1.
Southampton
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Southampton, on the south coast of England, is the largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire. It is 75 miles south-west of London and 19 miles north-west of Portsmouth, Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest. It lies at the northernmost point of Southampton Water at the confluence of the Rivers Test and Itchen, the city, which is a unitary authority, has an estimated population of 253,651. The citys name is abbreviated in writing to Soton or Soton. Significant employers in the city include the University of Southampton, Southampton Solent University, Southampton Airport, Ordnance Survey, BBC South, Southampton has a large shopping centre and retail park, Westquay. In 2014, the city approved a follow-up from the Westquay park, WestQuay Watermark. This built-up area is part of the area known as South Hampshire. With a population of over 1.5 million this makes the one of the United Kingdoms most populous metropolitan areas. Archaeological finds suggest that the area has been inhabited since the stone age, following the Roman invasion of Britain in AD43 and the conquering of the local Britons in 70 AD the fortress settlement of Clausentum was established. It was an important trading port and defensive outpost of Winchester, Clausentum was defended by a wall and two ditches and is thought to have contained a bath house. Clausentum was not abandoned until around 410, the Anglo-Saxons formed a new, larger, settlement across the Itchen centred on what is now the St Marys area of the city. The settlement was known as Hamwic, which evolved into Hamtun, archaeological excavations of this site have uncovered one of the best collections of Saxon artefacts in Europe. It is from this town that the county of Hampshire gets its name, viking raids from 840 onwards contributed to the decline of Hamwic in the 9th century, and by the 10th century a fortified settlement, which became medieval Southampton, had been established. Following the Norman Conquest in 1066, Southampton became the port of transit between the then capital of England, Winchester, and Normandy. By the 13th century Southampton had become a port, particularly involved in the import of French wine in exchange for English cloth. The Franciscan friary in Southampton was founded circa 1233, the friars constructed a water supply system in 1290, which carried water from Conduit Head some 1.7 kilometres to the site of the friary inside the town walls. Further remains can be observed at Conduit House on Commercial Road, the friars granted use of the water to the town in 1310. The town was sacked in 1338 by French, Genoese and Monegasque ships, on visiting Southampton in 1339, Edward III ordered that walls be built to close the town
2.
Hampshire
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Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, the capital city of England. The larger South Hampshire metropolitan area has a population of 1,547,000, Hampshire is notable for housing the birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force. It is bordered by Dorset to the west, Wiltshire to the north-west, Berkshire to the north, Surrey to the north-east, the southern boundary is the coastline of the English Channel and the Solent, facing the Isle of Wight. At its greatest size in 1890, Hampshire was the fifth largest county in England and it now has an overall area of 3,700 square kilometres, and measures about 86 kilometres east–west and 76 kilometres north–south. Hampshires tourist attractions include many seaside resorts and two parks, the New Forest and the South Downs. Hampshire has a maritime history and two of Europes largest ports, Portsmouth and Southampton, lie on its coast. The county is famed as home of writers Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, Hampshire takes its name from the settlement that is now the city of Southampton. Southampton was known in Old English as Hamtun, roughly meaning village-town, the old name was recorded in the Domesday book as Hantescire, and it is from this spelling that the modern abbreviation Hants derives. From 1889 until 1959, the county was named the County of Southampton and has also been known as Southamptonshire. The region is believed to have continuously occupied since the end of the last Ice Age about 12,000 BCE. At this time Britain was still attached to the European continent and was covered with deciduous woodland. The first inhabitants came overland from Europe, these were anatomically and behaviourally modern humans, notable sites from this period include Bouldnor Cliff. Agriculture had arrived in southern Britain by 4000 BCE, and with it a neolithic culture, some deforestation took place at that time, although it was during the Bronze Age, beginning in 2200 BCE, that this became more widespread and systematic. Hampshire has few monuments to show from early periods, although nearby Stonehenge was built in several phases at some time between 3100 BCE and 2200 BCE. It is maintained that by this period the people of Britain predominantly spoke a Celtic language, hillforts largely declined in importance in the second half of the second century BCE, with many being abandoned. Julius Caesar invaded southeastern England briefly in 55 and again in 54 BCE, notable sites from this period include Hengistbury Head, which was a major port. There is a Museum of the Iron Age in Andover, the Romans invaded Britain again in 43 CE, and Hampshire was incorporated into the Roman province of Britannia very quickly
3.
Kensington
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Kensington is an affluent district within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London. Its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, the affluent and densely populated area contains the major museum district of South Kensington, which has the Royal Albert Hall for music and nearby Royal College of Music. The area is home to many of Londons European embassies, the first mention of the area is in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it was written in Latin as Chenesitone, which has been interpreted to have originally been Kenesignetun in Anglo-Saxon. A variation may be Kesyngton, in 1396 and he in turn granted the tenancy of Kensington to his vassal Aubrey de Vere I, who was holding the manor in 1086, according to Domesday Book. The bishops heir, Robert de Mowbray, rebelled against William Rufus, Aubrey de Vere I had his tenure converted to a tenancy in-chief, holding Kensington after 1095 directly of the crown. He granted land and church there to Abingdon Abbey at the deathbed request of his young eldest son, Geoffrey. As the Veres became the earls of Oxford, their estate at Kensington came to be known as Earls Court, while the Abingdon lands were called Abbots Kensington and the church St Mary Abbots. The original Kensington Barracks, built at Kensington Gate in the late 18th century, were demolished in 1858, the focus of the area is Kensington High Street, a busy commercial centre with many shops, typically upmarket. The street was declared Londons second best shopping street in February 2005 thanks to its range, however, since October 2008 the street has faced competition from the Westfield shopping centre in nearby White City. Kensingtons second group of buildings is at South Kensington, where several streets of small to medium-sized shops. This is also the end of Exhibition Road, the thoroughfare that serves the areas museums. To the west, a border is kept along the line of the Counter Creek marked by the West London railway line, in the north east, the large Royal Park of Kensington Gardens is a green buffer. The other main area in Kensington is Holland Park, just north of Kensington High Street. Kensington is, in general, an affluent area, a trait that it now shares with its neighbour to the south. In early 2007, houses sold in Upper Phillimore Gardens for in excess of £20 million, Kensington is also very densely populated, it forms part of the most densely populated local government district in the United Kingdom. This high density is not formed from high-rise buildings, instead, unlike northern extremities of the Borough, Kensington lacks high-rise buildings except for the Holiday Inns London Kensington Forum Hotel in Cromwell Road, which is a 27-storey building. The Olympia exhibition hall is just over the border in West Kensington. Kensington is part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the head office of newspaper group DMGT is located in Northcliffe House in Kensington, which is the office part of the large Barkers building
4.
County of London
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The County of London was a county of England from 1889 to 1965, corresponding to the area known today as Inner London. It was created as part of the introduction of elected county government in England. The Act created an administrative County of London, which included within its territory the City of London, however, the City of London and the County of London formed separate counties for non-administrative purposes. The local authority for the county was the London County Council, which performed only a limited range of functions. The LCC provided very few services within the City of London, in 1900 the lower-tier civil parishes and district boards were replaced with 28 new metropolitan boroughs. The territory of the county was 74,903 acres in 1961, in 1965, the London Government Act 1963 replaced the county with the much larger Greater London administrative area. The county occupied an area of just under 75,000 acres and it was divided into two parts by the River Thames, which was the most significant geographic feature. It was bordered by Essex to the north-east, Kent to the south-east, Surrey the south-west, the highest point was Hampstead Heath in the north of the county at 440 feet, which is one of the highest points in London. In 1900 a number of anomalies were abolished. These included the loss of the Alexandra Park exclave to Middlesex, gaining South Hornsey in return, the local government arrangements in London had last been reformed in 1855. This reform created an indirectly elected Metropolitan Board of Works which initially provided basic services for the metropolitan area. Over time the board gained more functions and became the de facto local authority, the board operated in those parts of the counties of Middlesex, Surrey and Kent that had been designated by the General Register Office as the Metropolis for the purposes of the Bills of Mortality. This area had been administered separately from the City of London and these had all been defeated in Parliament, in part because of the agency power of the City Corporation. Ultimately, the Local Government Act 1888 and the introduction of county councils in England provided the mechanism for creating a territory, for expediency, the area of the metropolitan board was chosen for the new county, and no attempt was made to select new boundaries. This area had been out of line with the expansion of London even in 1855, for example, it anomalously omitted built-up and expanding areas such as West Ham, but included some sparsely populated areas on the metropolitan fringe. The City of London and the County of London each formed counties for non-administrative purposes, with a separate Lord Lieutenant, however, the administrative county, which corresponded to the area of control of the county council, also included the City of London. In practice, the county council had very little authority over the ancient City, with powers over drainage, roads, fire brigade, embankment of the river. The local authority for the county was the London County Council, initially, the LCC provided the services it had inherited from the Metropolitan Board of Works
5.
Royal Academy of Arts
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The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded through an act of King George III on 10 December 1768 with a mission to promote the arts of design in Britain through education and exhibition. Supporters wanted to foster a national school of art and to encourage appreciation, fashionable taste in 18th-century Britain was based on continental and traditional art forms, providing contemporary British artists little opportunity to sell their works. From 1746 the Foundling Hospital, through the efforts of William Hogarth, the success of this venture led to the formation of the Society of Artists of Great Britain and the Free Society of Artists. Both these groups were primarily exhibiting societies, their success was marred by internal factions among the artists. The combined vision of education and exhibition to establish a school of art set the Royal Academy apart from the other exhibiting societies. It provided the foundation upon which the Royal Academy came to dominate the art scene of the 18th and 19th centuries, supplanting the earlier art societies. Sir William Chambers, a prominent architect, used his connections with George III to gain royal patronage and financial support of the Academy, the painter Joshua Reynolds was made its first president. Francis Milner Newton was elected the first secretary, a post he held for two decades until his resignation in 1788, the instrument of foundation, signed by George III on 10 December 1768, named 34 founder members and allowed for a total membership of 40. William Hoare and Johann Zoffany were added to this list later by the King and are known as nominated members, among the founder members were two women, a father and daughter, and two sets of brothers. The Royal Academy was initially housed in cramped quarters in Pall Mall, although in 1771 it was given temporary accommodation for its library and schools in Old Somerset House, then a royal palace. In 1780 it was installed in purpose-built apartments in the first completed wing of New Somerset House, located in the Strand and designed by Chambers, the Academy moved in 1837 to Trafalgar Square, where it occupied the east wing of the recently completed National Gallery. These premises soon proved too small to house both institutions, in 1868,100 years after the Academys foundation, it moved to Burlington House, Piccadilly, where it remains. Burlington House is owned by the British Government, and used rent-free by the Royal Academy, the first Royal Academy exhibition of contemporary art, open to all artists, opened on 25 April 1769 and ran until 27 May 1769. 136 works of art were shown and this exhibition, now known as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, has been staged annually without interruption to the present day. In 1870 the Academy expanded its programme to include a temporary annual loan exhibition of Old Masters. The range and frequency of these exhibitions have grown enormously since that time. Britains first public lectures on art were staged by the Royal Academy, led by Reynolds, the first president, a program included lectures by Dr. William Hunter, John Flaxman, James Barry, Sir John Soane, and J. M. W. Turner
6.
Printmaking
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Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints that have an element of originality, except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable of producing multiples of the same piece, which is called a print. Each print produced is not considered a copy but rather is considered an original, a print may be known as an impression. Printmaking is not chosen only for its ability to multiple impressions. Prints are created by transferring ink from a matrix or through a screen to a sheet of paper or other material. Screens made of silk or synthetic fabrics are used for the screenprinting process, other types of matrix substrates and related processes are discussed below. Multiple impressions printed from the matrix form an edition. Prints may also be printed in book form, such as illustrated books or artists books, Printmaking techniques are generally divided into the following basic categories, Relief, where ink is applied to the original surface of the matrix. Relief techniques include woodcut or woodblock as the Asian forms are known, wood engraving. Intaglio, where ink is applied beneath the surface of the matrix. Intaglio techniques include engraving, etching, mezzotint, aquatint, planographic, where the matrix retains its original surface, but is specially prepared and/or inked to allow for the transfer of the image. Planographic techniques include lithography, monotyping, and digital techniques, stencil, where ink or paint is pressed through a prepared screen, including screenprinting and pochoir. Other types of printmaking techniques outside these groups include collagraphy and viscosity printing, collagraphy is a printmaking technique in which textured material is adhered to the printing matrix. This texture is transferred to the paper during the printing process, Contemporary printmaking may include digital printing, photographic mediums, or a combination of digital, photographic, and traditional processes. Many of these techniques can also be combined, especially within the same family, for example, Rembrandts prints are usually referred to as etchings for convenience, but very often include work in engraving and drypoint as well, and sometimes have no etching at all. Woodcut, a type of print, is the earliest printmaking technique. It was probably first developed as a means of printing patterns on cloth, woodcuts of images on paper developed around 1400 in Japan, and slightly later in Europe. These are the two areas where woodcut has been most extensively used purely as a process for making images without text, the artist draws a design on a plank of wood, or on paper which is transferred to the wood
7.
