1.
Geneva
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Geneva is the second most populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situated where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Republic, the municipality has a population of 198,072, and the canton has 484,736 residents. In 2014, the compact agglomération du Grand Genève had 946,000 inhabitants in 212 communities in both Switzerland and France, within Swiss territory, the commuter area named Métropole lémanique contains a population of 1.25 million. This area is essentially spread east from Geneva towards the Riviera area and north-east towards Yverdon-les-Bains, Geneva is the city that hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world. It is also the place where the Geneva Conventions were signed, Geneva was ranked as the worlds ninth most important financial centre for competitiveness by the Global Financial Centres Index, ahead of Frankfurt, and third in Europe behind London and Zürich. A2009 survey by Mercer found that Geneva has the third-highest quality of life of any city in the world, the city has been referred to as the worlds most compact metropolis and the Peace Capital. In 2009 and 2011, Geneva was ranked as, respectively, the city was mentioned in Latin texts, by Caesar, with the spelling Genava, probably from a Celtic toponym *genawa- from the stem *genu-, in the sense of a bending river or estuary. The medieval county of Geneva in Middle Latin was known as pagus major Genevensis or Comitatus Genevensis, the name takes various forms in modern languages, Geneva /dʒᵻˈniːvə/ in English, French, Genève, German, Genf, Italian, Ginevra, and Romansh, Genevra. The city in origin shares its name, *genawa estuary, with the Italian port city of Genoa, Geneva was an Allobrogian border town, fortified against the Helvetii tribe, when the Romans took it in 121 BC. It became Christian under the Late Roman Empire, and acquired its first bishop in the 5th century, having been connected to the bishopric of Vienne in the 4th. In the Middle Ages, Geneva was ruled by a count under the Holy Roman Empire until the late 14th century, around this time the House of Savoy came to dominate the city. In the 15th century, a republican government emerged with the creation of the Grand Council. In 1541, with Protestantism in the ascendancy, John Calvin, by the 18th century, however, Geneva had come under the influence of Catholic France, which cultivated the city as its own. France also tended to be at odds with the ordinary townsfolk, in 1798, revolutionary France under the Directory annexed Geneva. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, on 1 June 1814, in 1907, the separation of Church and State was adopted. Geneva flourished in the 19th and 20th centuries, becoming the seat of international organizations. Geneva is located at 46°12 North, 6°09 East, at the end of Lake Geneva. It is surrounded by two chains, the Alps and the Jura
2.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
3.
Fortification
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Fortifications are military constructions or buildings designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and also used to solidify rule in a region during peace time. Humans have constructed defensive works for many thousands of years, in a variety of increasingly complex designs, the term is derived from the Latin fortis and facere. From very early history to modern times, walls have been a necessity for cities to survive in a changing world of invasion. Some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were the first small cities to be fortified, in ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, such as the ancient site of Mycenae. A Greek Phrourion was a collection of buildings used as a military garrison. These construction mainly served the purpose of a tower, to guard certain roads, passes. Though smaller than a fortress, they acted as a border guard rather than a real strongpoint to watch. The art of setting out a camp or constructing a fortification traditionally has been called castramentation since the time of the Roman legions. Fortification is usually divided into two branches, permanent fortification and field fortification, there is also an intermediate branch known as semi-permanent fortification. Castles are fortifications which are regarded as being distinct from the fort or fortress in that they are a residence of a monarch or noble. Roman forts and hill forts were the antecedents of castles in Europe. The Early Middle Ages saw the creation of towns built around castles. Medieval-style fortifications were made obsolete by the arrival of cannons in the 14th century. Fortifications in the age of black powder evolved into much lower structures with greater use of ditches and earth ramparts that would absorb, Walls exposed to direct cannon fire were very vulnerable, so were sunk into ditches fronted by earth slopes. The arrival of explosive shells in the 19th century led to yet another stage in the evolution of fortification, steel-and-concrete fortifications were common during the 19th and early 20th centuries. However the advances in warfare since World War I have made large-scale fortifications obsolete in most situations. Demilitarized zones along borders are arguably another type of fortification, although a passive kind, many military installations are known as forts, although they are not always fortified. Larger forts may be called fortresses, smaller ones were known as fortalices
4.
Roof lantern
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A roof lantern is a daylighting cupola architectural element. Architectural lanterns are atop a roof and provide natural light into the space or room below. In contemporary use it is an architectural skylight structure, the term roof top lantern is used to describe the lighted decorative lanterns atop taxi cabs in Japan, designed to reflect the cultural heritage of Japanese paper lanterns. The glazed lantern was developed during the Middle Ages, roof lanterns of masonry and glass were used in Renaissance architecture, such as in principal cathedrals. Post-Renaissance roof lanterns were made of timber and glass and were prone to leaking. “Initially wood-framed in the 18th and 19th centuries, skylights became even more popular in construction with the advent of sheet-metal shops during the Victorian era. Virtually every urban row house of the late-19th and early-20th centuries relied upon a skylight to illuminate its enclosed stairwell. Typically, roof lanterns are constructed using wood, UPVC or aluminium and they serve as an architectural feature, distinguished from commercial manufactured skylights by their custom design, providing unique views to the outdoors. Traditional architectural styles characterise most roof lanterns in the UK, in the U. S. where the term custom skylight is often used, modern styles of roof lanterns are also common in the building vernacular. Daylighting Passive daylighting Cupola Conservatory Britannica Online Encyclopedia, Lantern
5.
Allegorical sculpture
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Allegorical sculpture refers to sculptures that symbolize and particularly personify abstract ideas as in allegory. This approach of using human form and its posture, gesture and it may be seen in funerary art as early as 1580. They were used on renaissance monuments when patron saints became unacceptable, particularly popular were the four cardinal virtues and the three Christian virtues, but others such as fame, victory, hope and time are also represented. The use of sculpture was fully developed under the École des Beaux-Arts. It is sometimes associated with Victorian art, and is found in works dating from around 1900. The Four cardinal virtues, by Maximilian Colt, on the monument to Robert Cecil, pintos Allegories of Justice and Truth by architect Giuseppe Bonici and mason Giovanni Puglisi,1758. The figures of the four continents and four arts and sciences surrounding the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens,1872
6.
