1.
Oil painting
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Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. Commonly used drying oils include linseed oil, poppy seed oil, walnut oil, the choice of oil imparts a range of properties to the oil paint, such as the amount of yellowing or drying time. Certain differences, depending on the oil, are visible in the sheen of the paints. An artist might use different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The paints themselves also develop a particular consistency depending on the medium, the oil may be boiled with a resin, such as pine resin or frankincense, to create a varnish prized for its body and gloss. Its practice may have migrated westward during the Middle Ages, Oil paint eventually became the principal medium used for creating artworks as its advantages became widely known. In recent years, water miscible oil paint has come to prominence and, to some extent, water-soluble paints contain an emulsifier that allows them to be thinned with water rather than paint thinner, and allows very fast drying times when compared with traditional oils. Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with the artist sketching the subject onto the canvas with charcoal or thinned paint, Oil paint is usually mixed with linseed oil, artist grade mineral spirits, or other solvents to make the paint thinner, faster or slower-drying. A basic rule of oil paint application is fat over lean and this means that each additional layer of paint should contain more oil than the layer below to allow proper drying. If each additional layer contains less oil, the painting will crack. This rule does not ensure permanence, it is the quality and type of oil leads to a strong. There are many media that can be used with the oil, including cold wax, resins. These aspects of the paint are closely related to the capacity of oil paint. Traditionally, paint was transferred to the surface using paintbrushes. Oil paint remains wet longer than other types of artists materials, enabling the artist to change the color. At times, the painter might even remove a layer of paint. This can be done with a rag and some turpentine for a time while the paint is wet, Oil paint dries by oxidation, not evaporation, and is usually dry to the touch within a span of two weeks. It is generally dry enough to be varnished in six months to a year, art conservators do not consider an oil painting completely dry until it is 60 to 80 years old
2.
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
3.
William Hogarth
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William Hogarth FRSA was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic, and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic series of pictures called modern moral subjects. Knowledge of his work is so pervasive that satirical political illustrations in this style are referred to as Hogarthian. William Hogarth was born at Bartholomew Close in London to Richard Hogarth, a poor Latin school teacher and textbook writer, in his youth he was apprenticed to the engraver Ellis Gamble in Leicester Fields, where he learned to engrave trade cards and similar products. Young Hogarth also took a lively interest in the life of the metropolis and the London fairs. Around the same time, his father, who had opened an unsuccessful Latin-speaking coffee house at St Johns Gate, was imprisoned for debt in Fleet Prison for five years, Hogarth never spoke of his fathers imprisonment. Hogarth became a member of the Rose and Crown Club, with Peter Tillemans, George Vertue, Michael Dahl, by April 1720, Hogarth was an engraver in his own right, at first engraving coats of arms, shop bills, and designing plates for booksellers. In 1727, he was hired by Joshua Morris, a tapestry worker, Morris heard that he was an engraver, and no painter, and consequently declined the work when completed. Hogarth accordingly sued him for the money in the Westminster Court, in 1757 he was appointed Serjeant Painter to the King. In the bottom corner, he shows Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish figures gambling, while in the middle there is a huge machine, like a merry-go-round. At the top is a goat, written below which is Whol Ride, Other early works include The Lottery, The Mystery of Masonry brought to Light by the Gormogons, A Just View of the British Stage, some book illustrations, and the small print Masquerades and Operas. He continued that theme in 1727, with the Large Masquerade Ticket, in 1726 Hogarth prepared twelve large engravings for Samuel Butlers Hudibras. These he himself valued highly, and they are among his best book illustrations, in the following years he turned his attention to the production of small conversation pieces. One of his real low-life and real-life subjects was Sarah Malcolm who he sketched two days before her execution and he might also have printed Burlington Gate, evoked by Alexander Popes Epistle to Lord Burlington, and defending Lord Chandos, who is therein satirized. This print gave great offence, and was suppressed, however, modern authorities such as Ronald Paulson no longer attribute it to Hogarth. In 1731 Hogarth completed the earliest of his series of moral works, the collection of six scenes was entitled A Harlots Progress and appeared first as paintings before being published as engravings. The inaugural series was a success and was followed in 1735 by the sequel A Rakes Progress. The original paintings of A Harlots Progress were destroyed in the fire at Fonthill House in 1755, while A Rakes Progress is displayed in the room at Sir John Soanes Museum, London
4.