Ophelia (painting)
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Ophelia is a painting by British artist Sir John Everett Millais, completed between 1851 and 1852. It is held in the Tate Britain in London and it depicts Ophelia, a character from William Shakespeares play Hamlet, singing before she drowns in a river in Denmark. The work was not highly regarded when first exhibited at the Royal Academy, the painting depicts Ophelia singing while floating in a river just before she drowns. The scene is described in Act IV, Scene VII of Hamlet in a speech by Queen Gertrude, the episode depicted is not seen onstage, but exists only in Gertrudes description. Ophelia has fallen into the river from a tree overhanging it and she lies in the water singing songs, as if unaware of her danger. Her clothes, trapping air, have allowed her to stay afloat. But eventually, her garments, heavy with their drink, / Pulld the poor wretch from her melodious lay down to muddy death, Ophelias death has been praised as one of the most poetically written death scenes in literature. Ophelias pose—her open arms and upwards gaze—also resembles traditional portrayals of saints or martyrs, the painting is known for its depiction of the detailed flora of the river and the riverbank, stressing the patterns of growth and decay in a natural ecosystem. Despite its nominal Danish setting, the landscape has come to be seen as quintessentially English, Ophelia was painted along the banks of the Hogsmill River in Surrey, near Tolworth, Greater London. Millais close colleague William Holman Hunt was at the working on his The Hireling Shepherd nearby. The flowers shown floating on the river were chosen to correspond with Shakespeares description of Ophelias garland and they also reflect the Victorian interest in the language of flowers, according to which each flower carries a symbolic meaning. The prominent red poppy—not mentioned by Shakespeares description of the scene—represents sleep, at an early stage in the paintings creation, Millais painted a water vole—which an assistant had fished out of the Hogsmill—paddling next to Ophelia. In December 1851, he showed the painting to Holman Hunts relatives. He recorded in his diary, Hunts uncle and aunt came, the male relation, when invited to guess at it, eagerly pronounced it to be a hare. Perceiving by our smiles that he had made a mistake, a rabbit was then hazarded, after which I have a faint recollection of a dog or a cat being mentioned. Millais painted the water out of the final picture, although a rough sketch of it still exists in an upper corner of the canvas hidden by its frame. In keeping with the tenets of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, of which he was a member, Millais used bright colours, gave high attention to detail, also, Millais utilizes bright, intense colours in the landscape to make the pale Ophelia contrast with the nature behind her. All this is evident in the attention to detail in the brush and trees around Ophelia, the contouring of her face
8.
Christ in the House of His Parents
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Christ in the House of His Parents is a painting by John Everett Millais depicting the Holy Family in Saint Josephs carpentry workshop. The painting was controversial when first exhibited, prompting many negative reviews. It catapulted the previously obscure Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to notoriety and was a contributor to the debate about Realism in the arts. It is currently housed in the Tate Britain in London, the painting depicts the young Jesus assisting Joseph in his workshop. Joseph is making a door, which is laid upon his carpentry work-table, Jesus has cut his hand on an exposed nail, symbolizing the stigmata and foreshadowing Jesus crucifixion. As his grandmother, Anne, removes the nail with a pair of pincers, his mother, Mary, offers her cheek for a kiss. A young boy, who would later be known as John the Baptist, brings in water to wash the wound, an assistant of Josephs, who represents Jesus future Apostles and chroniclers observes these events. In the background of the various objects are used to further symbolize the theological significance of the subject. A ladder, referring to Jacobs Ladder, leans against the wall. Other carpentry implements refer to the Holy Trinity, Millais likely used Albrecht Dürers print Melancholia I as a source for this imagery, along with quattrocento works. The sheep in the sheepfold seen through the door represent the future Christian flock and it has been suggested that Millais was influenced by John Rogers Herberts painting Our Saviour Subject to His Parents at Nazareth. He may also have drawn on a painting depicting Jesus helping Joseph in his workshop, the painting was immensely controversial when first exhibited because of its realistic depiction of a carpentry workshop, especially the dirt and detritus on the floor. This was in dramatic contrast to the portrayal of Jesus, his family. Charles Dickens accused Millais of portraying Mary as an alcoholic who looks. so hideous in her ugliness that and she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest gin-shop in England. Critics also objected to the portrayal of Jesus, one complaining that it was painful to see the youthful Saviour depicted as a red-headed Jew boy. Dickens described him as a wry-necked, blubbering red-headed boy in a bed-gown, other critics suggested that the characters displayed signs of rickets and other disease associated with slum conditions. Because of the controversy, Queen Victoria asked for the painting to be taken to Buckingham Palace so that she could view it in private and this was entitled A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids. The effect of the comments was to make the Pre-Raphaelite movement famous
9.
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
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The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The three founders were joined by William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner to form the seven-member brotherhood and their principles were shared by other artists, including Marie Spartali Stillman and Ford Madox Brown. A later, medievalising strain inspired by Rossetti included Edward Burne-Jones, the groups intention was to reform art by rejecting what it considered the mechanistic approach first adopted by Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo. Its members believed the Classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been an influence on the academic teaching of art. In particular, the group objected to the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds, founder of the English Royal Academy of Arts, to the Pre-Raphaelites, according to William Michael Rossetti, sloshy meant anything lax or scamped in the process of painting. Any thing or person of a commonplace or conventional kind, the brotherhood sought a return to the abundant detail, intense colours and complex compositions of Quattrocento Italian art. The group associated their work with John Ruskin, an English critic whose influences were driven by his religious background, the group continued to accept the concepts of history painting and mimesis, imitation of nature, as central to the purpose of art. The Pre-Raphaelites defined themselves as a movement, created a distinct name for their form of art. The groups debates were recorded in the Pre-Raphaelite Journal, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in John Millaiss parents house on Gower Street, London in 1848. At the first meeting, the painters John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Hunt and Millais were students at the Royal Academy of Arts and had met in another loose association, the Cyclographic Club, a sketching society. At his own request Rossetti became a pupil of Ford Madox Brown in 1848, at that date, Rossetti and Hunt shared lodgings in Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, Central London. Hunt had started painting The Eve of St. Agnes based on Keatss poem of the same name, as an aspiring poet, Rossetti wished to develop the links between Romantic poetry and art. Ford Madox Brown was invited to join, but the more senior artist remained independent but supported the group throughout the PRB period of Pre-Raphaelitism, other young painters and sculptors became close associates, including Charles Allston Collins, Thomas Tupper, and Alexander Munro. The PRB intended to keep the existence of the secret from members of the Royal Academy. The principles were deliberately non-dogmatic, since the brotherhood wished to emphasise the personal responsibility of artists to determine their own ideas. Influenced by Romanticism, the members thought freedom and responsibility were inseparable, nevertheless, they were particularly fascinated by medieval culture, believing it to possess a spiritual and creative integrity that had been lost in later eras. The emphasis on medieval culture clashed with principles of realism which stress the independent observation of nature, in its early stages, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood believed its two interests were consistent with one another, but in later years the movement divided and moved in two directions. The realists were led by Hunt and Millais, while the medievalists were led by Rossetti and his followers, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris
10.
Effie Gray
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Euphemia Chalmers Effie Millais, Lady Millais née Gray was the wife of the critic John Ruskin, but she left her husband without the marriage being consummated. She later married his protégé, the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais and this famous Victorian love triangle has been dramatised in plays, films and an opera. Effie Gray, initially known by the pet name of Phemy, was born in Perth, Scotland, and lived in Bowerswell and her family knew Ruskins father, who encouraged a match between them. Ruskin wrote the fantasy novel The King of the Golden River for her in 1841, after their marriage in 1848, they travelled to Venice, where Ruskin was researching his book The Stones of Venice. Their different personalities are thrown into relief by their contrasting priorities. For Effie, Venice provided an opportunity to socialise while Ruskin was engaged in solitary studies, in particular, he made a point of drawing the Ca dOro and the Palazzo Ducale, because he feared they would soon be destroyed by the occupying Austrian troops. One of the troops, Lieutenant Charles Paulizza, made friends with Effie and her brother, among others, later claimed that Ruskin was deliberately encouraging the friendship to compromise her, as an excuse to separate. When she met Millais five years later, she was still a virgin and his reasons are unclear, but they involved disgust with some aspect of her body. As she later wrote to her father, He alleged various reasons, hatred to children, religious motives, a desire to preserve my beauty, and, finally this last year he told me his true reason. That he had imagined women were different to what he saw I was. Ruskin confirmed this in his statement to his lawyer during the annulment proceedings, but though her face was beautiful, her person was not formed to excite passion. On the contrary, there were circumstances in her person which completely checked it. The reason for Ruskins disgust with circumstances in her person is unknown, various suggestions have been made, including revulsion at either her pubic hair, or menstrual blood. While married to Ruskin, she modelled for Millais painting The Order of Release and she then became close to Millais when he accompanied the couple on a trip to Scotland in order to paint Ruskins portrait according to the critics artistic principles. During this time, spent in Brig o Turk in the Trossachs, while working on the portrait of her husband, Millais made many drawings and sketches of her. He also sent humorous cartoons of himself, Effie and Ruskin to friends and she copied some of his works. After their return to London, she left Ruskin, nominally to visit her family and she sent back her wedding ring with a note announcing her intention to file for an annulment. Their youngest son, John Guille Millais, was a bird artist
11.
William Morris
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William Morris was an English textile designer, poet, novelist, translator, and socialist activist. Associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement, he was a contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, while he played a significant role in propagating the early socialist movement in Britain. Born in Walthamstow, Essex, to a wealthy family, Morris came under the strong influence of medievalism while studying Classics at Oxford University. Webb and Morris designed a home, Red House, then in Kent. In 1861, Morris founded a decorative arts firm with Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Webb, and others, in 1875, Morris assumed total control of the company, which was renamed Morris & Co. Although retaining a main home in London, from 1871 Morris rented the rural retreat of Kelmscott Manor, greatly influenced by visits to Iceland, with Eiríkr Magnússon he produced a series of English-language translations of Icelandic Sagas. In 1877 he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings to campaign against the damage caused by architectural restoration, in 1891 he founded the Kelmscott Press to publish limited-edition, illuminated-style print books, a cause to which he devoted his final years. Morris is recognised as one of the most significant cultural figures of Victorian Britain, though best known in his lifetime as a poet, founded in 1955, the William Morris Society is devoted to his legacy, while multiple biographies and studies of his work have seen publication. Many of the associated with his life are open to visitors, much of his work can be found in art galleries and museums. Morris was born at Elm House in Walthamstow, Essex, on 24 March 1834. Raised into a wealthy family, he was named after his father. His mother was Emma Morris, who came from Woodford Hall in Woodford, Essex and he also took rides through the Essex countryside on his pony, and visited the various churches and cathedrals throughout the country, marveling at their architecture. His father took him on visits outside of the county, for instance to Canterbury Cathedral, the Chiswick Horticultural Gardens, and to the Isle of Wight, where he adored Blackgang Chine. In February 1848 Morris began his studies at Marlborough College in Marlborough, Wiltshire and he despised his time there, being bullied, bored, and homesick. He did use the opportunity to many of the prehistoric sites of Wiltshire, such as Avebury and Silbury Hill. At Christmas 1851, Morris was removed from the school and returned to Water House, guy, Assistant Master at the nearby Forest School. In June 1852 Morris entered Oxford Universitys Exeter College, although since the college was full and he disliked the college and was bored by the manner in which they taught him Classics
12.