Frieze
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In architecture the frieze /ˈfriːz/ is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on a wall it lies upon the architrave and is capped by the moldings of the cornice. A frieze can be found on many Greek and Roman buildings, the Parthenon Frieze being the most famous and this style is typical for the Persians. In interiors, the frieze of a room is the section of wall above the picture rail, by extension, a frieze is a long stretch of painted, sculpted or even calligraphic decoration in such a position, normally above eye-level. Frieze decorations may depict scenes in a sequence of discrete panels, the material of which the frieze is made of may be plasterwork, carved wood or other decorative medium. In an example of a frieze on the façade of a building. A pulvinated frieze is convex in section, such friezes were features of 17th-century Northern Mannerism, especially in subsidiary friezes, and much employed in interior architecture and in furniture. The concept of a frieze has been generalized in the construction of frieze patterns. Media related to Friezes at Wikimedia Commons Frieze
7.
Jean Dassier
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Jean Dassier was a Swiss engraver and medallist. Dassier was born in Geneva, and his father was the official Mint Engraver for the Canton of Geneva, in 1703 Dassier married Anne Prevost-Gaudy, and they had two sons. He studied in Paris with Jean Mauger and Joseph Roettiers, in 1712 Dassier was admitted as a master in the guild of goldsmiths. In 1720 he succeeded his father as the engraver for Geneva. He was appointed to the Council of Two Hundred in 1738, Dassier died on November 12,1763. At his death, his son Antoine took over as the engraver of Geneva currency. Émile Haag, The Protestant France -1855 William Eisler, The medals Dassier Skira Geneva 2009 Some content translated from the corresponding French Wikipedia article Dassier
8.
Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours
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Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours was a Swiss painter. Jean-Pierre was born in Geneva, Switzerland and he began studying with his father Jacques who was himself a renowned painter. He continued his studies in Paris, in 1769, with Joseph-Marie Vien, in 1780, he obtained the Prix de Rome, but was denied a place at the French Academy in Rome, because of nationality issues and he began the journey at his own expense. In 1792, Saint-Ours was forced to return to his due to the events of Revolution. On 6 April 1809 he died in Geneva and his works may be seen in several museums, including the Louvre, in Paris, and the Musée dArt et dHistoire of Geneva. Works Koller, Mylène, Zur Genfer Historienmalerei von Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours, Bern, New York, OCLC35143635 Herdt, Anne de, Saint-Ours et la Révolution, Genève, Musée dart et dhistoire,1989
9.
Jacques-Laurent Agasse
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Jacques-Laurent Agasse was an animal and landscape painter from Switzerland. Born at Geneva, Agasse studied in the art school of that city. Before he turned twenty he went to Paris to study in school to make himself fully acquainted with the anatomy of horses. He seems to have returned to Switzerland. The Tübinger Morgenblatt says that Agasse, the animal painter, now in England. About eight years ago, he being then in Switzerland, a rich Englishman asked him to paint his favourite dog which had died, the Englishman was so pleased with his work that he took the painter to England with him. Nagler says that he was one of the most celebrated animal painters at the end of the 18th, in Meusels Neue Miscellaneen, he compares Agasse and Wouvermans, wholly in favour of the former. In that partial article much is said of his devotion to art, of his marvelous knowledge of anatomy, of his special fondness for the English racehorses. He appears first in the Academy catalogues in 1801 as the exhibitor of the Portrait of a Horse, in the catalogues his name is given as J. L. Agasse or Agassé. The number of times Agassé changed his address confirms Redgraves assertion that he lived poor, the writer of the panegyric already quoted says, however, that he did not work for money, but that he was urged forward by the resistless force of natural genius. He is also featured in the French thriller LAntiquaire, with some works credited to him - a painting of two Leopards, among others. 1052 Fiorillo, Geschichte der Mahlerey, v.841, speaks of Agasse, global Gallery Bio & works 23 works by Jacques-Laurent Agasse at www. Jacques-Laurent-Agasse. org Jacques-Laurent Agasse Paitings Gallery
10.
Alexandre Calame
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Alexandre Calame was a Swiss painter. He was born in Arabie at the time belonging to Corsier-sur-Vevey, when his father fell from a building and then died, it was up to the young Calame to provide for his mother. In his spare time he began to practice drawing small views of Switzerland, in 1829 he met his patron, the banker Diodati, who made it possible for him to study under landscape painter François Diday. After a few months he decided to devote fully to art. In 1835 he began exhibiting his Swiss-Alps and forest paintings in Paris and he became quite well known, especially in Germany, although Calame was more a drawer than an illustrator. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting, in 1842 he went to Paris and displayed his works Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau, the Brienzersee, the Monte Rosa and Mont Cervin. He taught in Geneva, where Adolf Mosengel was one of his pupils and he went to Italy in 1844 and brought back from Rome and Naples countless paintings, among them one of the ruins of Paestum. He showed that he was capable of understanding Italian nature, and we still call them the Handeckfall from Bernese upper country, in Tirol, Lake Lucerne, the forest tower, the forest stream etc. He became popular with large works, and his popularity grew with smaller pieces and lithographies, namely 18 studies of Lauterbrunnen and Meiringen. These were widespread in France, England, and Germany and are today used to teach this style of painting. Calame became a correspondent of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands in 1850 and he died in Menton, France in 1864. An exhibition featuring more than thirty of Calames paintings was held at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, blick von Petit Saconnex auf Genf und den Montblanc,1834, Leinwand, 31×44 cm. Die Tempelruinen von Paestum,1847, Leinwand, 195×260 cm, oak Trees. Philadelphia Museum of Art Alexandre Calame in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland
11.
Jean Petitot
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Jean Petitot was a French-Swiss enamel painter. He was born at Geneva, a member of a Burgundian family which had fled from France on account of religious difficulties and his father, Faulle, was a wood carver. Jean was the son, and was apprenticed to a jeweller goldsmith named Pierre Bordier. On the execution of the king, Petitot left England for Paris with the household, Bordier remaining in England and carrying out certain important commissions for Cromwell. The two painters were given apartments in the Louvre, received commissions from Louis XIV. The friendship between the two lasted for years, and was only put an end to by Bordiers death. On the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,1685, pressure was brought to bear upon Petitot that he should change his religion. The king protected him as long as possible, and when he was arrested, with his niece, Anne Bordier, sent Bossuet, in Geneva he received a very important commission from John Sobieski, king of Poland, who required portraits of himself and his queen. This was followed by numberless other commissions which the painter carried out and he died of paralysis on April 3,1691 at Vevey, while in the very act of painting on the enamel a portrait of his faithful wife. Of the works of Petitot the major collection is in the Jones Bequest at the Victoria, there are many in the Louvre, sixteen at Chantilly, and seventeen at Windsor. Petitot was collected by Earl Beauchamp, the Duke of Rutland, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Dartrey, Alfred de Rothschild, amongst Lord Dartreys examples were portraits of Petitot and of his son, and two of the wife of Jean Petitot the younger. A second portrait of the artist belonged to the Queen of Holland, Petitot married in 1651 Marguerite Cuper, and Jacques Bordier married in the same year her younger sister Anne Madeleine. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Petitot
12.