Canvassing
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Canvassing is the systematic initiation of direct contact with individuals, commonly used during political campaigns. Campaigners will knock on doors or make calls to engage in personalized contact with an individual. It is the element of what political campaigns call the ground game or field. It is less common in campaigns of Continental Europe and East Asian democracies, canvassing can also refer to a neighborhood canvass performed by law enforcement in the course of an investigation. A neighborhood canvas is an approach to interviewing residents, merchants. A modern election canvass is conducted either by a candidate, volunteers, the canvassers are given lists known as canvass sheets or in the UK as reading pads. These are a list of households to be contacted, generated from a voter database, some campaigns today have replaced paper sheets with tablet or smartphone apps. The canvasser will attempt to reach each of the households on their list, almost all election canvassing includes asking how a person plans to vote. Supporters will then be asked themselves to volunteer, or to take a lawn sign and those who are wavering or undecided may be given a message of persuasion. If foot canvassing, the canvasser will also distribute flyers, upon completing the canvass, the results will be entered into the voter database. This will update the campaigns list of voters, removing those who have moved or are deceased and adding new residents who may have been found. The data on the questions will be used for further contact, the origin of the term is an older spelling of “canvas”, to sift by shaking in a sheet of canvas, hence to discuss thoroughly. An organized canvass can be seen as early as the elections of the Roman Republic, in those campaigns candidates would shake the hands of all eligible voters in the Forum. Whispering into the ear of some candidates would be a nomenclator, modern canvassing traces back to the rise of contested elections in England. For the first centuries of the English Parliament elections were rarely contested, losing an election was considered a dishonor to oneself, and to friends and family. Campaigning thus involved quiet sounding out of the pool of voters. Only once this process had convinced a candidate that he had enough votes to win would he declare his interest in the seat, beginning in the Elizabethan Era, and expanding during the conflicts under the Stuarts, elections began to be openly contested. In both 1604 and 1626 canvassing for votes was banned and it was seen as a violation to free elections, as votes would be won by persuasion rather than a voter making up his own mind
5.
Unreformed House of Commons
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The unreformed House of Commons is a name given to the House of Commons of Great Britain and the House of Commons of the United Kingdom before it was reformed by the Reform Act 1832. From 1707 to 1801 the term refers to the House of Commons of Great Britain, until the Act of Union of 1801 joining the Kingdom of Ireland to Great Britain, Ireland also had its own Parliament. From 1801 to 1832, therefore, the term refers to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, in medieval political theory it was believed that sovereignty flowed from God, not from the people, and that monarchy was the form of government ordained by God. The King was the Lords anointed, and it was the duty of the people to obey the King as Gods representative, to this idea was added the practical consideration that it was easier for the King to collect the taxes he needed if the people consented to pay them. The House of Commons consisted entirely of men, mostly of substantial property, women could neither vote nor stand for election. Members of Parliament were not paid, which meant that men of wealth could serve. Candidates had to be electors, which meant that in most places they had to have substantial property, virtually all members representing county seats were landed gentry. Many were relatives or dependents of peers, while others were independent squires and these independent country gentlemen were often the only source of opposition to the government of the day, since they had no need to gain government favour through their votes in the House. Members for borough seats were also local squires, but were more frequently merchants or urban professionals such as lawyers. Some borough members were men of means, sometimes in debt or insolvent. All 18th century governments depended on this element to maintain their majorities. Some boroughs were under the control of particular ministers or government departments, the members representing the Cinque Ports, for example, were traditionally dependants of the Admiralty and spoke for the interests of the Royal Navy. Even after 1778, eligibility for election to the House of Commons was restricted by the fact that members had to take an Anglican oath to take their seats and this excluded Catholics, non-Anglican Protestants, Jews and atheists from the House. It is a widely held view that the quality of members of the House of Commons declined over the 250 years before its reform in 1832, in the boroughs, he wrote, competition tended to eliminate the less vigorous, less intelligent and unambitious. What did not change was the dominance of country gentlemen in the House. In 1584 they comprised 240 members in a House of 460, two hundred years later this proportion had hardly changed, even though the social composition of Britain had changed radically over that time. But the proportion of independent members had declined, the proportion of these members who were sons or close relatives of peers rose considerably over this period. In 1584 only 24 members were sons of peers, by the end of the 18th century this number had risen to about 130, in the 18th century about 50 members of the House held ministerial or similar government offices
6.