John Ruskin
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John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and his writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin also penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters, the elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society and he also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation. He was hugely influential in the half of the 19th century. After a period of decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability, from the 1850s he championed the Pre-Raphaelites who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues, Unto This Last marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, in 1871, he began his monthly letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain, published under the title Fors Clavigera. In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society, as a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today. Ruskin was the child of first cousins. His father, John James Ruskin, was a sherry and wine importer founding partner and de facto manager of Ruskin, Telford. John James was born and brought up in Edinburgh, Scotland, to a mother from Glenluce and his wife, Margaret Cox, née Cock, was the daughter of an aunt on the English side of the family and a publican in Croydon. She had joined the Ruskin household when she became companion to John Jamess mother, John James had hoped to practice law, but was instead articled as a clerk in London. His father, John Thomas Ruskin, described as a grocer, was an inadequate businessman, to save the family from bankruptcy, John James, whose prudence and success were in stark contrast to his father, took on all debts, settling the last of them in 1832. John James and Margaret were engaged in 1809, but opposition to the union from John Thomas, Ruskin was born at 54 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, London, south of St Pancras railway station. His childhood was characterised by the influences of his father and mother. John James Ruskin helped to develop his sons Romanticism and they shared a passion for the works of Byron, Shakespeare and especially Walter Scott
13.
Jersey
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Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, is a Crown dependency of the United Kingdom, ruled by the Crown in right of Jersey, off the coast of Normandy, France. Jersey was part of the Duchy of Normandy, whose dukes went on to become kings of England from 1066. After Normandy was lost by the kings of England in the 13th century, and the ducal title surrendered to France, Jersey, Jersey is a self-governing parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy, with its own financial, legal and judicial systems, and the power of self-determination. The Lieutenant Governor on the island is the representative of the Queen. The island of Jersey is the largest of the Channel Islands, although the bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey are often referred to collectively as the Channel Islands, the Channel Islands are not a constitutional or political unit. Jersey has a relationship to the Crown from the other Crown dependencies of Guernsey. It is not part of the United Kingdom, and has an identity separate from that of the UK. The definition of United Kingdom in the British Nationality Act 1981 is interpreted as including the UK, Jersey is not fully part of the European Union but has a special relationship with it, notably being treated as within the European Community for the purposes of free trade in goods. The name Caesarea has been used as the Latin name for Jersey since William Camdens Britannia, the Latin name Caesarea was also applied to the colony of New Jersey as Nova Caesarea. Andium, Agna and Augia were used in antiquity, scholars variously surmise that Jersey and Jèrri derive from jarð or jarl, or perhaps a personal name, Geirr. The ending -ey denotes an island, Jersey history is influenced by its strategic location between the northern coast of France and the southern coast of England, the islands recorded history extends over a thousand years. La Cotte de St Brelade is a Palaeolithic site inhabited before rising sea levels transformed Jersey into an island, Jersey was a centre of Neolithic activity, as demonstrated by the concentration of dolmens. Evidence of Bronze Age and early Iron Age settlements can be found in locations around the island. In June 2012 it was announced what could be Europes largest hoard of Iron Age coins had been found in Grouville by two persons using metal detectors, the hoard may be worth up to £10 M. People had been searching for treasure for 30 years. It was reported that the hoard weighed about three quarters of a tonne and could contain up to 50,000 Roman and Celtic coins, in 2012 the same two men had found 60 Iron Age coins in the same area. Jersey was part of Neustria with the same Gallo-Frankish population as the continental mainland, Jersey was invaded by Vikings in the 9th century. In 933 it was annexed to the future Duchy of Normandy, together with the other Channel Islands, Cotentin and Avranchin, by William Longsword, count of Rouen and it became one of the Norman Islands
14.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He is known for his works, particularly Vanity Fair. Thackeray, a child, was born in Calcutta, British India. His mother, Anne Becher, was the daughter of Harriet Becher and John Harman Becher. Richmond died in 1815, which caused Anne to send her son to England in 1816, the ship on which he travelled made a short stopover at St. Helena, where the imprisoned Napoleon was pointed out to him. Once in England he was educated at schools in Southampton and Chiswick, and then at Charterhouse School, Thackeray disliked Charterhouse, and parodied it in his fiction as Slaughterhouse. Nevertheless, Thackeray was honoured in the Charterhouse Chapel with a monument after his death, Thackeray then travelled for some time on the continent, visiting Paris and Weimar, where he met Goethe. He returned to England and began to study law at the Middle Temple and he also lost a good part of his fortune in the collapse of two Indian banks. The Thackerays had three children, all girls, Anne Isabella, Jane and Harriet Marian, who married Sir Leslie Stephen, editor, Thackeray now began writing for his life, as he put it, turning to journalism in an effort to support his young family. Between 1837 and 1840 he also reviewed books for The Times and he was also a regular contributor to The Morning Chronicle and The Foreign Quarterly Review. Later, through his connection to the illustrator John Leech, he began writing for the newly created magazine Punch, in which he published The Snob Papers and this work popularised the modern meaning of the word snob. Thackeray was a regular contributor to Punch between 1843 and 1854. Tragedy struck in Thackerays personal life as his wife, Isabella, succumbed to depression after the birth of their third child, in 1840. Finding that he could get no work done at home, he spent more and more time away until September 1840, struck by guilt, he set out with his wife to Ireland. During the crossing she threw herself from a water-closet into the sea and they fled back home after a four-week battle with her mother. From November 1840 to February 1842 Isabella was in and out of professional care and she eventually deteriorated into a permanent state of detachment from reality. Isabella outlived her husband by 30 years, in the end being cared for by a family named Thompson in Leigh-on-Sea at Southend until her death in 1894, after his wifes illness Thackeray became a de facto widower, never establishing another permanent relationship. He did pursue other women, however, in particular Mrs Jane Brookfield, in 1851 Mr Brookfield barred Thackeray from further visits to or correspondence with Jane. Baxter, an American twenty years Thackerays junior whom he met during a tour in New York City in 1852
15.
Dinan
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Dinan is a walled Breton town and a commune in the Côtes-dArmor department in northwestern France. Instead of nestling on the floor like Morlaix, most urban development has been on the hillside. The area alongside the River Rance is known as the port of Dinan and is connected to the town by the steep streets Rue Jerzual, in the centre of Dinan the Rance summer flows are typically in the range of 500 cubic feet per second. Inhabitants of Dinan are called dinannais and dinannaises, the medieval town on the hilltop has many fine old buildings, some of which date from the 13th century. The town retains a large section of the city walls, part of which can be walked round, major historical attractions include the Jacobins Theatre dating from 1224, the flamboyant Gothic St Malos Church, the Romanesque St Saviours Basilica, Duchess Annes Tower and the Château de Dinan. A major highlight in the calendar is Dinans Fête des Remparts, the town is transformed with decoration and many locals dress up in medieval garb for this two-day festival. The festival takes place over the weekend in July every even-numbered year. In 2008,4. 97% of primary children attended bilingual schools. His heart is buried in Dinan, the hospital in Dinan is named after him. Horace Tuck, English painter, visited Dinan for its picturesque vistas Roger Vercel, writer, winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1934, a college in the town is named after him
16.
William Holman Hunt
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William Holman Hunt OM was an English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings were notable for their attention to detail, vivid color. These features were influenced by the writings of John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle, for Hunt it was the duty of the artist to reveal the correspondence between sign and fact. Of all the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Hunt remained most true to their ideals throughout his career and he was always keen to maximize the popular appeal and public visibility of his works. After eventually entering the Royal Academy art schools, having initially been rejected and he formed the Pre-Raphaelite movement in 1848, after meeting the poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Along with John Everett Millais they sought to revitalise art by emphasising the detailed observation of the world in a spirit of quasi-religious devotion to truth. This religious approach was influenced by the qualities of medieval art. He had many pupils including Robert Braithwaite Martineau, after a failed engagement to his model Annie Miller, he married Fanny Waugh, who later modelled for the figure of Isabella. When she died in childbirth in Italy, he sculpted her tomb at Fiesole, having it brought down to the English Cemetery in Florence and he had a close connection with St. Marks Church in Florence, and paid for the communion chalice inscribed in memory of his wife and his second wife, Edith, was Fannys sister. At the time it was illegal in Great Britain to marry ones deceased wifes sister, hunts works were not initially successful, and were widely attacked in the art press for their alleged clumsiness and ugliness. He achieved some note for his intensely naturalistic scenes of modern rural and urban life, such as The Hireling Shepherd. Hunt also painted works based on poems, such as Isabella. He eventually built his own house in Jerusalem and he eventually had to relinquish painting because failing eyesight meant that he could not achieve the quality that he wanted. His last major works, including a version of The Light of the World, were completed with the help of his assistant. Hunt died on 7 September 1910 and was buried in St Pauls Cathedral in London, Hunt published an autobiography in 1905. Many of his writings are attempts to control the interpretation of his work. That year, he was appointed to the Order of Merit by King Edward VII, at the end of his life he lived in Sonning-on-Thames
17.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt, Rossetti was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement, most notably William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. His work also influenced the European Symbolists and was a precursor of the Aesthetic movement. Rossettis art was characterised by its sensuality and its medieval revivalism and his early poetry was influenced by John Keats. His later poetry was characterised by the complex interlinking of thought and feeling, especially in his sonnet sequence, poetry and image are closely entwined in Rossettis work. Rossettis personal life was linked to his work, especially his relationships with his models and muses Elizabeth Siddal, Fanny Cornforth. The son of émigré Italian scholar Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti and his wife Frances Mary Lavinia Polidori, Rossetti was born in London, England and his family and friends called him Gabriel, but in publications he put the name Dante first in honour of Dante Alighieri. He was the brother of poet Christina Rossetti, critic William Michael Rossetti and his father was a Roman Catholic, at least prior to his marriage, and his mother was an Anglican, ostensibly Gabriel was baptized as and was a practicing Anglican. During his childhood, Rossetti was home educated and often read the Bible, along with the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, the youthful Rossetti is described as self-possessed, articulate, passionate and charismatic but also ardent, poetic and feckless. Like all his siblings, he aspired to be a poet and attended Kings College School and he also wished to be a painter, having shown a great interest in Medieval Italian art. He studied at Henry Sass Drawing Academy from 1841 to 1845, when he enrolled in the Antique School of the Royal Academy, after leaving the Royal Academy, Rossetti studied under Ford Madox Brown, with whom he retained a close relationship throughout his life. Following the exhibition of William Holman Hunts painting The Eve of St. Agnes, the painting illustrated a poem by the little-known John Keats. Rossettis own poem, The Blessed Damozel, was an imitation of Keats, together they developed the philosophy of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which they founded along with John Everett Millais. Their approach was to return to the abundant detail, intense colours, the eminent critic John Ruskin wrote, Every Pre-Raphaelite landscape background is painted to the last touch, in the open air, from the thing itself. Every Pre-Raphaelite figure, however studied in expression, is a portrait of some living person. Rossettis first major paintings in oil display the realist qualities of the early Pre-Raphaelite movement and his Girlhood of Mary Virgin and Ecce Ancilla Domini portray Mary as a teenage girl. I saw at once that he was not an orthodox boy, the mixture of genius and dilettantism of both men shut me up for the moment, and whetted my curiosity. Although his work subsequently won support from John Ruskin, Rossetti only rarely exhibited thereafter, in 1850, Rossetti met Elizabeth Siddal, an important model for the Pre-Raphaelite painters
18.