James Pradier
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James Pradier was a Swiss-born French sculptor best known for his work in the neoclassical style. Born in Geneva, Pradier was the son of a Protestant family from Toulouse and he left for Paris in 1807 to work with his elder brother, Charles-Simon Pradier, an engraver, and also attended the École des Beaux-Arts beginning in 1808. He won a Prix de Rome that enabled him to study in Rome from 1814 to 1818 at the Villa Médicts, Pradier made his debut at the Salon in 1819 and quickly acquired a reputation as a competent artist. He studied under Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in Paris, in 1827 he became a member of the Académie des beaux-arts and a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts Unlike many of his contemporaries, Pradier oversaw the finish of his sculptures himself. After the liaison with Drouet ended, he married Louis dArcot in 1833, the cool neoclassical surface finish of his sculptures is charged with an eroticism that their mythological themes can barely disguise. At the Salon of 1834, Pradiers Satyr and Bacchante created a scandalous sensation, some claimed to recognize the features of the sculptor and his mistress, Juliette Drouet. When the prudish government of Louis-Philippe refused to purchase it, Count Anatole Demidoff bought it, for his native Geneva he completed the statue of the Genevan Jean-Jacques Rousseau erected in 1838 on the tiny Île Rousseau, where Lac Léman empties to form the Rhône. Aside from large-scale sculptures Pradier collaborated with François-Désiré Froment-Meurice, designing jewelry in a Renaissance-Romantic style and he is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery. Much of the contents of his studio were bought up after his death by the city museum of Geneva, Pradier has been largely forgotten in modern times. An exhibition, Statues de chair, sculptures de James Pradier at Genevas Musée dArt et dHistoire and Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, roused some interest in Pradiers career, Pradiers students included, Fusco, Peter and H. W. B. Speed Museum, Louisville Kentucky,1971 List of works by James Pradier Index of pages devoted to Pradiers works James Pradier in American public collections, on the French Sculpture Census website
13.
Natural history
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Natural history is the research and study of organisms including animals, fungi and plants in their environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. It encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it, with articles nowadays more often published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the sciences, natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. That is a broad designation in a world filled with many narrowly focused disciplines. For example, geobiology has a strong multi-disciplinary nature combining scientists, a person who studies natural history is known as a naturalist or natural historian. The English term natural history is a translation of the Latin historia naturalis and its meaning has narrowed progressively with time, while the meaning of the related term nature has widened. In antiquity, it covered essentially anything connected with nature or which used materials drawn from nature. For example, Pliny the Elders encyclopedia of this title, published circa 77 to 79 AD, covers astronomy, geography, man and his technology, medicine and superstition as well as animals and plants. Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two divisions, the humanities and divinity, with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry, natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus aspiration to improve the economic condition of Sweden. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits, the astronomer, William Herschel was also a natural historian. Instead of working with plants or minerals he worked with the stars and he spent his time building telescopes to see the stars and the rest of the time watching the stars. In the beginning, he believed there to be a known as a nebulae. Herschel can be considered a natural historian because he observed the natural world, in the process he made charts of all the stars and kept records of all that he saw. S. Wilcove and T. Eisner, The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior and it encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do. Some definitions go further, focusing on observation of organisms in their environment. Bartholomew, A student of history, or a naturalist, studies the world by observing plants. A common thread in many definitions of natural history is the inclusion of a component, as seen in a recent definition by H. W. Greene
14.
Archaeology
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Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
15.
Graphic arts
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A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional, i. e. produced on a flat surface. Graphic art further includes calligraphy, photography, painting, typography, computer graphics and it also encompasses drawn plans and layouts for interior and architectural designs. Throughout history, technological inventions have shaped the development of graphic art, in 2500 B. C. the Egyptians used graphic symbols to communicate their thoughts in a written form known as hieroglyphics. The Egyptians wrote and illustrated narratives on rolls of papyrus to share the stories, during the Middle Ages, scribes manually copied each individual page of manuscripts to maintain their sacred teachings. The scribes would leave marked sections of the page available for artists to insert drawings, using art alongside the carefully lettered text enhanced the religious reading experience. Johannes Gutenberg invented an improved movable type mechanical device known as the press in 1450. His printing press facilitated the mass-production of text and graphic art and eventually, again during the Renaissance years, graphic art in the form of printing played a major role in the spread of classical learning in Europe. Within these manuscripts, book designers focused heavily on typeface, the invention and popularity of film and television changed graphic art through the additional aspect of motion as advertising agencies attempted to use kinetics to their advantage. The next major change in graphic arts came when the computer was invented in the twentieth century. Powerful computer software enables artists to manipulate images in a faster and simpler way than the skills of board artists prior to the 1990s. With quick calculations, computers easily recolor, scale, rotate, the scientific investigations into legibility has influenced such things as the design of street signs. New York City is in the process of changing out all of its street signs bearing all capital letters for replacement with signs bearing only upper and lower case letters and they estimate that the increased legibility will facilitate way-finding and reduce crashes and injuries significantly. One of the most common career paths for a graphic artist today is web design, with the popularity of the World Wide Web, the demand for web designers is immense. Graphic artists use their creativity with layouts, typography, and logos to market the products or services of the client’s business. In addition to creating graphical designs, graphic artists also need to understand hypertext, web programming, the responsibility for effective communication also falls under the auspices of the graphic designer. ] Crowdsourcing creative work Graphic design Printmaking
16.