Reform Act 1832
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The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales. According to its preamble, the Act was designed to take effectual Measures for correcting divers Abuses that have prevailed in the Choice of Members to serve in the Commons House of Parliament. Before the reform, most members nominally represented boroughs, the number of electors in a borough varied widely, from a dozen or so up to 12,000. Frequently the selection of MPs was effectively controlled by one patron, for example Charles Howard. Criteria for qualification for the franchise varied greatly among boroughs, from the requirement to own land, there had been calls for reform long before 1832, but without success. The Act that finally succeeded was proposed by the Whigs, led by Prime Minister Charles Grey and it met with significant opposition from the Pittite factions in Parliament, who had long governed the country, opposition was especially pronounced in the House of Lords. Nevertheless, the bill was passed, mainly as a result of public pressure. The Act also increased the electorate from about 500,000 to 813,000, with one in five adult males allowed to vote. The full title is An Act to amend the representation of the people in England and its formal short title and citation is Representation of the People Act 1832. The Act applied only in England and Wales, the Scottish Reform Act 1832 and Irish Reform Act 1832 brought similar changes to Scotland and Ireland, respectively. After the Act of Union 1800, sometimes referred to as the Act of Union 1801, there were two types of constituencies, counties and boroughs. County members were supposed to represent landholders, while members were supposed to represent the mercantile. Counties were historical national subdivisions established between the 8th and 16th centuries and they were not merely parliamentary constituencies, many components of government were organised along county lines. The members of Parliament chosen by the counties were known as Knights of the Shire, Parliamentary boroughs in England ranged widely in size from small hamlets to large cities, partly because they had evolved haphazardly. The earliest boroughs were chosen in the Middle Ages by county sheriffs, in later centuries the reigning monarch decided which settlements to enfranchise. The monarchs seem mostly to have done so capriciously, often with regard for the merits of the place they were enfranchising. Of the 70 English boroughs that Tudor monarchs enfranchised,31 were later disenfranchised, after Newark was enfranchised in 1661, no additional boroughs were enfranchised, and the unfair system remained unchanged until the Reform Act of 1832. Grampounds disenfranchisement in 1821 was the sole exception, most English boroughs elected two MPs, but five boroughs elected only one MP, Abingdon, Banbury, Bewdley, Higham Ferrers and Monmouth
7.
Secret ballot
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The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voters choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous, forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation and potential vote buying. The system is one means of achieving the goal of political privacy, Secret ballots are used in conjunction with many different voting systems. The most basic form of secret ballot uses blank pieces of paper, without revealing the votes to anyone, the voter would fold the ballot paper and place it in a sealed box, which is emptied later for counting. An aspect of secret voting is the provision of a booth to enable the voter to write on the ballot paper without others being able to see what is being written. Today, printed ballot papers are provided, with the names of the candidates or questions. Provisions are made at the place for the voters to record their preferences in secret. The ballots are designed to eliminate bias and to prevent anyone from linking voter to ballot, a problem of privacy arises with moves to improve efficiency of voting by the introduction of postal voting and electronic voting. Some countries permit proxy voting, which some argue is inconsistent with voting privacy, in ancient Greece, secret ballots were used in several situations, like ostracism, and also to remain hidden from people seeking favors. In ancient Rome, the laws regulating elections were known as Tabellariae Leges. Today the practice of casting secret ballots is so commonplace that most voters would not consider any other method might be used. Other methods which had used and which are still used in some places. Other public voting methods include raising a hand to indicate a vote, article 31 of the Constitution of the Year III of the revolution states that All elections are to be held by secret ballot. The same goes with the constitution of 1848, voters could hand-write the name of their candidate on their ballot at home or receive one in a distribution in the street. The ballot is folded in order to prevent other people from reading its content, louis-Napoléon Bonaparte attempted to abolish the secret ballot for the 1851 plebiscite with an electoral decree requesting electors to write down yes or no under the eyes of everyone. But he faced an opposition and finally changed his mind. According to the web site of the Assemblée nationale, the voting booth was permanently adopted only in 1913. The demand for a ballot was one of the six points of Chartism. The London School Board election of 1870 was the first large-scale election by secret ballot in Britain, the original ballot box, sealed in wax with a liquorice stamp, is held at Pontefract museum
8.