Gower Street, London
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Gower Street is a street in Bloomsbury, central London, running from Montague Place in the south to Euston Road at the north. The street continues as North Gower Street north of the Euston Road, to the south it becomes Bloomsbury Street. University College London and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art are located along Gower Street as is part of University College Hospital, UCL maintains two student residences along the street, the Arthur Tattersall and John Tovell Houses. Of the many UCL buildings along Gower Street, the Cruciform Building is especially notable, Old boys of University College School are known as Old Gowers after the street where it founded and co-located with UCL. Euston Square tube station is located at the end of Gower Street. Gower Street is named after Lady Gertrude Leveson-Gower, daughter of John Leveson-Gower, notable residents of Gower Street have included the architect George Dance the Younger, painter William de Morgan, and the Shaws. John Shaw, Sr. and John Shaw, Jr. formed a famous nineteenth-century architectural partnership, thomas Budd Shaw was a professor of English literature to the grand dukes of Russia. He moved in on 31 December, and with Emma moved in on the day of their marriage,29 January 1839, the development of Darwins theory of natural selection made progress in this house, and their children William Erasmus Darwin and Anne Darwin were born there. In 1842 the family moved to Down House in the countryside, on 13 December 1904 a London County Council blue plaque was put up, to Charles Darwin Naturalist. The house suffered from damage in 1941 during the Blitz. In 1961 the site became part of the Biological Sciences building of University College London, the long thin garden which backed on to Gower Mews North was incorporated into Foster Court car park in 1978. The etymologist and philologist Hensleigh Wedgwood, who was Charles Darwins cousin and brother-in-law, lived at 94 Gower Street and it was erected by The Trevithick Centenary Memorial Committee. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in the Millais family house on Gower Street in the winter of 1848–49, millicent Fawcett, a leading figure in the constitutional wing of the British womens suffrage movement, lived at No.2 Gower Street. The Walloon poet Henri Michaux briefly resided in Gower Street in February 1931, from 1976 until 1995 the headquarters of MI5 were an anonymous grey office block at 140 Gower Street, adjacent to the Euston Road. The site has since been redeveloped, many of the Georgian houses on Gower Street have been converted into small hotels. North Gower Street, the continuation of Gower Street beyond Euston Road, is not accessible from Gower Street at street level for vehicles or pedestrians. For pedestrians, the most direct access is via a subway along the concourse of Euston Square station, from Euston Road, North Gower Street continues past Drummond Street and then ends, with a footpath continuing north to connect with the Hampstead Road. It is lined mostly with Georgian terraced houses now converted into hotels and student accommodation or rebuilt
19.
Bedford Square
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Bedford Square is a garden square in the Bloomsbury district of the Borough of Camden in London, England. The square takes its name from the title of the Russell family, the Dukes of Bedford. Bedford Square is one of the best preserved set pieces of Georgian architecture in London, numbers 1-10,11, 12–27, 28–38 and 40–54 are grade I listed buildings. Bedford College, the first place for higher education in Britain, was formerly located in Bedford Square. Nos.1 and 2, Cameron Mackintosh Limited No,3, Winston House Nos.4,5 and 6, New York Universitys London campus No. 7, London School of Business and Management Nos.8 &9, London School of Hygiene,11, Royal Holloway, University of London No. 12, ACCENT International Consortium for Academic Programs Abroad, London Study Center No,16, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art No. 18, Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, London No.19 New College of the Humanities No.21 FSPG Chartered Accountants No.26 SIS Digital the home of Digital out of Home No,29, London office of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus No. 30, Sothebys Institute of Art No,32,33,34,35,36,37,38 and 39, Architectural Association School of Architecture No. 47, Yale University Press, London Nos.49,50 and 51,6, Lord Eldon — Lord Chancellor No. 10, Charles Gilpin — MP No,11, John Scarlett Davis - artist, died there in 1845 Henry Cavendish — scientist No. 13, Harry Ricardo — engine designer — born here No,22, Johnston Forbes-Robertson — actor No. 26, National Council for Voluntary Organisations,1928 –1992 No,30, Jonathan Cape — publishing company No. 35, Thomas Hodgkin — physician, reformer and philanthropist No,35, Thomas Wakley — founder of The Lancet No. 41, William Butterfield — architect No,41, Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins — novelist No. 44, Margot Asquith — wife of the Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, before that,48, Elizabeth Jesser Reid — anti-slavery activist and founder of Bedford College for Women No. 49, Francis Walker — entomologist, before that Ram Mohan Roy — Indian scholar and reformer No
20.
Mariana (Millais)
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Mariana is an 1851 oil-on-wood painting by John Everett Millais. The image is based on the solitary Mariana from William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, in the play, Mariana was to be married, but was rejected when her dowry was lost in a shipwreck. The painting is regarded as an example of Millais precision, attention to detail, raphael was one of the Renaissance painters that the Brotherhood admired, which is where the name of their group came from. The PRB wanted to create paintings that provided a moral lesson in the tradition of Raphael’s Renaissance paintings. However, that not mean that the PRB only painted religious images. Oftentimes the PRB artists used images to create a narrative. Sometimes they even used contemporary literature as inspiration for their paintings, many of their paintings include a large amount of details, which allow the viewer to “read” the painting. Since the PRB artists wanted viewers to read their paintings, they included so many details that the paintings became a narrative, Millais used Tennyson’s poetry to create a narrative for their paintings and he wanted to allow the viewer to read the entire poem through their painting. Although the artist can only show one scene from the poem, the Millais included details, the viewers at the time would have been familiar with Tennyson’s poetry. Thus, they would be able to read the paintings very easily, John Millais was also a founding member of the PRB. He was born into a wealthy family and from a very young age his artistic talent was recognized. Millais was two years younger than Hunt but that did not dampen their friendship at all, at the age of 11, he was admitted into the Academy and exhibited several works there over a period of years. Millais married Effie Chalmers in 1855, Millais is known for Christ in the House of His Parents, and one of the paintings that Millais is most famous for is Bubbles. Later in his career, Millais made a name for himself as a painter of portrait, Millais’ Mariana also used Tennyson’s poetry as a starting point for his painting. This painting is packed with details that help the viewer to read the narrative of the work along with Tennyson’s poetry and it is all about waiting and the passage of time, which Millais shows by the arched-back pose of the woman. The pose makes it seem like she has been sitting too long, the rolled up embroidery on the table also gives the viewer a clue as to how long Mariana has been working on it while waiting for her lover to arrive. In the painting Mariana, Millais included many details that relate directly to Tennyson’s poetry, in the poem, Tennyson wrote, “When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, and glanced athwart the glooming flats”. Although there is not a curtain in Millais’ painting, this line is similar to the scene that is presented outside of the window, the viewer perceives an ominous feeling, just like the dark storm that Tennyson alludes to in the line above
21.
Holy Family
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The Holy Family consists of the Child Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and Saint Joseph. Veneration of the Holy Family was formally begun in the 17th century by Saint François de Laval, the first bishop of New France, the Gospels speak little of the life of the Holy Family in the years before Jesus’ public ministry. Matthew and Luke narrate the episodes from this period of Christs life, namely his Circumcision and later Presentation, the Flight to Egypt, the return to Nazareth, and the Finding in the Temple. Joseph and Mary were apparently observant Jews, as Luke narrates that they brought Jesus with them on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem with other Jewish families. The Feast of the Holy Family is a celebration in the Catholic Church in honor of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. The primary purpose of this feast is to present the Holy Family as a model for Christian families and it is a holy day of obligation only if it falls on a Sunday. The feast was instituted by Pope Leo XIII in 1893 and set on the Sunday within the Octave of the Epiphany, the 1962 Roman Missal, whose use is still authorized, follows the General Roman Calendar of 1960, which has the celebration on that date. The Holy Family is a theme in Christian art. An oil painting by the Dutch Joos van Cleve, dated to about 1512, is on display at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, michelangelos tempera rendition hangs in the Uffizi in Florence, Italy. A Holy Family by Giulio Romano is on view at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the members of the Holy Family are the patrons of the Congregation of Holy Cross. The Holy Cross Sisters are dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Holy Cross Brothers to St. Joseph, the Sons of the Holy Family is another religious congregation devoted to the Holy Family. The Cathedral of the Holy Family of Nazareth is the see of the Diocese of Tulsa in Oklahoma. A pious practice among Catholics is to write J. M. J. at the top of letters and personal notes as a reference to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as the Holy Family. Brothers of Jesus Chronology of Jesus Finding in the Temple Flight into Egypt Holy Kinship Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth Remarks of Benedict XVI on the Feast of the Holy Family Pope Francis. Homily on the Feast of the Holy Family, Vatican Radio, December 27,2015
22.
A Huguenot
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A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomews Day, Refusing to Shield Himself from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge is a painting by John Everett Millais. The long title is abbreviated to A Huguenot or A Huguenot on St Bartholomews Day. It depicts a pair of lovers in an embrace. The familiar subject is given a dramatic twist because the embrace is in fact an attempt by the girl to get her beloved to wear a white armband, the young man gently pulls the armband off with the same hand with which he embraces the girl. The incident refers to the St. Bartholomews Day massacre in 1572 when French Protestants were massacred in Paris, a small number of Protestants escaped from the city by wearing white armbands. Millais had initially planned simply to depict lovers, but had been persuaded by his Pre-Raphaelite colleague William Holman Hunt that the subject was too trite. After seeing Giacomo Meyerbeers opera Les Huguenots, which tells the story of the massacre, in the opera the character Valentine also attempts unsuccessfully to get her lover Raoul to wear the armband. The choice of a pro-Protestant subject was also significant because the Pre-Raphaelites had previously been attacked for their sympathies to the Oxford Movement. Some of the flowers depicted in the scene may have been chosen because of the contemporary interest in the language of flowers. The blue Canterbury Bells at the left, for example, can stand for faith, the painting was exhibited with Ophelia in 1852, and helped to change attitudes towards the Pre-Raphaelites. Tom Taylor wrote a positive review in Punch. The painting was reproduced as an engraving, which became Millaiss first major popular success, as a result Millais went on to produce a number of other paintings on similar subjects
23.
Measure for Measure
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Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. Originally published in the First Folio of 1623, where it was listed as a comedy, the plays main themes include justice, mortality and mercy in Vienna, and the dichotomy between corruption and purity, some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. Mercy and virtue predominate, since the play does not end tragically, additionally, traces of Christian virtues such as compassion and forgiveness can be identified in the ending of the production. While the play focuses on justice overall, the scene illustrates that Shakespeare intended for Christian justice to be restored more so than true civil justice. This is highlighted through a number of the characters receiving understanding and leniency, instead of the punishment they, according to the law. Measure for Measure is often called one of Shakespeares problem plays and it was, and continues to be, classified as comedy, though its tone may defy those expectations. Vincentio, the Duke of Vienna, makes it known that he intends to leave the city on a diplomatic mission and he leaves the government in the hands of a strict judge, Angelo. In the next scene, we find a group of soldiers on a Vienna street, expressing their hopes, in irreverent banter, that a war with Hungary is afoot, and that they will be able to take part. Mistress Overdone, the operator of a whorehouse frequented by these soldiers, appears. She tells them that it is Signor Claudio, and that within three days his head to be chopped off as punishment for getting Madam Julietta with child. Lucio, one of the soldiers who is revealed to be Claudios friend, is astonished at this news. He then informs Mistress Overdone of Angelos new proclamation, that All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down, the brothels in the city shall stand for seed, they had gone down too, but that a wise burgher put in for them. Mistress Overdone is distraught, as her business is in the suburbs, Pompey replies with a characteristic mixture of bawdy humor and folk-wisdom, fear you not, good counselors lack no clients, though you change your place, you need not change your trade. There will be pity taken on you, you that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, Claudio is then led past Pompey and Overdone on his way to prison, and we learn what has happened to him. Claudio married Juliet, but, as they have not completed all the technicalities, Angelo, as the interim ruler of the city, decides to enforce a law that fornication is punishable by death, so Claudio is sentenced to be executed. Claudios friend, Lucio, visits Claudios sister, Isabella, a novice nun, Isabella obtains an audience with Angelo, and pleads for mercy for Claudio. Isabella refuses, but when she threatens to expose his lechery, he tells her that no one will believe her. Instead, she visits her brother in prison and counsels him to himself for death
24.