Porcelain
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Porcelain /ˈpɔːrsəlᵻn, ˈpɔːrslᵻn/ is a ceramic material made by heating materials, generally including kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C. Porcelain was first developed in China around 2,000 years ago, then spread to other East Asian countries, and finally Europe. It combines well with both glazes and paint, and can be modelled very well, allowing a range of decorative treatments in tablewares, vessels. It also has uses in technology and industry. The European name, porcelain in English, come from the old Italian porcellana because of its resemblance to the translucent surface of the shell, Porcelain is also referred to as china or fine china in some English-speaking countries, as it was first seen in imports from China. Porcelain has been described as being completely vitrified, hard, impermeable, white or artificially coloured, translucent, however, the term porcelain lacks a universal definition and has been applied in a very unsystematic fashion to substances of diverse kinds which have only certain surface-qualities in common. Terms such as porcellaneous or near-porcelain may be used in such cases, a high proportion of modern porcelain is made of the variant bone china. Kaolin is the material from which porcelain is made, even though clay minerals might account for only a small proportion of the whole. The word paste is an old term for both the unfired and fired material, a more common terminology these days for the unfired material is body, for example, when buying materials a potter might order an amount of porcelain body from a vendor. The composition of porcelain is highly variable, but the mineral kaolinite is often a raw material. Other raw materials can include feldspar, ball clay, glass, bone ash, steatite, quartz, petuntse, the clays used are often described as being long or short, depending on their plasticity. Long clays are cohesive and have high plasticity, short clays are cohesive and have lower plasticity. Clays used for porcelain are generally of lower plasticity and are shorter than many other pottery clays and they wet very quickly, meaning that small changes in the content of water can produce large changes in workability. Thus, the range of content within which these clays can be worked is very narrow. The following section provides information on the methods used to form, decorate, finish, glaze. Many types of glaze, such as the iron-containing glaze used on the wares of Longquan, were designed specifically for their striking effects on porcelain. Porcelain wares may be decorated under the glaze using pigments that include cobalt and copper or over the glaze using coloured enamels. Like many earlier wares, modern porcelains are often biscuit-fired at around 1,000 °C, coated with glaze, another early method is once-fired where the glaze is applied to the unfired body and the two fired together in a single operation
17.
Clock
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A clock is an instrument to measure, keep, and indicate time. The word clock is derived from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning bell, a silent instrument missing such a striking mechanism has traditionally been known as a timepiece. In general usage today a clock refers to any device for measuring and displaying the time, Watches and other timepieces that can be carried on ones person are often distinguished from clocks. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units, the day, the lunar month. Devices operating on several physical processes have been used over the millennia, a sundial shows the time by displaying the position of a shadow on a flat surface. There is a range of duration timers, an example being the hourglass. Water clocks, along with the sundials, are possibly the oldest time-measuring instruments, spring-driven clocks appeared during the 15th century. During the 15th and 16th centuries, clockmaking flourished, the next development in accuracy occurred after 1656 with the invention of the pendulum clock. A major stimulus to improving the accuracy and reliability of clocks was the importance of precise time-keeping for navigation, the electric clock was patented in 1840. The development of electronics in the 20th century led to clocks with no clockwork parts at all, the timekeeping element in every modern clock is a harmonic oscillator, a physical object that vibrates or oscillates at a particular frequency. This object can be a pendulum, a fork, a quartz crystal. Analog clocks usually indicate time using angles, Digital clocks display a numeric representation of time. Two numeric display formats are used on digital clocks, 24-hour notation. Most digital clocks use electronic mechanisms and LCD, LED, or VFD displays, for convenience, distance, telephony or blindness, auditory clocks present the time as sounds. There are also clocks for the blind that have displays that can be read by using the sense of touch, some of these are similar to normal analog displays, but are constructed so the hands can be felt without damaging them. The evolution of the technology of clocks continues today, the study of timekeeping is known as horology. The apparent position of the Sun in the sky moves over the course of a day, shadows cast by stationary objects move correspondingly, so their positions can be used to indicate the time of day. A sundial shows the time by displaying the position of a shadow on a flat surface, sundials can be horizontal, vertical, or in other orientations
18.
Vitreous enamel
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Vitreous enamel, also called porcelain enamel, is a material made by fusing powdered glass to a substrate by firing, usually between 750 and 850 °C. The powder melts, flows, and then hardens to a smooth, durable vitreous coating on metal, so in technical terms fired enamelware is an integrated layered composite of glass and metal. Enamelling is an old and widely adopted technology, for most of its history mainly used in jewelry, enamelled and enamelling are the preferred spellings in British English, while enameled and enameling are preferred in American English. The term enamel is most often restricted to work on metal, enamelled glass is also called painted, and overglaze decoration to pottery is often called enamelling. The word enamel comes from the Old High German word smelzan via the Old French esmail, or from a Latin word smaltum, used as a noun, an enamel is usually a small decorative object coated with enamel. Since the 19th century the term also to industrial materials and many metal consumer objects, such as some cooking vessels, dishwashers, laundry machines, sinks. The ancient Egyptians applied enamels to stone objects, pottery, and sometimes jewellery, the ancient Greeks, Celts, Georgians, and Chinese also used enamel on metal objects. Enamel powder could be produced in two ways, either by powdering coloured glass, or by mixing colourless glass powder with pigments such as a metallic oxide, designs were either painted freehand or over the top of outline incisions, and the technique probably originated in metalworking. Once painted, enamelled glass vessels needed to be fired at a high enough to melt the applied powder. Ancient Persians used this method for colouring and ornamenting the surface of metals by fusing over it brilliant colours that are decorated in an intricate design and called it Meenakari. Gold has been used traditionally for Meenakari Jewellery as it holds the enamel better, lasts longer, initially, the work of Meenakari often went unnoticed as this art was traditionally used as a backing for the famous kundan or stone-studded jewellery. This also allowed the wearer to reverse the jewellery as also promised a special joy in the secret of the hidden design, the Byzantine enamel style was widely adopted by the barbarian peoples of Migration Period northern Europe. The Byzantines then began to use cloisonné more freely to create images, the champlevé technique was considerably easier and very widely practiced in the Romanesque period. In Gothic art the finest work is in basse-taille and ronde-bosse techniques, from either Byzantium or the Islamic world, the cloisonné technique reached China in the 13-14th centuries. The first written reference to cloisonné is in a book from 1388, cloisonné remained very popular in China until the 19th century and is still produced today. Starting from the century, the Japanese also produced large quantities of very high technical quality. A resurgence in enamel-based art took place near the end of the 20th century in the Soviet Union, led by artists like Alexei Maximov, in Australia, abstract artist Bernard Hesling brought the style into prominence with his variously sized steel plates. Enamel was first applied commercially to sheet iron and steel in Austria, industrialization increased as the purity of raw materials increased and costs decreased
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Conservation-restoration of cultural heritage
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The conservation-restoration of cultural heritage focuses on protection and care of tangible cultural heritage, including artworks, architecture, archaeology, and museum collections. Conservation activities include preventive conservation, examination, documentation, research, treatment and this field is closely allied with conservation science, curators and registrars. Conservation of cultural heritage can be described as a type of ethical stewardship, Conservation of cultural heritage applies simple ethical guidelines, Minimal intervention, Appropriate materials and reversible methods, Full documentation of all work undertaken. Often there are compromises between preserving appearance, maintaining original design and material properties, and ability to reverse changes, reversibility is now emphasized so as to reduce problems with future treatment, investigation, and use. The care of cultural heritage has a history, one that was primarily aimed at fixing and mending objects for their continued use. Until the early 20th century, artists were normally the ones called upon to repair damaged artworks, louis Pasteur carried out scientific analysis on paint as well. The society was founded by William Morris and Philip Webb, both of whom were influenced by the writings of John Ruskin. He not only developed an approach to the care of objects in the collections. The early development of conservation of heritage in any area of the world is usually linked to the creation of positions for chemists within museums. Lauries interests were fostered by William Holman Hunt, the creation of this department moved the focus for the development of conservation theory and practice from Germany to Britain, and made the latter a prime force in this fledgling field. In the United States, the development of conservation of heritage can be traced to the Fogg Art Museum. Importantly he also brought onto the staff chemists. Rutherford John Gettens was the first of usch in the US to be employed by an art museum. He worked with George L. Stout, the founder and first editor of Technical Studies, Gettens and Stout co-authored Painting Materials, A Short Encyclopaedia in 1942, reprinted in 1966. This compendium is still cited regularly, only a few dates and descriptions in Gettens and Stouts book are now outdated. George T. Oliver, of Oliver Brothers Art Restoration and Art Conservation-Boston invented the vacuum hot table for relining paintings in 1920s, taylors prototype table, which he designed and constructed, is still in operation. Oliver Brothers is believed to be the first and the oldest continuously operating art restoration company in the United States, the focus of conservation development then accelerated in Britain and America, and it was in Britain that the first International Conservation Organisations developed. Art historians and theorists such as Cesare Brandi have also played a significant role in developing conservation science theory, in recent years ethical concerns have been at the forefront of developments in conservation
20.