Sir John Soane's Museum
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Sir John Soanes Museum was formerly the home of the neo-classical architect John Soane. It holds many drawings and models of Soanes projects and the collections of paintings, drawings, the museum is located in Holborn, London, adjacent to Lincolns Inn Fields. It is a public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media. Soane demolished and rebuilt three houses in succession on the side of Lincolns Inn Fields. 12, externally a plain brick house, after becoming Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy in 1806, Soane purchased No. 13, the next door, today the Museum. In 1808–09 he constructed his office and museum on the site of the former stable block at the back. In 1812 he rebuilt the front part of the site, adding a projecting Portland Stone facade to the basement, ground and first floor levels, originally this formed three open loggias, but Soane glazed the arches during his lifetime. Once he had moved into No,13, Soane rented out his former home at No.12. After completing No.13, Soane set about treating the building as an architectural laboratory, in 1823, when he was over 70, he purchased a third house, No. 14, which he rebuilt in 1823–24 and this project allowed him to construct a picture gallery, linked to No.13, on the former stable block of No.14. The front main part of this house was treated as a separate dwelling and let as an investment. When he died No.14 was bequeathed to his family, the Museum was established during Soanes own lifetime by a Private Act of Parliament in 1833, which took effect on Soanes death in 1837. The Act required that No.13 be maintained as nearly as possible as it was left at the time of Soanes death, and he also wrote an anonymous, defamatory piece for the Sunday papers about Sir John, calling him a cheat, a charlatan and a copyist. The Museums Trustees remained completely independent, relying only on Soanes original endowment, since that date the Museum has received an annual Grant-in-Aid from the British Government. The Soane Museum is now a centre for the study of architecture. In 1997 the Trustees purchased the house at No.14 with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund. The acquisition of No.14 enabled the Museum, under its new Director, Tim Knox, to embark on Opening up the Soane and it is funded by the Monument Trust, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Soane Foundation in New York, and other private trusts
9.
Whigs (British political party)
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The Whigs were a political faction and then a political party in the parliaments of England, Scotland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and 1850s, they contested power with their rivals, the Whigs origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute monarchy. The Whigs played a role in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and were the standing enemies of the Stuart kings and pretenders. The Whigs took full control of the government in 1715, and remained dominant until King George III, coming to the throne in 1760. The Whig Supremacy was enabled by the Hanoverian succession of George I in 1714, the Whigs thoroughly purged the Tories from all major positions in government, the army, the Church of England, the legal profession, and local offices. The Partys hold on power was so strong and durable, historians call the period from roughly 1714 to 1783 the age of the Whig Oligarchy. The first great leader of the Whigs was Robert Walpole, who maintained control of the government through the period 1721–1742, his protégé was Henry Pelham, who led from 1743 to 1754. Both parties were founded on rich politicians, more than on votes, there were elections to the House of Commons. The Whig Party slowly evolved during the 18th century, later on, the Whigs drew support from the emerging industrial interests and wealthy merchants, while the Tories drew support from the landed interests and the royal family. The term Whig was originally short for whiggamor, a term meaning cattle driver used to describe western Scots who came to Leith for corn. In the reign of Charles I the term was used during Wars of the Three Kingdoms to refer derisively to a faction of the Scottish Covenanters who called themselves the Kirk Party. It was then applied to Scottish Presbyterian rebels who were against the Kings Episcopalian order in Scotland, Whig was a term of abuse applied to those who wanted to exclude James on the grounds that he was a Roman Catholic. The fervent Tory