged for a 30-minute radio program, The March of Time, to be broadcast over CBS, beginning on March 6,1931
25.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
26.
Victoria and Albert Museum
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The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is the worlds largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and these include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Royal Albert Hall. The museum is a public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media. Like other national British museums, entrance to the museum has been free since 2001, the V&A covers 12.5 acres and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa. The museum owns the worlds largest collection of sculpture, with the holdings of Italian Renaissance items being the largest outside Italy. The departments of Asia include art from South Asia, China, Japan, Korea, the East Asian collections are among the best in Europe, with particular strengths in ceramics and metalwork, while the Islamic collection is amongst the largest in the Western world. Overall, it is one of the largest museums in the world, New 17th- and 18th-century European galleries were opened on 9 December 2015. These restored the original Aston Webb interiors and host the European collections 1600–1815, at this stage the collections covered both applied art and science. Several of the exhibits from the Exhibition were purchased to form the nucleus of the collection, by February 1854 discussions were underway to transfer the museum to the current site and it was renamed South Kensington Museum. In 1855 the German architect Gottfried Semper, at the request of Cole, produced a design for the museum, but it was rejected by the Board of Trade as too expensive. The site was occupied by Brompton Park House, this was extended including the first refreshment rooms opened in 1857, the official opening by Queen Victoria was on 22 June 1857. In the following year, late night openings were introduced, made possible by the use of gas lighting, in these early years the practical use of the collection was very much emphasised as opposed to that of High Art at the National Gallery and scholarship at the British Museum. George Wallis, the first Keeper of Fine Art Collection, passionately promoted the idea of art education through the museum collections. From the 1860s to the 1880s the scientific collections had been moved from the museum site to various improvised galleries to the west of Exhibition Road. In 1893 the Science Museum had effectively come into existence when a director was appointed. The laying of the stone of the Aston Webb building on 17 May 1899 was the last official public appearance by Queen Victoria. It was during this ceremony that the change of name from the South Kensington Museum to the Victoria, the exhibition which the museum organised to celebrate the centennial of the 1899 renaming, A Grand Design, first toured in North America from 1997, returning to London in 1999
27.
Christie's
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Christies is a historic British auction house. It was founded in 1766 by James Christie and its main premises are in King Street, St. Jamess, in London, and on Rockefeller Plaza in New York City in the United States. The company is owned by Groupe Artémis, the company of François-Henri Pinault. Sales in 2015 totalled £4.8 billion, however, other sources note that James Christie rented auction rooms from 1762, and newspaper advertisements of Christies sales dating from 1759 have also been traced. Christies soon established a reputation as an auction house. From 1859, the company was called Christie, Manson & Woods, in 1958, it established its first overseas office, by placing a representative in Rome. The first overseas salesroom opened in Geneva, where Christies holds jewellery auctions, Christies was a public company, listed on the London Stock Exchange from 1973 to 1999. In 1974, Jo Floyd was appointed chairman of Christies and he served as chairman of Christies International plc. from 1976 to 1988, until handing over to Lord Carrington, and later was a non-executive member of the board of directors until 1992. The auction houses subsidiary Christies International Inc. held its first sale in the United States in 1977,13 years later than Sothebys, Christies growth was slow but steady since 1989, when it had 42 percent of the auction market. In 1990, the company reversed a policy and guaranteed a minimum price for a collection of artworks in its May auctions. In 1996, the auction houses sales eclipsed Sothebys for the first time since 1954. In 1993, Christies paid $10.9 million for the London gallery Spink & Sons, which specialised in Oriental art and British paintings, the company bought Leger Gallery for $3.3 million in 1996, and merged it with Spink to become Spink-Leger. The company has not been reporting profits, though it gives sale totals twice a year. Its policy, in line with U. K. accounting standards, is to convert non-U. K, results using an average exchange rate weighted daily by sales throughout the year. In 2002, Christies France held its first auction in Paris, like Sothebys, Christies became increasingly involved in high-profile private transactions. Under the original deal, the gallery was meant to be the channel for all of Christies private-client business as well as the focus of its primary trade. Also, the house originally announced that Haunch employees could not bid at auction because of conflicts of interest or issues of market manipulation. Today, the continues to operate as an independent company in London and New York
28.
Integrated Authority File
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The Integrated Authority File or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used mainly for documentation in libraries and increasingly also by archives, the GND is managed by the German National Library in cooperation with various regional library networks in German-speaking Europe and other partners. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero license, the GND specification provides a hierarchy of high-level entities and sub-classes, useful in library classification, and an approach to unambiguous identification of single elements. It also comprises an ontology intended for knowledge representation in the semantic web, available in the RDF format
29.
Historical Dictionary of Switzerland
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The encyclopedia is published by a foundation under the patronage of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Swiss Historical Society and is financed by national research grants. Besides a staff of 35 at the offices, the contributors include 100 academic advisors,2500 historians and 100 translators. The encyclopedia is being edited simultaneously in three languages of Switzerland, German, French and Italian. The first of 13 volumes was published in 2002, the last volume was published in 2014. The 36,000 headings are grouped in, Biographies Articles on families and it makes accessible, for free, all articles ready for publication in print, but no illustrations. It also lists all 36,000 topics that are to be covered, lexicon Istoric Retic is a two volume version with a selection of articles published in Romansh. It includes articles not available in the other languages, the first volume was published in 2010, the second in 2012. An on-line version is also available
30.
Netherlands Institute for Art History
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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, archives, 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, categorize, 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 also 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, https, 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 also assigns a record for each term, rather, 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 also 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
31.
Virtual International Authority File
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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 also 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 also 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