Konrad Witz
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Konrad Witz was a German-born painter, active mainly in Basel, Switzerland. Witz is most famous for painting three altarpieces, all of which only partially. The earliest is the Heilspiegel Altarpiece of about 1435, the next is the Altarpiece of the Virgin, which has been associated with panels now in Basel, Nuremberg, and Strasbourg. The painting of St. Christopher does not seem to be related to these major altarpieces, other independent works by Witz and his followers can be found in Naples, Berlin, and New York
21.
St. Pierre Cathedral
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The St. Pierre Cathedral is a cathedral in Geneva, Switzerland, today belonging to the Reformed Protestant Church of Geneva. It is known as the home church of John Calvin. Inside the church is a chair used by Calvin. It was begun under Arducius de Faucigny, the prince-bishop of the Diocese of Geneva and it was originally built in Romanesque style and was completed a hundred years later in Gothic style. A Neo-Classical main facade was added in the 18th century, the area beneath the Cathedral has recently been excavated extensively, revealing a history of the site dating back to the time of the Roman Empire. From the 8th to 10th centuries it was one of three cathedrals to coexist on the site, currently, every summer a German Protestant minister is present, making it possible to hold bilingual services and meetings of both German and French Protestant worshippers. Bonnet, Charles, The Archaeological Site of the Cathedral of Saint Peter, Geneva, World Archaeology, Taylor & Francies, Ltd,18, 330–340, doi,10. 1080/00438243.1987
22.
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
23.
Amedeo Modigliani
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Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian Jewish painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a style characterized by elongation of faces and figures, that were not received well during his lifetime. Modigliani spent his youth in Italy, where he studied the art of antiquity, there he came into contact with prominent artists such as Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brâncuși. Modiglianis œuvre includes paintings and drawings, from 1909 to 1914, however, he devoted himself mainly to sculpture. His main subject was portraits and full figures of humans, both in the images and in the sculptures, during his life, Amedeo Modigliani had little success, but after his death he achieved greater popularity and his works of art achieved high prices. He died at age 35 in Paris of tubercular meningitis, Modigliani was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in Livorno, Italy. A port city, Livorno had long served as a refuge for those persecuted for their religion and his maternal great-great-grandfather, Solomon Garsin, had immigrated to Livorno in the 18th century as a refugee. Fluent in many languages, her ancestors were authorities on sacred Jewish texts and had founded a school of Talmudic studies, family legend traced the family lineage to the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The family business was an agency with branches in Livorno, Marseille, Tunis. Modigliani’s father, Flaminio, was a member of an Italian Jewish family of successful businessmen, while not as culturally sophisticated as the Garsins, they knew how to invest in and develop thriving business endeavors. When the Garsin and Modigliani families announced the engagement of their children and he managed the mine in Sardinia and also managed the almost 30,000 acres of timberland the family owned. A reversal in fortune occurred to this family in 1883. An economic downturn in the price of metal plunged the Modiglianis into bankruptcy, ever resourceful, Modigliani’s mother used her social contacts to establish a school and, along with her two sisters, made the school into a successful enterprise. Modigliani was the child, whose birth coincided with the disastrous financial collapse of his fathers business interests. Amedeos birth saved the family from ruin, according to an ancient law, the bailiffs entered the familys home just as Eugenia went into labour, the family protected their most valuable assets by piling them on top of her. Modigliani had a relationship with his mother, who taught him at home until he was 10. Beset with health problems after an attack of pleurisy when he was about 11, when he was 16 he was taken ill again and contracted the tuberculosis which would later claim his life. After Modigliani recovered from the bout of pleurisy, his mother took him on a tour of southern Italy, Naples, Capri, Rome and Amalfi
24.
Auguste Rodin
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François Auguste René Rodin, known as Auguste Rodin, was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past and he was schooled traditionally, took a craftsman-like approach to his work, and desired academic recognition, although he was never accepted into Pariss foremost school of art. Sculpturally, Rodin possessed an ability to model a complex, turbulent. Many of his most notable sculptures were roundly criticized during his lifetime and they clashed with predominant figurative sculpture traditions, in which works were decorative, formulaic, or highly thematic. Rodins most original work departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory, modeled the human body with realism, Rodin was sensitive to the controversy surrounding his work, but refused to change his style. Successive works brought increasing favor from the government and the artistic community, by 1900, he was a world-renowned artist. Wealthy private clients sought Rodins work after his Worlds Fair exhibit and he married his lifelong companion, Rose Beuret, in the last year of both their lives. His sculptures suffered a decline in popularity after his death in 1917, Rodin remains one of the few sculptors widely known outside the visual arts community. Rodin was born in 1840 into a family in Paris, the second child of Marie Cheffer and Jean-Baptiste Rodin. He was largely self-educated, and began to draw at age ten, between ages 14 and 17, Rodin attended the Petite École, a school specializing in art and mathematics, where he studied drawing and painting. His drawing teacher, Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, believed in first developing the personality of his students so that they observed with their own eyes, Rodin still expressed appreciation for his teacher much later in life. It was at Petite École that he first met Jules Dalou, in 1857, Rodin submitted a clay model of a companion to the École des Beaux-Arts in an attempt to win entrance, he did not succeed, and two further applications were also denied. Given that entrance requirements at the Grande École were not particularly high, Rodins inability to gain entrance may have been due to the judges Neoclassical tastes, while Rodin had been schooled in light, 18th-century sculpture. Leaving the Petite École in 1857, Rodin earned a living as a craftsman, Rodins sister Maria, two years his senior, died of peritonitis in a convent in 1862. Rodin was anguished and felt guilty because he had introduced Maria to an unfaithful suitor, turning away from art, he briefly joined a Catholic order, the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. Saint Peter Julian Eymard, founder and head of the congregation, recognized Rodins talent and, sensing his lack of suitability for the order and he returned to work as a decorator, while taking classes with animal sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye. The teachers attention to detail – his finely rendered musculature of animals in motion – significantly influenced Rodin, in 1864, Rodin began to live with a young seamstress named Rose Beuret, with whom he would stay – with ranging commitment – for the rest of his life. The couple had a son, Auguste-Eugène Beuret and that year, Rodin offered his first sculpture for exhibition, and entered the studio of Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, a successful mass producer of objets dart
25.