Samuel Johnson often joked that the first Whig was the Devil, the Whigs, under Lord Shaftesburys leadership, wished to exclude the Duke of York from the throne due to his Catholicism, his favouring of monarchical absolutism and his connections to France. They believed the Duke, if allowed to inherit the throne, would endanger the Protestant religion, liberty, the first Exclusion Bill was supported by a substantial majority on its second reading in May 1679. In response, King Charles prorogued Parliament and then dissolved it and this new parliament did not meet for thirteen months, because Charles wanted to give passions a chance to die down. When it met in October 1680, an Exclusion Bill was introduced and passed in the Commons without major resistance, Charles dissolved Parliament in January 1681, but the Whigs did not suffer serious losses in the ensuing election. The next Parliament first met in March, at Oxford, but Charles dissolved it only after a few days, when he made an appeal to the country against the Whigs, and determined to rule without Parliament. In February, Charles had made a deal with the French King Louis XIV, without Parliament, the Whigs gradually crumbled, mainly due to the Rye House Plot
10.
History of the Jews in England
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The history of the Jews in England goes back to the reign of William the Conqueror. The first written record of Jewish settlement in England dates from 1070, the Jewish presence continued until King Edward Is Edict of Expulsion in 1290. After the expulsion, there was no Jewish community, apart from individuals who practised Judaism secretly, while Cromwell never officially readmitted Jews to Britain, a small colony of Sephardic Jews living in London was identified in 1656 and allowed to remain. The Jewish Naturalisation Act of 1753, an attempt to legalise the Jewish presence in England, at the insistence of Irish leader Daniel OConnell, in 1846 the British law De Judaismo, which prescribed a special dress for Jews, was repealed. Due to the lack of violence in Britain in the 19th century, it acquired a reputation for religious tolerance. In the 1930s and 1940s, some European Jews fled to England to escape the Nazis, Jews faced anti-Semitism and stereotypes in Britain, and anti-Semitism in most cases went along with Germanophobia to the extent that Jews were equated with Germans in the early 20th century. This led many Jewish families to Anglicise their often German-sounding names, Jews in Britain now number 300,000, and England contains the second largest Jewish population in Europe and the fifth largest Jewish community worldwide. There is no evidence of Jews residing in England before the Norman Conquest, the few references in the Anglo-Saxon Church laws relate to Jewish practices about Easter. William of Malmesbury states that William the Conqueror brought Jews from Rouen to England, at first the status of Jews was not strictly determined. Henry granted a charter to Rabbi Joseph, the chief Rabbi of London, special weight was attributed to a Jews oath, which was valid against that of twelve Christians. The sixth clause of the charter was especially important, it granted to Jews the right to move wherever they wanted, as if they were the kings own property. Gentile-Jewish relations in England were disturbed under King Stephen, who burned down the house of a Jew in Oxford because he refused to pay a contribution to the kings expenses. In 1144 came the first report in history of the blood libel against Jews, Anthony Julius finds that the English were endlessly imaginative in inventing anti-Semitic allegations against the Jews. He says that England became the promoter, and indeed in some sense the inventor of literary anti-Semitism. In his book, Julius argues that blood libel is the key, because it incorporates the themes that Jews are malevolent, constantly conspiring against Christians, powerful, variations include stories about Jews poisoning wells, twisting minds, and buying and selling Christian souls and bodies. While the Crusaders were killing Jews in Germany, outbursts against Jews in England were, according to Jewish chroniclers, with the restoration of order under Henry II, Jews renewed their activity. Within five years of his accession Jews were found at London, Oxford, Cambridge, Norwich, Thetford, Bungay, Canterbury, Winchester, Newport, Stafford, Windsor, and Reading. Yet they were not permitted to bury their dead elsewhere than in London and their spread throughout the country enabled the king to draw upon their resources as occasion demanded