William Shakespeare
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William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the worlds pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called Englands national poet, and the Bard of Avon and his extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays,154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright, Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children, Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a career in London as an actor, writer. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, at age 49, Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, which are regarded as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, in his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and it was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as not of an age, but for all time. In the 20th and 21st centuries, his works have been adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship. His plays remain highly popular and are studied, performed. William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden and he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April. This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholars mistake, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 and he was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, the consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaways neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage, twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596, after the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the bill of a law case before the Queens Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589
25.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victorias reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as Break, Break, Break, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Tears, Idle Tears, Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of the King, Ulysses, and Tithonus. During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success and he is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England and he was born into a middle-class line of Tennysons, but also had a noble and royal ancestry. His father, George Clayton Tennyson, was rector of Somersby, also rector of Benniworth and Bag Enderby, and vicar of Grimsby. Rev. George Clayton Tennyson raised a family and was a man of superior abilities and varied attainments, who tried his hand with fair success in architecture, painting, music. He was comfortably well off for a clergyman and his shrewd money management enabled the family to spend summers at Mablethorpe. Alfred Tennysons mother, Elizabeth Fytche, was the daughter of Stephen Fytche, vicar of St. James Church, Louth and rector of Withcall, Tennysons father carefully attended to the education and training of his children. Tennyson and two of his brothers were writing poetry in their teens and a collection of poems by all three was published locally when Alfred was only 17. One of those brothers, Charles Tennyson Turner, later married Louisa Sellwood, the sister of Alfreds future wife. Another of Tennysons brothers, Edward Tennyson, was institutionalised at a private asylum, Tennyson was a student of Louth Grammar School for four years and then attended Scaitcliffe School, Englefield Green and King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827, where he joined a society called the Cambridge Apostles. A portrait of Tennyson by George Frederic Watts is in Trinitys collection, at Cambridge, Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam and William Henry Brookfield, who became his closest friends. His first publication was a collection of his rhymes and those of his elder brother Charles entitled Poems by Two Brothers. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellors Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, reportedly, it was thought to be no slight honour for a young man of twenty to win the chancellors gold medal. He published his first solo collection of poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical in 1830, claribel and Mariana, which later took their place among Tennysons most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although decried by critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day. In the spring of 1831, Tennysons father died, requiring him to leave Cambridge before taking his degree and he returned to the rectory, where he was permitted to live for another six years and shared responsibility for his widowed mother and the family
26.
The Order of Release
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The Order of Release,1746 is a painting by John Everett Millais exhibited in 1853. It is notable for marking the beginnings of Millaiss move away from the highly detailed Pre-Raphaelitism of his early years, Effie Gray, who later left her husband for the artist, modelled for the principal figure. The painting depicts the wife of a rebel Scottish soldier, who has been imprisoned after the Jacobite rising of 1745 and she holds her child, showing the order to a guard, while her husband embraces her. The subject is simply that of a wife, with child in her arms, coming with an order of release for her husband, the colouring, the textural execution, are marvellous. The dark, generalised background is a departure from the detailed backgrounds of earlier works such as Ophelia. However, the portrayal of tense relationships disrupted by historical dramas was a continuation of the theme of A Huguenot, while working on the painting, Millais fell in love with Effie, the wife of his principal supporter, the critic John Ruskin. A study for the painting has a drawing of her head on one side, the title of the painting was adopted for the book The Order of Release by William Milbourne James about the love triangle, and also of a radio play about it broadcast in 1998. The painting of the picture is dramatised onstage in the play Mrs Ruskin by Kim Morrissey, the Order of Release at The Victorian Web
27.
The Return of the Dove to the Ark
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The Return of the Dove to the Ark is a painting by Sir John Everett Millais, completed in 1851. It is now displayed in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the painting portrays a scene from the Bible. Two of Noahs daughters-in-law nurture the dove that has returned to the Ark bearing an olive branch, the Return of the Dove to the Ark was first put on public display at the Royal Academy in 1851. It was praised by John Ruskin and Théophile Gautier, among others and it passed to the Ashmolean as part of the Combe Bequest in 1893
28.
John Guille Millais
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John Guille Johnny Millais was a British artist, naturalist, gardener and travel writer who specialised in wildlife and flower portraiture. He travelled extensively around the world in the late Victorian period detailing wildlife often for the first time and he is noted for illustrations that are of a particularly exact nature. John Guille Millais was the son and seventh child of Sir John Everett Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite painter. John was raised in London and Perthshire with a wide interest in natural history, as a boy he made a collection of birds shot around the Perthshire coast of Scotland where he spent much of his childhood. This formed the basis of a collection of around 3,000 specimens that he later housed in a private museum in Horsham in West Sussex. Specimens from this collection were depicted by his father in his painting The Ruling Passion, John Guille himself painted a bird in his fathers painting Dew-Drenched Furze. Millais began his career in the army with the Seaforth Highlanders and his was clearly a wanderlust based on a desire to see, record and paint the natural world. To this end he travelled widely in Europe, Africa and North America, in the New World in the 1880s/90s he explored Canada and Newfoundland and helped map uncharted areas of Alaska. In 1903 Millais co-founded the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire, Millais was passionate about hunting and fellow members included the famous hunters Frederick Selous and explorer and hunter Frank Wallace. The club still survives and includes the Duke of Edinburgh amongst its members, after World War I broke out in 1914, Millais was taken into the secret service of the Royal Navy in Norway and in Iceland. In August 1915 he met with two German spies at Christiania, and travelled with them to Lofoten and he was engaged in setting up and supporting a network of counter espionage. The importance of Norway to the war effort was that the seas provided a route for food. Millais reported from Norway that whilst the Norwegian authorities were generally pro British, in December 1917 he was nearly captured by the Germans but with the help of a harbour master he managed to get out of Norway, returning to Newcastle. After the War, Millais wrote and published a book on his life and hunting exploits in Africa, Wanderings and Memories chronicled his passion for big game hunting and his fondness for the Scotland of his childhood. It contains a chapter from Millais close friend, African game hunter Arthur Henry Neumann and this book went to several reprints including an American edition renamed A Sportsmans Wanderings. Millais is one of the most respected of British ornithologists and bird artists and they rank amongst the finest work on wildfowl ever published. Each bird receives individual treatment in text and detailed chromolithographs, some of which are by his friend, each species is represented by two or three individuals on a plate drawn in attitudes of feeding, resting and courtship. The books are lavish and with just 400 to 600 original editions published are now prized as examples of a type of High Victorian grandeur
29.
Edward Elgar
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Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello and he also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the Kings Musick in 1924, although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically and he nevertheless married the daughter of a senior British army officer. His later full-length religious choral works were received but have not entered the regular repertory. In his fifties, Elgar composed a symphony and a concerto that were immensely successful. His second symphony and his cello concerto did not gain immediate public popularity, Elgars music came, in his later years, to be seen as appealing chiefly to British audiences. His stock remained low for a generation after his death and it began to revive significantly in the 1960s, helped by new recordings of his works. Some of his works have, in recent years, been taken up again internationally, Elgar has been described as the first composer to take the gramophone seriously. Between 1914 and 1925, he conducted a series of recordings of his works. Edward Elgar was born in the village of Lower Broadheath, outside Worcester. His father, William Henry Elgar, was raised in Dover and had apprenticed to a London music publisher. In 1841 William moved to Worcester, where he worked as a tuner and set up a shop selling sheet music. In 1848 he married Ann Greening, daughter of a farm worker, Edward was the fourth of their seven children. Ann Elgar had converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before Edwards birth, William Elgar was a violinist of professional standard and held the post of organist of St. Georges Roman Catholic Church, Worcester, from 1846 to 1885. At his instigation, masses by Cherubini and Hummel were first heard at the Three Choirs Festival by the orchestra in which he played the violin, all the Elgar children received a musical upbringing. Elgars mother was interested in the arts and encouraged his musical development and he inherited from her a discerning taste for literature and a passionate love of the countryside. His friend and biographer W. H, Billy Reed wrote that Elgars early surroundings had an influence that permeated all his work and gave to his whole life that subtle but none the less true and sturdy English quality
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Violin Concerto (Elgar)
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Edward Elgars Violin Concerto in B minor, Op.61, is one of his longest orchestral compositions, and the last of his works to gain immediate popular success. The concerto was composed for the violinist Fritz Kreisler, who gave the premiere in London in 1910, by the end of the century, when Elgars music was restored to the general repertoire, there had been more than twenty recordings of the concerto. In 2010, centenary performances of the concerto were given around the world, Elgar had begun work on a violin concerto in 1890, but he was dissatisfied with it and destroyed the manuscript. In 1907 the violinist Fritz Kreisler, who admired Elgars The Dream of Gerontius, two years earlier, Kreisler had told an English newspaper, If you want to know whom I consider to be the greatest living composer, I say without hesitation Elgar. I say this to no one, it is my own conviction. I place him on a footing with my idols, Beethoven. He is of the aristocratic family. His invention, his orchestration, his harmony, his grandeur, and it is all pure, unaffected music. I wish Elgar would write something for the violin, the Royal Philharmonic Society of London formally commissioned the concerto in 1909. Elgar, himself a violinist, called yet upon W. H, billy Reed, leader of the London Symphony Orchestra, for technical advice while writing the concerto. Reed helped him with bowings, passage-work and fingerings, playing passages over and over again until Elgar was satisfied with them, Kreisler also made suggestions, some for making the solo part more brilliant and some for making it more playable. Before the premiere, Reed, with Elgar playing the part on the piano. The premiere was at a Royal Philharmonic Society concert on 10 November 1910, with Kreisler, Reed recalled, the Concerto proved to be a complete triumph, the concert a brilliant and unforgettable occasion. So great was the impact of the concerto that Kreislers rival Eugène Ysaÿe spent much time with Elgar going through the work, there was great disappointment when contractual difficulties prevented Ysaÿe from playing it in London. The concerto was Elgars last great popular success, of his later large-scale works neither the Second Symphony nor Falstaff nor the Cello Concerto achieved the immediate popularity of the First Symphony or this concerto. Elgar remained particularly fond of the work and his friend Charles Sanford Terry recalled I have never heard Elgar speak of the personal note in his music except in regard to the concerto, and of it I heard him say more than once, I love it. Elgar told Ivor Atkins that he would like the theme in the andante inscribed on his tomb. Even in the 1950s when Elgars music was unfashionable, the concerto featured frequently in concert programmes, by the end of the twentieth century, when Elgars music was once again in the general repertoire, there were more than 20 gramophone recordings of the concerto
31.
Sophy Gray (Pre-Raphaelite muse)
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Sophia Margaret Sophy Gray, later Sophy Caird, was a Scottish-born model for her brother-in-law, the pre-Raphaelite painter, John Everett Millais. She was the sister of Euphemia Gray, who married Millais in 1855 after the annulment of her marriage to John Ruskin. From the late 1860s she suffered from an illness which seems to have involved a form of anorexia nervosa. In 1873 she married the Scottish entrepreneur James Caird and she died in 1882, probably as a result of her anorexia. Sophy Gray was born in October 1843 and her parents were George Gray, a Scottish lawyer and businessman, and Sophia Margaret Gray, née Jameson. Her grandfather, Andrew Jameson, became Sheriff-substitute of Fife, Sophy was the tenth of fifteen children, although five, including three daughters, pre-deceased her. Two of her three elder brothers alive in 1843 died before she was seven, Effie, known initially to the family as Phemy, was the eldest child. The Grays second daughter, also named Sophia Margaret, died aged six in 1841, the family lived at Bowerswell, a house near the foot of Kinnoull Hill, above the Scottish city of Perth, that was re-built in 1842. As a child Sophy frequently visited or stayed with Effie, who lived in London after her marriage in 1848 to the critic, on 25 April 1854 Effie left her husband on the pretence of visiting her parents in Scotland. Sophy had been staying with the Ruskins, at their home in Herne Hill, since just after Christmas 1853 and she and Effie were seen off in silence by Ruskin at the recently opened Kings Cross station, where, accompanied by Crawley, they boarded a train for Edinburgh. However, Sophy alighted at Hitchin, Hertfordshire where her parents were waiting, mrs Gray took her place on the train, while she and her father returned to London to deliver a package from Effie to her solicitors. That evening a citation of nullity was delivered to Ruskin, together with certain effects such as Effies wedding ring, the following day Sophy and her father returned to Scotland by steamer. Effie was granted a decree of nullity on 20 July 1854, in early 1854, Millais painted a portrait of Sophy for her parents. Through her regular visits to his studio in Gower Street, London, during this period, Ruskins mother appears to have indulged Sophy, while, at the same time, casting aspersions on Effie, who was under very considerable stress. For his part, Ruskin sometimes accompanied Sophy on walks, in the course of which he too spoke slightingly of his wife, Effies surviving letters to her parents suggest that Sophy kept her well informed of such adverse criticism. After the annulment of her marriage, Effie avoided Millais for some time and she and Sophy, whose governess was not replaced, spent much of the summer at St Andrews, on the coast of Fife, with their younger sister, Alice. They went for walks together and Effie, who had been well educated herself, the following year, Effie eventually invited Millais to Bowerswell, where they were married in June 1855. For the next few years Sophy continued to sit for Millais, after he and Effie moved to Annat Lodge, close to Bowerswell, she was readily available for this purpose, but it seems also that she was beginning to displace Effie herself as a favoured subject
32.