Ferdinand Hodler
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Ferdinand Hodler was one of the best-known Swiss painters of the nineteenth century. His early works were portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings in a realistic style, later, he adopted a personal form of symbolism he called parallelism. Hodler was born in Bern, the eldest of six children and his father, Jean Hodler, made a meager living as a carpenter, his mother, Marguerite, was from a peasant family. By the time Hodler was eight years old, he had lost his father and his mother remarried, to a decorative painter named Gottlieb Schüpach who had five children from a previous marriage. The birth of children brought the size of Hodlers family to thirteen. The familys finances were poor, and the nine-year-old Hodler was put to work assisting his stepfather in painting signs, after the death of his mother from tuberculosis in 1867, Hodler was sent to Thun to apprentice with a local painter, Ferdinand Sommer. From Sommer, Hodler learned the craft of painting conventional Alpine landscapes, typically copied from prints, in 1871, at the age of 18, Hodler traveled on foot to Geneva to start his career as a painter. He attended science lectures at the Collège de Genève, and in the museum there he copied paintings by Alexandre Calame, in 1873 he became a student of Barthélemy Menn, and investigated Dürer’s writings on proportions. He made a trip to Basel in 1875, where he studied the paintings of Hans Holbein—especially Dead Christ in the Tomb, which influenced Hodlers many treatments of the theme of death. He traveled to Madrid in 1878, where he stayed for months and studied the works of masters such as Titian, Poussin. The works of Hodlers early maturity consisted of landscapes, figure compositions, in 1884, Hodler met Augustine Dupin, who became his companion and model for the next several years. Their son, Hector Hodler—who would found the World Esperanto Association in 1908—was born in 1887, from 1889 until their divorce in 1891, Hodler was married to Bertha Stucki, who is depicted in his painting, Poetry. In 1898, Hodler married Berthe Jacques, in the last decade of the nineteenth century his work evolved to combine influences from several genres including symbolism and art nouveau. In 1890 he completed Night, a work that marked Hodlers turn toward symbolist imagery and it depicts several recumbent figures, all of them relaxed in sleep except for an agitated man who is menaced by a figure shrouded in black, which Hodler intended as a symbol of death. A few months later, Hodler exhibited Night in Paris at the Salon, Hodler developed a style he called parallelism that emphasized the symmetry and rhythm he believed formed the basis of human society. In paintings such as The Chosen One, groupings of figures are arranged in poses suggestive of ritual or dance. Hodler conceived of woman as the embodiment of the desire for harmony with nature, while a child or youth represented innocence and vitality. In Eurythmy, the theme of death is represented by a row of five men in ceremonial robes walking in a procession on a path strewn with fallen leaves
26.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
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Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a figure in landscape painting and his vast output simultaneously references the Neo-Classical tradition. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was born in Paris on July 16,1796, in a house at 125 Rue du Bac, now demolished. After his parents married, they bought the shop where his mother had worked. The store was a destination for fashionable Parisians and earned the family an excellent income. Corot was the second of three born to the family, who lived above their shop during those years. Corot received a scholarship to study at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen and he was not a brilliant student, and throughout his entire school career he did not get a single nomination for a prize, not even for the drawing classes. Unlike many masters who demonstrated early talent and inclinations toward art, during those years he lived with the Sennegon family, whose patriarch was a friend of Corots father and who spent much time with young Corot on nature walks. It was in this region that Corot made his first paintings after nature, at nineteen, Corot was a big child, shy and awkward. Before the beautiful ladies who frequented his mothers salon, he was embarrassed and fled like a wild thing, emotionally, he was an affectionate and well-behaved son, who adored his mother and trembled when his father spoke. When Corots parents moved into a new residence in 1817, the 21-year-old Corot moved into the room on the third floor. Later Corot stated, I told my father that business and I were simply incompatible, the business experience proved beneficial, however, by helping him develop an aesthetic sense through his exposure to the colors and textures of the fabrics. Perhaps out of boredom, he turned to oil painting around 1821 and he immediately rented a studio on quai Voltaire. In both approaches, landscape artists would typically begin with outdoor sketching and preliminary painting, with finishing work done indoors, michallon had a great influence on Corots career. Though this school was on the decline, it held sway in the Salon. Corot later stated, I made my first landscape from nature. under the eye of this painter, the lesson worked, since then I have always treasured precision. Though holding Neoclassicists in the highest regard, Corot did not limit his training to their tradition of allegory set in imagined nature and his notebooks reveal precise renderings of tree trunks, rocks, and plants which show the influence of Northern realism. Throughout his career, Corot demonstrated an inclination to apply both traditions in his work, sometimes combining the two, a condition by his parents before leaving was that he paint a self-portrait for them, his first
27.
Applied arts
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The applied arts are the application of design and decoration to everyday objects to make them aesthetically pleasing. The term is applied in distinction to the arts which aims to produce objects which are beautiful or provide intellectual stimulation. In practice, the two often overlap, the fields of industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design, and the decorative arts are considered applied arts. In a creative or abstract context, the fields of architecture and photography are also considered applied arts
28.
Byzantine art
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Byzantine art is the name for the artistic products of the Eastern Roman Empire, as well as the nations and states that inherited culturally from the empire. A number of states contemporary with the Byzantine Empire were culturally influenced by it, after the fall of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 1453, art produced by Eastern Orthodox Christians living in the Ottoman Empire was often called post-Byzantine. Byzantine art never lost sight of this classical heritage, the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, was adorned with a large number of classical sculptures, although they eventually became an object of some puzzlement for its inhabitants. And indeed, the art produced during the Byzantine Empire, although marked by periodic revivals of an aesthetic, was above all marked by the development of a new aesthetic. The most salient feature of new aesthetic was its abstract. The nature and causes of this transformation, which took place during late antiquity, have been a subject of scholarly debate for centuries. Giorgio Vasari attributed it to a decline in skills and standards. Although this point of view has been revived, most notably by Bernard Berenson. Alois Riegl and Josef Strzygowski, writing in the early 20th century, were all responsible for the revaluation of late antique art. Riegl saw it as a development of pre-existing tendencies in Roman art. In any case, the debate is purely modern, it is clear that most Byzantine viewers did not consider their art to be abstract or unnaturalistic, religious art was not, however, limited to the monumental decoration of church interiors. One of the most important genres of Byzantine art was the icon, an image of Christ, the illumination of manuscripts was another major genre of Byzantine art. The most commonly illustrated texts were religious, both scripture itself and devotional or theological texts, secular texts were also illuminated, important examples include the Alexander Romance and the history of John Skylitzes. Small ivories were also mostly in relief, Byzantine ceramics were relatively crude, as pottery was never used at the tables of the rich, who ate off silver. Two events were of importance to the development of a unique. First, the Edict of Milan, issued by the emperors Constantine I and Licinius in 313, allowed for public Christian worship, second, the dedication of Constantinople in 330 created a great new artistic centre for the eastern half of the Empire, and a specifically Christian one. Major Constantinopolitan churches built under Constantine and his son, Constantius II, included the foundations of Hagia Sophia. The next major building campaign in Constantinople was sponsored by Theodosius I, the most important surviving monument of this period is the obelisk and base erected by Theodosius in the Hippodrome
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Icon
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An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and certain Eastern Catholic churches. The most common subjects include Christ, Mary, saints and/or angels, icons may also be cast in metal, carved in stone, embroidered on cloth, painted on wood, done in mosaic or fresco work, printed on paper or metal, etc. Comparable images from Western Christianity are generally not described as icons, Eastern Orthodox tradition holds that the creation of Christian images dates back to the very early days of Christianity, and there is has been a continuous tradition since then. The icons of later centuries can be linked, often closely, to images from the 5th century onwards, there was enormous destruction of images during the Byzantine Iconoclasm of 726-842, although this did settle for good the question of the appropriateness of images. Since then icons have had a continuity of style and subject. At the same time there has been change and development, Christian tradition dating from the 8th century identifies Luke the Evangelist as the first icon painter. Aside from the legend that Pilate had made an image of Christ and he relates that King Abgar of Edessa sent a letter to Jesus at Jerusalem, asking Jesus to come and heal him of an illness. In this version there is no image, further legends relate that the cloth remained in Edessa until the 10th century, when it was taken to Constantinople. It went missing in 1204 when Crusaders sacked Constantinople, but by then numerous copies had firmly established its iconic type. They crown these images, and set them up along with the images of the philosophers of the world that is to say, with the images of Pythagoras, and Plato, and Aristotle, and the rest. They have also other modes of honouring these images, after the manner of the Gentiles. And he called him and said, Lycomedes, what do you mean by this matter of the portrait, can it be one of thy gods that is painted here. For I see that you are living in heathen fashion. Later in the passage John says, But this that you have now done is childish and imperfect, at least some of the hierarchy of the Christian churches still strictly opposed icons in the early 4th century. At the Spanish non-ecumenical Synod of Elvira bishops concluded, Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration. to our religion. After the emperor Constantine I extended official toleration of Christianity within the Roman Empire in 313 and this period of Christianization probably saw the use of Christian images became very widespread among the faithful, though with great differences from pagan habits. Robin Lane Fox states By the early century, we know of the ownership of private icons of saints. 480-500, we can be sure that the inside of a saints shrine would be adorned with images and votive portraits, when Constantine himself apparently converted to Christianity, the majority of his subjects remained pagans
30.
Zizers
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Zizers is a municipality in the Landquart Region in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. Zita of Bourbon-Parma, Empress of Austria-Hungary died in Zizers, Zizers is first mentioned in 824 as Zizuris. Zizers has an area, as of 2006, of 11 km2, of this area,41. 5% is used for agricultural purposes, while 38. 5% is forested. Of the rest of the land,12. 1% is settled, before 2017, the municipality was the capital of the sub-district of Fünf Dörfer in the Landquart district, after 2017 it was part of the Landquart Region. It is located on the most important road through the Rhine river valley, until 1854 Mastrils was part of Zizers. In 1913 the enclaves of Oberzollbruck, Russhof and Untere Mühle became part of Igis, Zizers has a population of 3,361. As of 2008,13. 6% of the population was made up of foreign nationals, over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 4. 3%. Most of the population speaks German, with Italian being second most common, as of 2000, the gender distribution of the population was 49. 7% male and 50. 3% female. The age distribution, as of 2000, in Zizers is,315 children or 10. 6% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old,197 teenagers or 6. 6% are 10 to 14, and 220 teenagers or 7. 4% are 15 to 19. Of the adult population,357 people or 12. 0% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 480 people or 16. 1% are 30 to 39,474 people or 15. 9% are 40 to 49, in the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 36. 4% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP, the CVP and the FDP, in Zizers about 72. 9% of the population have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education. Zizers has an unemployment rate of 1. 9%, as of 2005, there were 73 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 20 businesses involved in this sector. 96 people are employed in the sector and there are 22 businesses in this sector. 484 people are employed in the sector, with 92 businesses in this sector. From the 2000 census,1,286 or 43. 1% are Roman Catholic, of the rest of the population, there are 12 individuals who belong to the Orthodox Church, and there are 66 individuals who belong to another Christian church. There are 112 who are Islamic, there are 13 individuals who belong to another church,131 belong to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 65 individuals did not answer the question. Official Web site Zizers in Romansh, German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland
31.