The North-West Passage
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The North-West Passage is a painting by John Everett Millais. It depicts a sailor sitting at a desk, with his daughter seated in a stool beside him. He stares out at the viewer, while she reads from a log-book, on the desk is a large chart depicting complex passageways between incompletely charted islands. Millais exhibited the painting with the subtitle It might be done and England should do it, the title and subtitle refer to the repeated failure of British expeditions to find the northwest passage, a navigable passageway around the north of the American continent. These expeditions became synonymous with failure, adversity and death, with men, the search for the northwest passage had been undertaken repeatedly since the voyages of Henry Hudson in the early 17th century. The most significant attempt was the 1845 expedition led by John Franklin and these later expeditions were also unable to navigate a route between Canada and the Arctic. Millais had the idea for the painting when a new expedition to explore the passage, Millais was keen to use Edward John Trelawny as the model for the figure of his old sailor. He had met him at the funeral of their mutual friend John Leech, Millais wife Effie Gray persuaded Trelawny to sit for the picture by agreeing to attend a Turkish bath he was promoting at the time. The female figure was a model, Mrs Ellis, who was later used in another painting. The right side of the painting originally depicted two of the grandchildren, who were modelled by John and Alice Millais, two of Millais own children. They were shown looking at a globe of the world, but after Millais completed the painting, he became unhappy with the figures of the children, thinking that they distracted the eye from the main figure. He cut out section of the painting and replaced it with a screen. The chart depicted in the painting is of the northern coast of Canada and it was designed by Edward Augustus Inglefield and printed in 1854. Millais may have intended to suggest that the old man was a veteran of one of McClures expeditions. When he saw the painting at the Royal Academy exhibition, Trelawny, who was teetotal, was outraged by the fact that Millais had included a glass of grog and a lemon. However, he decided that Millais Scottish wife Effie was probably to blame because the Scotch are a nation of sots. The painting was first shown at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1874 and it was then shown at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1876. When Tate bought the painting for 4,000 guineas there was apparently a huge cheer because it meant that it would part of the national collection which Tate was planning
33.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
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James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American artist, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He was averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, and was a proponent of the credo art for arts sake. His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail, the symbol was apt, for it combined both aspects of his personality—his art was characterized by a subtle delicacy, while his public persona was combative. Finding a parallel between painting and music, Whistler entitled many of his paintings arrangements, harmonies, and nocturnes and his most famous painting is Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, commonly known as Whistlers Mother, the revered and oft-parodied portrait of motherhood, Whistler influenced the art world and the broader culture of his time with his artistic theories and his friendships with leading artists and writers. James Abbott Whistler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on July 10,1834 and his father was a railroad engineer, and Anna was his second wife. James lived the first three years of his life in a modest house at 243 Worthen Street in Lowell, today, the house is a museum dedicated to Whistler. During the Ruskin trial, Whistler claimed St. Petersburg, Russia, as his birthplace, declaring, I shall be born when and where I want, in 1837, the Whistlers moved from Lowell to Stonington, Connecticut, where George Whistler worked for the Stonington Railroad. Sadly, during this period, three of George and Anna Whistlers children died in infancy, in 1839, the Whistlers fortunes improved considerably when George Whistler received the appointment that would make his fortune and fame - that of chief engineer for the Boston & Albany Railroad. Thus, the moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, then one of the United States most prosperous cities. The Whistlers lived in Springfield until they left the United States in late 1842, Nicholas I of Russia learned of George Whistlers ingenuity in engineering the Boston & Albany Railroad, and offered Whistler a position in 1842 engineering a railroad from St. Petersburg to Moscow. In the winter of 1842, the Whistlers moved from Springfield to St. Petersburg, in later years, James Whistler played up his mothers connection to the American South and its roots, and presented himself as an impoverished Southern aristocrat. After her death, he adopted her name, using it as an additional middle name. Young Whistler was a moody child prone to fits of temper and insolence and his parents discovered in his early youth that drawing often settled him down and helped focus his attention. Beginning in 1842, his father was employed to work on a railroad in Russia, after moving to St. Petersburg to join his father a year later, the young Whistler took private art lessons, then enrolled in the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts at age eleven. In 1844, he met the noted artist Sir William Allan, Whistlers mother noted in her diary, the great artist remarked to me Your little boy has uncommon genius, but do not urge him beyond his inclination. In 1847-48, his family spent some time in London with relatives, Whistlers brother-in-law Francis Haden, a physician who was also an artist, spurred his interest in art and photography. Haden took Whistler to visit collectors and to lectures, and gave him a set with instruction
34.
Albert Joseph Moore
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Albert Joseph Moore was an English painter, known for his depictions of languorous female figures set against the luxury and decadence of the classical world. He was born at York on 4 September 1841, the son and fourteenth child of well known portrait-painter William Moore and his second wife. Several of his numerous brothers were educated as artists, including Henry Moore, albert Moore was educated at Archbishop Holgates School, and also at St. Peters School at York, receiving at the same time instruction in drawing and painting from his father. He made such progress that he gained a medal from the Department of Science and Art at Kensington in May 1853, after his fathers death in 1851, Moore owed much to the care and tuition of his brother, John Collingham Moore. In 1855, he came to London and attended the Kensington grammar school till 1858 and he had already exhibited there in 1857, when he sent A Goldfinch and A Woodcock. His early works shows the influence of Ruskin, in 1859 he was in France with the architect William Eden Nesfield. In 1861, he made a new venture with two sacred subjects, The Mother of Sisera looked out of a Window, and Elijah running to Jezreel before Ahabs Chariot, meanwhile, Moore had given signs of the remarkable skill which he afterwards displayed as a decorative artist. The 1860s saw Moore designing tiles, wallpaper and stained glass for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. and working as an ecclesiastic and domestic mural painter. During this period his works began to take on a markedly neo-classical character, Moore making a study of antique sculpture. His concern for decorative, color harmonies became apparent in his paintings of the mid 1860s onwards and his works, typically single female figures with formalized proportions, neo-classical drapery and floral accessories, established a major strand of the Aesthetic Movement. About 1860 he painted a ceiling at Shipley, followed by another at Croxteth Park and he spent the winter of 1862–3 in Rome with his brother John Collingham Moore. It was here that he painted Elijahs Sacrifice, which shows the influence of Ford Madox Brown, in 1863 he executed a wall painting for the kitchen of Combe Abbey for the Earl of Craven. Moore was an exhibitor at the Grosvenor Gallery from 1877 onwards. In 1864, he exhibited at the Royal Academy a group in fresco, entitled The Seasons, which attracted notice from the graceful pose of the limbs in the figures, and the delicate folds of the draperies. In 1865, Moore exhibited at the Royal Academy The Marble Seat, the chief charm of Moores pictures lay in the delicate low tones of the diaphanous, tissue-like garments in which the figures were draped. The names attached to the pictures were generally suggested by the completed work, among them were such titles as A Painters Tribute to Music, Shells, The Reader, Dreamers, Battledore, Shuttlecock, Azaleas. In so limited a sphere of art, Moore found his admirers among the few true connoisseurs of art rather than among the general public. His pictures were sold off the easel before completion
35.
John Singer Sargent
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John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the leading portrait painter of his generation for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and his oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida. His parents were American, but he was trained in Paris prior to moving to London and his commissioned works were consistent with the grand manner of portraiture, while his informal studies and landscape paintings displayed a familiarity with Impressionism. In later life Sargent expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work and he lived most of his life in Europe. Art historians generally ignored the society such as Sargent until the late 20th century. Before Sargents birth, his father, FitzWilliam, was an eye surgeon at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia 1844–1854, after Johns older sister died at the age of two, his mother, Mary, suffered a breakdown, and the couple decided to go abroad to recover. They remained nomadic expatriates for the rest of their lives, although based in Paris, Sargents parents moved regularly with the seasons to the sea and the mountain resorts in France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. While Mary was pregnant, they stopped in Florence, Tuscany, Sargent was born there in 1856. A year later, his sister Mary was born, after her birth, FitzWilliam reluctantly resigned his post in Philadelphia and accepted his wifes entreaties to remain abroad. They lived modestly on an inheritance and savings, living a quiet life with their children. They generally avoided society and other Americans except for friends in the art world, four more children were born abroad, of whom only two lived past childhood. Although his father was a patient teacher of basic subjects, young Sargent was a rambunctious child, as his father wrote home, He is quite a close observer of animated nature. His mother was convinced that traveling around Europe, and visiting museums and churches. Several attempts to have him formally schooled failed, owing mostly to their itinerant life, Sargents mother was a fine amateur artist and his father was a skilled medical illustrator. Early on, she gave him sketchbooks and encouraged drawing excursions, young Sargent worked with care on his drawings, and he enthusiastically copied images from The Illustrated London News of ships and made detailed sketches of landscapes. FitzWilliam had hoped that his sons interest in ships and the sea might lead him toward a naval career, at thirteen, his mother reported that John sketches quite nicely, & has a remarkably quick and correct eye. If we could afford to give him really good lessons, he would soon be quite a little artist, at the age of thirteen, he received some watercolor lessons from Carl Welsch, a German landscape painter. Although his education was far from complete, Sargent grew up to be a literate and cosmopolitan young man, accomplished in art, music
36.
Rembrandt
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Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch draughtsman, painter, and printmaker. A prolific and versatile master across three media, he is considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art. Having achieved youthful success as a painter, Rembrandts later years were marked by personal tragedy. Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high, Rembrandts portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible are regarded as his greatest creative triumphs. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and his reputation as the greatest etcher in the history of the medium was established in his lifetime, and never questioned since. Few of his paintings left the Dutch Republic whilst he lived, but his prints were circulated throughout Europe, because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called one of the great prophets of civilization. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on 15 July 1606 in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic and he was the ninth child born to Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuijtbrouck. His family was quite well-to-do, his father was a miller, religion is a central theme in Rembrandts paintings and the religiously fraught period in which he lived makes his faith a matter of interest. His mother was Roman Catholic, and his father belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, unlike many of his contemporaries who traveled to Italy as part of their artistic training, Rembrandt never left the Dutch Republic during his lifetime. He opened a studio in Leiden in 1624 or 1625, which he shared with friend, in 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students, among them Gerrit Dou in 1628. In 1629, Rembrandt was discovered by the statesman Constantijn Huygens, as a result of this connection, Prince Frederik Hendrik continued to purchase paintings from Rembrandt until 1646. He initially stayed with an art dealer, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, Saskia came from a good family, her father had been a lawyer and the burgemeester of Leeuwarden. When Saskia, as the youngest daughter, became an orphan, Rembrandt and Saskia were married in the local church of St. Annaparochie without the presence of Rembrandts relatives. In the same year, Rembrandt became a burgess of Amsterdam and he also acquired a number of students, among them Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck. In 1635 Rembrandt and Saskia moved into their own house, renting in fashionable Nieuwe Doelenstraat, in 1639 they moved to a prominent newly built house in the upscale Breestraat, today known as Jodenbreestraat in what was becoming the Jewish quarter, then a young upcoming neighborhood. The mortgage to finance the 13,000 guilder purchase would be a cause for later financial difficulties. Rembrandt should easily have been able to pay the house off with his income, but it appears his spending always kept pace with his income. It was there that Rembrandt frequently sought his Jewish neighbors to model for his Old Testament scenes, in 1640, they had a second daughter, also named Cornelia, who died after living barely over a month
37.
Aestheticism
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Aestheticism is an intellectual and art movement supporting the emphasis of aesthetic values more than social-political themes for literature, fine art, music and other arts. This meant that Art from this movement focused more on being beautiful rather than having a deeper meaning - Art for Arts sake. His text Studies in the History of the Renaissance was very well regarded by art-oriented young men of the late 19th century, writers of the Decadent movement used the slogan Art for Arts Sake, the origin of which is debated. It is generally accepted to have been promoted by Théophile Gautier in France, the artists and writers of Aesthetic style tended to profess that the Arts should provide refined sensuous pleasure, rather than convey moral or sentimental messages. As a consequence, they did not accept John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, instead, they believed that Art did not have any didactic purpose, it only needed to be beautiful. The Aesthetes developed a cult of beauty, which considered the basic factor of art. Life should copy Art, they asserted and they considered nature as crude and lacking in design when compared to art. Music was used to establish mood, predecessors of the Aesthetics included John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, and some of the Pre-Raphaelites. In Britain the best representatives were Oscar Wilde and Algernon Charles Swinburne, the style and these poets were satirised by Gilbert and Sullivans comic opera Patience and other works, such as F. C. Burnands drama The Colonel, and in magazines such as Punch. Compton Mackenzies novel Sinister Street makes use of the type as a phase through which the protagonist passes as he is influenced by older, decadent individuals. The novels of Evelyn Waugh, who was a participant of aesthete society at Oxford, describe the aesthetes mostly satirically. Some names associated with this assemblage are Robert Byron, Evelyn Waugh, Harold Acton, Nancy Mitford, A. E. Housman, artists associated with the Aesthetic style include James McNeill Whistler, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Aubrey Beardsley. The primary element of Decorative Art is utility, the maxim Art for Arts Sake, identifying art or beauty as the primary element in other branches of the Aesthetic Movement, especially Fine Art, cannot apply in this context. Decorative art must first have utility but may also be beautiful, Decorative art is dissociated from Fine Art. Important elements of the Aesthetic Movement have been identified as Reform, the Government Schools of Design were founded from 1837 onwards in order to improve the design of British goods. Following the Great Exhibition of 1851 efforts were intensified and Oriental objects purchased for the schools teaching collections, production of Aesthetic style furniture was limited to approximately the late 19th century. Aesthetic style furniture is characterized by common themes, Ebonized wood with gilt highlights
38.
Old Master
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In art history, Old Master refers to any painter of skill who worked in Europe before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. An old master print is a print made by an artist in the same period. The term old master drawing is used in the same way, therefore, beyond a certain level of competence, date rather than quality is the criterion for using the term. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term as A pre-eminent artist of the period before the modern, a pre-eminent western European painter of the 13th to 18th centuries. The term is used to refer to a painting or sculpture made by an Old Master. Les Maitres dautrefois of 1876 by Eugene Fromentin may have helped to popularize the concept, the collection in the Dresden museum essentially stops at the Baroque period. The end date is necessarily vague – for example, Goya is certainly an Old Master, the term might also be used for John Constable or Eugène Delacroix, but usually is not. The term tends to be avoided by art historians as too vague, especially when discussing paintings, although the terms Old Master Prints and it remains current in the art trade. Auction houses still usually divide their sales between, for example, Old Master Paintings, Nineteenth-century paintings and Modern paintings, christies defines the term as ranging from the 14th to the early 19th century. S. Master of Flémalle, Master of Mary of Burgundy, Master of Latin 757, Master of the Brunswick Diptych or Master of Schloss Lichtenstein
39.
Joshua Reynolds
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Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential eighteenth-century English painter, specialising in portraits. He promoted the Grand Style in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect and he was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, and was knighted by George III in 1769. Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723 the third son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds and his father had been a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, but did not send any of his sons to the university. One of his sisters was Mary Palmer, seven years his senior, author of Devonshire Dialogue, in 1740 she provided £60, half of the premium paid to Thomas Hudson the portrait-painter, for Joshuas pupilage, and nine years later advanced money for his expenses in Italy. His other siblings included Frances Reynolds and Elizabeth Johnson, as a boy, he came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. The work that came to have the most influential impact on Reynolds was Jonathan Richardsons An Essay on the Theory of Painting, having shown an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas Hudson, who had been born in Devon. Hudson had a collection of old master drawings, including some by Guercino, although apprenticed to Hudson for four years, Reynolds only remained with him until summer 1743. Having left Hudson, Reynolds worked for some time as a portrait-painter in Plymouth Dock and he returned to London before the end of 1744, but following his fathers death in late 1745 he shared a house in Plymouth Dock with his sisters. In 1749, Reynolds met Commodore Augustus Keppel, who invited him to join HMS Centurion, of which he had command, while with the ship he visited Lisbon, Cadiz, Algiers, and Minorca. From Minorca he travelled to Livorno in Italy, and then to Rome, while in Rome he suffered a severe cold, which left him partially deaf, and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. Reynolds travelled homeward overland via Florence, Bologna, Venice, and he was accompanied by Giuseppe Marchi, then aged about 17. Apart from a brief interlude in 1770, Marchi remained in Reynolds employment as an assistant for the rest of the artists career. Following his arrival in England in October 1752, Reynolds spent three months in Devon, before establishing himself in London, where he remained for the rest of his life. He took rooms in St Martins Lane, before moving to Great Newport Street and he achieved success rapidly, and was extremely prolific. In 1760 Reynolds moved into a house, with space to show his works and accommodate his assistants. Alongside ambitious full-length portraits, Reynolds painted large numbers of smaller works, in the late 1750s, at the height of the social season, he received five or six sitters a day, each for an hour. By 1761 Reynolds could command a fee of 80 guineas for a full-length portrait, the clothing of Reynolds sitters was usually painted either by one of his pupils, his studio assistant Giuseppe Marchi, or the specialist drapery painter Peter Toms. Lay figures were used to model the clothes and he had an excellent vantage from his house, Wick House, on Richmond Hill, and painted the view in about 1780
40.
Princes in the Tower
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The Princes in the Tower is an expression frequently used to refer to Edward V of England and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York. The two brothers were the sons of Edward IV of England and Elizabeth Woodville surviving at the time of their fathers death in 1483. When they were 12 and 9 years old, respectively, they were lodged in the Tower of London by the man appointed to look after them, their uncle and this was supposedly in preparation for Edwards forthcoming coronation as king. However, Richard took the throne for himself and the boys disappeared and it is unclear what happened to the boys after they disappeared in the Tower. It is generally assumed that they were murdered, a hypothesis is that they were killed by Richard in an attempt to secure his hold on the throne. Their death may have occurred some time in 1483, but apart from their disappearance, as a result, several other hypotheses about their fates have been proposed, including the suggestion that they were murdered by Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham or Henry VII, among others. It has also suggested that one or both princes may have escaped assassination. In 1487, Lambert Simnel initially claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, from 1491 until his capture in 1497, Perkin Warbeck claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, having supposedly escaped to Flanders. Warbecks claim was supported by some contemporaries, in 1674, workmen at the Tower dug up a wooden box containing two small human skeletons. The bones were found in the ground near the White Tower, the bones were widely accepted at the time as those of the princes, but this has not been proven and is far from certain. King Charles II had the bones buried inside Westminster Abbey, on 9 April 1483, Edward IV of England died unexpectedly after an illness lasting around three weeks. At the time, Edwards son, the new King Edward V, was at Ludlow, the news reached Gloucester around 15 April, although he may have been forewarned of Edwards illness. It is reported that he went to York Minster to publicly pledge his loyalty to his new king. The Croyland Chronicle states that, before his death, Edward IV designated his brother Gloucester as Lord Protector, Edwards request may not have mattered, however, since as the precedent of Henry V showed, the council was not bound to follow the wishes of a dead king. Edward V and Gloucester set out for London from the west and north respectively, the following morning, Gloucester arrested Edwards retinue including the boys uncle, Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, and their half-brother Sir Richard Grey. They were sent to Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire where, on 25 June, Gloucester then took possession of the prince himself, prompting Elizabeth Woodville to take her other son, Richard, Duke of York, and her daughters into sanctuary at Westminster Abbey. Edward V and Gloucester arrived in London together, plans continued for Edwards coronation, but the date was postponed from 4 May to 25 June. On 19 May 1483 Edward was lodged in the Tower of London, on 16 June, he was joined by his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, who was previously in sanctuary
41.
Bubbles (painting)
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Bubbles, originally titled A Childs World, is a painting by Sir John Everett Millais that became famous when it was used over many generations in advertisements for Pears soap. During Millaiss lifetime it led to debate about the relationship between art and advertising. The painting was one of many pictures for which Millais had become well known in his later years. It was modelled by his five-year-old grandson William Milbourne James and was based on 17th-century Dutch precursors in the tradition of vanitas imagery and these sometimes depicted young boys blowing bubbles, typically set against skulls and other signs of death. The painting portrays a young golden-haired boy looking up at a bubble, on one side of him is a young plant growing in a pot, emblematic of life, and on the other is a fallen broken pot, emblematic of death. He is spot-lit against a gloomy background, the painting was first exhibited in 1886 under the title A Childs World at the Grosvenor Gallery in London. The painting was acquired by Sir William Ingram of The Illustrated London News, when it was reproduced and presented in the weekly newspaper as a colour plate, it was seen by Thomas J. Barratt, managing director of A & F Pears. Barratt purchased the painting from Ingram for £2,200 which gave him exclusive copyright on the picture. Millais permission was sought in order to alter the picture by the addition of a bar of Pears Soap, so that it could be used for the purposes of advertising. At the time Millais was one of the most popular artists in Britain and he was apprehensive at the prospect of his work. However, when he was shown the proofs of the proposed advertisements he grew to appreciate the idea, which portrayed the soap as if the child had used it to make the bubbles. Following the success of this advertisement Millais was attacked in print by the novelist Marie Corelli who accused him in her novel The Sorrows of Satan of prostituting his talent to sell soap. Millais wrote to her out that he had sold the copyright of the painting. Millaiss son later claimed that he had tried to stop the advertisement being made, Corelli retracted her comments in a later edition of the book. The advertisement became so known that William Milbourne James, who later rose to the rank of Admiral in the Royal Navy, was known as Bubbles for the rest of his life. Since A & F Pears was acquired by Lever Brothers, the painting has been in their ownership and it was lent to the Royal Academy, but was transferred to the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight in 2006. A reproduction of this hangs in a bomb shelter during the London blitz in the novel Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
42.
Pears (soap)
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Pears transparent soap is a brand of soap first produced and sold in 1807 by Andrew Pears at a factory just off Oxford Street in London, England. It was the worlds first mass-market translucent soap, under the stewardship of Thomas J. Barratt, A. & F. Pears initiated a number of innovations in sales and marketing, Andrew Pears, the son of a farmer, was born about 1770 in Cornwall and moved from his native Mevagissey to London around 1787. He completed his apprenticeship in 1789, established a shop in Gerrard Street in Soho. At that time Soho was a residential area, and Pears clientele included many wealthy socialites who took pride in their appearance. The fashion among the wealthy of the period was for pristine white complexions, Pears found that his powders and creams were frequently being used to cover up damage caused by the harshness of the soaps and other beauty products that were in general use at the time. Pears began to experiment with soap purification and eventually managed to produce a gentle soap based on glycerine, the clarity of the soap gave it a novel transparent appearance which provided a marketing advantage. To add to the appeal, Pears gave the soap an aroma reminiscent of an English garden, during the nineteenth century, Pears built a large market for its soap in the United States. In 1835 when his grandson, Francis Pears, joined the business the firm was renamed A & F Pears, after three years, Andrew retired leaving Francis in charge. At The Great Exhibition of 1851 A & F Pears was awarded the medal for soap. Production moved to Isleworth in 1862, 23-year-old Thomas J. Barratt, sometimes referred to as the father of modern advertising, was appointed bookkeeper in 1864. The next year Francis son, Andrew, joined A. & F, Pears as joint proprietor and ran the Isleworth factory. The same year Thomas married Mary Pears, Franciss eldest daughter, Thomas J Barratts remarkable achievements are recorded in his own article and under Marketing below. Following Barratts death in April 1914 Lever Brothers took a shareholding in A & F Pears. The takeover process was completed in 1920 and marketing and other secondary functions moved to Port Sunlight in north-west England, in the mid to late 1950s each batch of soap, about 12 a day, was tested to ensure the absence of excess alkali or free fatty acid. Production moved to Port Sunlight in the 1960s when Unilever, successor to Lever Brothers, a major fire on the site completely destroyed the original factory. Pears soap is now made in India by Hindustan Unilever, a company in which Unilever now controls a 67 percent share, Pears soap was made using a process entirely different from that for other soaps. A mixture of tallow and other fats was saponified by an alkali in industrial methylated spirits, after saponification was completed, the resulting glycerol was left in the batch
43.
Veld
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Veld, also spelled veldt, is a type of wide open rural landscape in Southern Africa. Particularly, it is an area covered in grass or low scrub, especially in the countries of South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Botswana. A certain sub-tropical woodland ecoregion of Southern Africa has been defined as the Bushveld by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Trees are found only in a few places—frost, fire, and grazing animals allow grass to grow, the word veld comes from the Afrikaans word for field. The etymological origin is older Dutch veldt, a spelling that the Dutch abandoned in favour of veld during the 19th century, decades before the first Afrikaans dictionary. Subsequent addition of the t in the spelling veldt seems to have been mainly an English confusion with the already obsolete Dutch usage. Precipitation mostly occurs in the months in the form of high-energy thunderstorms. Temperature is closely related to elevation, in general, the mean July temperatures range between 45 °F in the Lesotho Highlands and 60 °F in the Lowveld. January temperatures range between 65 °F and 80 °F, in Zimbabwe the precipitation averages around 30 to 35 inches on the Highveld, dropping to less than 15 inches in the lowest areas of the Lowveld. Temperatures are slightly higher than in South Africa, over the entire veld, seasonal and annual average rainfall variations of up to 40 percent are common. Damaging drought affects at least half the area about once every three or four years, it reduces plant and animal biomass to sustainable levels again, everywhere the average number of hours of annual sunshine varies from 60 to 80 percent of the total amount possible. Veld can be compared to the Australian terms outback or the bush, to the prairie of North America, to the pampas lowlands of South America. Someone from Yorkshire might equate wandering across the moors to walking through the veld, by extension, the veld can be compared to the boondocks or those places beyond the black stump in Australia. There is a sense in which it refers in essence to unimproved land and these areas are referred to as fields. The word is appropriate for land that is heavily forested, mountainous. The simplest explanation will be to say the word veld means natural vegetation, excluding vegetation like swamps and it does include mountains with vegetation but not deserts or mountains without natural vegetation. Whereas mountainous peaks and thick forests do not really fit in with the term veld, the word Renosterveld, rhinoceros-field, is now used to differentiate one of the major vegetation types of the Cape Floristic Region. A carefully husbanded sports field on which the game of Rugby is played in the middle of such as Cape Town or Johannesburg is referred to as a rugbyveld in the Afrikaans language
44.
Perth, Scotland
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Perth is a city in central Scotland, located on the banks of the River Tay. It is the centre of Perth and Kinross council area. According to the preliminary 2011 census results Perth, including its suburbs, has a population of 50,000. Perth has been known as The Fair City since the publication of the story Fair Maid of Perth by Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott in 1828. During the later period the city was also called St Johns Toun or Saint Johnstoun by its inhabitants in reference to the main church dedicated to St John the Baptist. This name is preserved by the football team, St Johnstone F. C. The name Perth comes from a Pictish word for wood or copse, there has been a settlement at Perth since prehistoric times, on a natural mound raised slightly above the flood plain of the Tay, where the river could be crossed at low tide. The area surrounding the city is known to have been occupied since Mesolithic hunter-gatherers arrived more than 8000 years ago. Nearby Neolithic standing stones and circles also exist, dating from about 4000 BC, the presence of Scone Abbey, home of the Stone of Destiny where the King of Scots was crowned, enhanced the early importance of the city. Perth became known as a capital of Scotland, due to the frequent residence of the royal court, Royal Burgh status was soon given to the city by King William the Lion in the early 12th century. The city became one of the richest burghs in the country, doing trade with France, the Low Countries and Baltic Countries for goods such as Spanish silk and French wine. The Scottish Reformation also played a big role in the city with the sacking of the Houses of the Greyfriars and Blackfriars, the Act of Settlement later brought about Jacobite uprisings. The city was occupied by Jacobite supporters on three occasions, the founding of Perth Academy in 1760 helped to bring major industries, such as linen, leather, bleach and whisky, to the city. Given its location, Perth was perfectly placed to become a key transport centre with the coming of the railways, today, Perth serves as a retail centre for the surrounding area. Following the decline of the industry locally, the citys economy has now diversified to include insurance. Due to its location, the city is referred to as the Gateway to the Highlands. The Australian metropolis Perth took its name from the Scottish city, Perth is also twinned with Aschaffenburg in the German state of Bavaria. The name Perth derives from a Pictish-Gaelic word for wood or copse, Perth was referred to as St Johns ton up until the mid-1600s with the name Perthia being reserved for the wider area
45.
Andrew Lloyd Webber
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Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway and he has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass. In 2001 the New York Times referred to him as the most commercially successful composer in history, ranked the fifth most powerful person in British culture by The Telegraph in 2008, the lyricist Don Black stated Andrew more or less single-handedly reinvented the musical. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is an inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and his company, the Really Useful Group, is one of the largest theatre operators in London. Producers in several parts of the UK have staged productions, including national tours, Lloyd Webber is also the president of the Arts Educational Schools London, a performing arts school located in Chiswick, West London. He is involved in a number of activities, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Nordoff Robbins, Prostate Cancer UK. His younger brother, Julian Lloyd Webber, is a solo cellist. Lloyd Webber started writing his own music at a young age and he also put on productions with Julian and his Aunt Viola in his toy theatre. Later, he would be the owner of a number of West End theatres and his aunt Viola, an actress, took him to see many of her shows and through the stage door into the world of the theatre. He also had set music to Old Possums Book of Practical Cats at the age of 15. Lloyd Webbers first collaboration with lyricist Tim Rice was The Likes of Us, although composed in 1965, it was not publicly performed until 2005, when a production was staged at Lloyd Webbers Sydmonton Festival. In 2008, amateur rights were released by the National Operatic and Dramatic Association in association with the Really Useful Group, the first amateur performance was by a childrens theatre group in Cornwall called Kidz R Us. In this respect, it is different from the composers later work, which tends to be either predominantly or wholly through-composed. Joseph began life as a cantata that gained some recognition on its second staging with a favourable review in The Times. For its subsequent performances, Rice and Lloyd Webber revised the show and this culminated in a two-hour-long production being staged in the West End on the back of the success of Jesus Christ Superstar. In 1969 Rice and Lloyd Webber wrote a song for the Eurovision Song Contest called Try It and See, with rewritten lyrics it became King Herods Song in their third musical, Jesus Christ Superstar. The planned follow-up to Jesus Christ Superstar was a comedy based on the Jeeves. Tim Rice was uncertain about this venture, partly because of his concern that he not be able to do justice to the novels that he
46.
Manchester Art Gallery
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Manchester Art Gallery, formerly Manchester City Art Gallery, is a publicly owned art museum on Mosley Street in Manchester city centre. The main gallery premises were built for a society in 1823. The building that links them was designed by Hopkins Architects following a design competition managed by RIBA Competitions. It opened in 2002 following a renovation and expansion project undertaken by the art gallery. Manchester Art Gallery is free to enter and open seven days a week and it houses many works of local and international significance and has a collection of more than 25,000 objects. More than half a million visited the museum in the period of a year. The Royal Manchester Institution was a society formed in 1823. It was housed what is now the art gallerys main building on Mosley Street. The first object acquired for its collection, James Northcotes A Moor, was bought in 1827, the institution was handed over on condition that £2000 per annum would be spent on art for the next 20 years. The gallery is operated by Manchester City Galleries, a department of Manchester City Council which is responsible for the Gallery of Costume at Platt Hall. Maria Balshaw is the director of the galleries and also director of the University of Manchesters Whitworth Art Gallery and she became joint director in a collaboration between the council and the university in 2011. The gallerys budget is controlled by the council but it also funded by the Manchester Art Gallery Trust, the trust raises nearly half the funding required from companies, individuals and grant making trusts and foundations. The gallery is open daily and on Thursdays opens until 9pm. Manchester Art Gallery is housed in three connected buildings, the City Art Gallery building, which faces onto Mosley Street, was designed and constructed between 1824–35. It originally housed the Royal Manchester Institution, designed by architect Sir Charles Barry in the Greek Ionic style, the building is now Grade I listed. The two-storey gallery is built in rusticated ashlar to a plan on a raised plinth. The roof is hidden by a dentilled cornice and plain parapet. Its eleven-bay facade has two side ranges and a central five-bay pedimented projecting portico with six Ionic columns
47.
Landscape painting
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In other works, landscape backgrounds for figures can still form an important part of the work. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather is often an element of the composition, detailed landscapes as a distinct subject are not found in all artistic traditions, and develop when there is already a sophisticated tradition of representing other subjects. The two main traditions spring from Western painting and Chinese art, going well over a thousand years in both cases. Landscape views in art may be imaginary, or copied from reality with varying degrees of accuracy. If the primary purpose of a picture is to depict an actual, specific place, especially including buildings prominently, within a few decades it was used to describe vistas in poetry, and eventually as a term for real views. However the cognate term landscaef or landskipe for a patch of land had existed in Old English. The earliest pure landscapes with no figures are frescos from Minoan Greece of around 1500 BCE. The frescos from the Tomb of Nebamun, now in the British Museum, are a famous example. These were frequently used, as in the illustrated, to bridge the gap between a foreground scene with figures and a distant panoramic vista, a persistent problem for landscape artists. The Chinese style generally showed only a distant view, or used dead ground or mist to avoid that difficulty, aesthetic theories in both regions gave the highest status to the works seen to require the most imagination from the artist. They were often also poets whose lines and images illustrated each other, a revival in interest in nature initially mainly manifested itself in depictions of small gardens such as the Hortus Conclusus or those in millefleur tapestries. The frescos of figures at work or play in front of a background of trees in the Palace of the Popes. Several frescos of gardens have survived from Roman houses like the Villa of Livia, a particular advance is shown in the less well-known Turin-Milan Hours, now largely destroyed by fire, whose developments were reflected in Early Netherlandish painting for the rest of the century. Landscape backgrounds for various types of painting became prominent and skilful during the 15th century. The Italian development of a system of graphical perspective was now known all over Europe. Indeed, certain styles were so popular that they became formulas that could be copied again and again, after the publication of the Small Landscapes, landscape artists in the Low Countries either continued with the world landscape or followed the new mode presented by the Small Landscapes. The popularity of landscape scenes can be seen in the success of the painter Frans Post. Salvator Rosa gave picturesque excitement to his landscapes by showing wilder Southern Italian country, there are different styles and periods, and subgenres of marine and animal painting, as well as a distinct style of Italianate landscape
48.
Perthshire
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Perthshire, officially the County of Perth, is a registration county in central Scotland. It extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, Rannoch Moor and Ben Lui in the west and it was a local government county from 1890 to 1930. Perthshire is known as the big county and has a variety of landscapes, from the rich agricultural straths in the east. Perthshire was an administrative county between 1890 and 1975, governed by a county council and this Local Government council was superseded in 1930, when a joint Local Government council was formed with the neighbouring small county of Kinross-shire, linking the two. The parish of Muckhart and Glendevon was made part of Clackmannan District Council, longforgan was included in the City of Dundee District, in Tayside Region Council. The remainder of the council was combined with the council of Kinross, the two-tier system introduced in 1975 was superseded by a system of unitary authorities in 1996. The area of the council is now divided between the Local Government council areas of Clackmannanshire, Perth and Kinross and Stirling. The area included in Dundee in 1975 was transferred to Perth, the coat of arms of the County of Perth appears to have been granted for use on the colours and standards of the volunteer and militia units of the county raised at the end of the eighteenth century. The grant document was discovered in the Lyon Office in 1890, the shield is very similar to the Scottish royal arms, reflecting that Perthshire was the home county of the House of Dunkeld and contains the former royal capital, Scone. Further royal references are made on the canton, which shows Scone Palace surmounted by the Crown of Scotland, the crest is a Highland soldier, reflecting that the famous Black Watch were formed in the county. The supporters are an eagle and a warhorse, the former from the arms of the city of Perth, of the twelve burghs in Perthshire, only Perth was made a large burgh. There were ten small burghs, Blairgowrie and Rattray being united into a single burgh, in 1947 Pitlochry was created a small burgh. In 1894 parish councils were established for the parishes, replacing the previous parochial boards. The parish councils were in turn replaced by district councils in 1930, the Royal Burgh of Perth originally formed part of the Perth burghs constituency along with burghs in Fife and Forfarshire. The Representation of the People Act 1832 made Perth a separate burgh constituency, the remainder of the county returned a single member as the parliamentary county of Perthshire. The parishes of Tulliallan, Culross, Muckhart, and the Perthshire portions of the parishes of Logie and Fossaway were annexed to constituency of Clackmannanshire, in 1885 seats in the House of Commons were redistributed, Perthshire received three seats. Perthshire Eastern Perthshire Western In 1918 there was a further redistribution, in 1950 it was renamed Perth and East Perthshire. These boundaries continued in use until 1983, when new constituencies were formed based on the Local Government regions and districts created in 1975
"Millais, John Everett". Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1901.
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Millais's Mariana[1]