Mummy
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Some authorities restrict the use of the term to bodies deliberately embalmed with chemicals, but the use of the word to cover accidentally desiccated bodies goes back to at least 1615 CE. Mummies of humans and other animals have found on every continent. Over one million animal mummies have been found in Egypt, many of which are cats, in addition to the well-known mummies of ancient Egypt, deliberate mummification was a feature of several ancient cultures in areas of America and Asia with very dry climates. The Spirit Cave mummies of Fallon, Nevada in North America were accurately dated at more than 9,400 years old. Before this discovery, the oldest known deliberate mummy was a child, one of the Chinchorro mummies found in the Camarones Valley, Chile, which dates around 5050 BCE. The oldest known naturally mummified corpse is a severed head dated as 6,000 years old. These substances were defined as mummia, the OED defines a mummy as the body of a human being or animal embalmed as a preparation for burial, citing sources from 1615 CE onward. However, Chambers Cyclopædia and the Victorian zoologist Francis Trevelyan Buckland define a mummy as follows, also applied to the frozen carcase of an animal imbedded in prehistoric snow. Wasps of the genus Aleiodes are known as mummy wasps because they wrap their prey as mummies. While interest in the study of mummies dates as far back as Ptolemaic Greece, prior to this, many rediscovered mummies were sold as curiosities or for use in pseudoscientific novelties such as mummia. The first modern scientific examinations of mummies began in 1901, conducted by professors at the English-language Government School of Medicine in Cairo, Egypt. The first X-ray of a mummy came in 1903, when professors Grafton Elliot Smith, British chemist Alfred Lucas applied chemical analyses to Egyptian mummies during this same period, which returned many results about the types of substances used in embalming. Lucas also made significant contributions to the analysis of Tutankhamun in 1922, pathological study of mummies saw varying levels of popularity throughout the 20th century. In 1992, the First World Congress on Mummy Studies was held in Puerto de la Cruz on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, more than 300 scientists attended the Congress to share nearly 100 years of collected data on mummies. This was not possible prior to the Congress due to the unique, in more recent years, CT scanning has become an invaluable tool in the study of mummification by allowing researchers to digitally unwrap mummies without risking damage to the body. The level of detail in such scans is so intricate that small linens used in areas such as the nostrils can be digitally reconstructed in 3-D. Such modelling has been utilized to perform autopsies on mummies to determine cause of death and lifestyle. Mummies are typically divided into one of two categories, anthropogenic or spontaneous
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Kerma
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Kerma was the capital city of the Kerma Culture, which was located in present-day Sudan at least 5500 years ago. Kerma is one of the largest archaeological sites in ancient Nubia and it has produced decades of extensive excavations and research, including thousands of graves and tombs and the residential quarters of the main city surrounding the Western/Lower Deffufa. Around 3000 BCE, a tradition began around Kerma. It was an urban center that was built around a large adobe temple known as the Western Deffufa. As a capital city and location of burials, it sheds light on the complex social structure present in this society. Kerma contains a cemetery with over 30,000 graves, the cemetery shows a general pattern of larger graves ringed by smaller ones, suggesting social stratification. The site includes at its southern boundary burial mounds, with four extending upwards of 90 metres in diameter and these are believed to be the graves of the citys final kings, some of which contain motifs and artwork reflecting Egyptian deities such as Horus. Generally, influence from Egypt may be observed in numerous burials, especially with regards to material evidence such as pottery, for example, Second Intermediate Egyptian ceramics from Avaris, such as Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware, have been discovered within Kerma burials. In addition, artifacts such as seals and amulets are prolific. After the sacking of Kerma, the cemetery was used to host the kings of the 25th or Napatan dynasty of the Kingdom of Kush from Upper Nubia. Early archaeology at Kerma started with an Egyptian and Sudanese survey made by George A. Reisner, an American with joint appointments at Harvard University, Reisner later led these two institutions, the so-called Harvard-Boston expedition during three field seasons at Kerma. He worked in Egypt and Sudan for 25 years, 1907-1932, as one of the earliest sites to be excavated in this region, Kerma and Reisner’s contributions to the region’s archaeology are fundamental. A basic chronology of Kerman culture was established based on the work of Reisner’s Harvard-Boston expedition, Reisner’s precise excavation techniques, site reports, and other publications made later reinterpretation of his results possible. The Lower/Western Deffufa was found closer to the river, the Upper/Eastern Deffufa is a few kilometers away from the river in a cemetery, most burials were slightly flexed, lying on their sides. Reisner saw many links to ancient Egyptian culture through architectural techniques and he assumed it was a fort. He did not conduct further excavations of the settlement suspected to surround the Lower Deffuffa, the Upper/Eastern Deffufa was located amidst thousands of low, round graves, with clear stylistic differences between the northern, middle, and southern parts of the cemetery. The most elaborate tombs were found in the part of the cemetery. Reisner assumed that the large, quadrangular deffufa structures were funerary chapels associated with the largest mound graves and he interpreted these based on his knowledge of ancient Egyptian funerary practices, and since many of the grave goods found were Egyptian, he had no reason to think otherwise
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Numismatics
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Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects. Early money used by people is referred to as Odd and Curious, the Kyrgyz people used horses as the principal currency unit and gave small change in lambskins, the lambskins may be suitable for numismatic study, but the horse is not. Many objects have been used for centuries, such as shells, precious metals, cocoa beans, large stones. Today, most transactions take place by a form of payment with either inherent, standardized, Numismatic value may be used to refer to the value in excess of the monetary value conferred by law, which is known as the collector value. Economic and historical studies of use and development are an integral part of the numismatists study of moneys physical embodiment. First attested in English 1829, the word comes from the adjective numismatic. It was borrowed in 1792 from French numismatiques, itself a derivation from Late Latin numismatis, genitive of numisma, throughout its history, money itself has been made to be a scarce good, although it does not have to be. Many materials have been used to form money, from naturally scarce precious metals and cowry shells through cigarettes to entirely artificial money, called fiat money, many complementary currencies use time as a unit of measure, using mutual credit accounting that keeps the balance of money intact. Modern money is essentially a token – an abstraction, paper currency is perhaps the most common type of physical money today. However, goods such as gold or silver retain many of the properties of money, such as volatility. However, these goods are not controlled by one single authority, coin collecting may have existed in ancient times. Caesar Augustus gave coins of every device, including old pieces of the kings, petrarch, who wrote in a letter that he was often approached by vinediggers with old coins asking him to buy or to identify the ruler, is credited as the first Renaissance collector. Petrarch presented a collection of Roman coins to Emperor Charles IV in 1355, the first book on coins was De Asse et Partibus by Guillaume Budé. During the early Renaissance ancient coins were collected by European royalty and nobility, Numismatics is called the Hobby of Kings, due to its most esteemed founders. Professional societies organized in the 19th century, the Royal Numismatic Society was founded in 1836 and immediately began publishing the journal that became the Numismatic Chronicle. The American Numismatic Society was founded in 1858 and began publishing the American Journal of Numismatics in 1866, in 1931 the British Academy launched the Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum publishing collections of Ancient Greek coinage. The first volume of Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles was published in 1958, after World War II in Germany a project, Fundmünzen der Antike was launched, to register every coin found within Germany. This idea found successors in many countries, in the United States, the US mint established a coin Cabinet in 1838 when chief coiner Adam Eckfeldt donated his personal collection
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Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
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Swiss Broadcasting Corporation
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The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation is the Swiss public broadcasting association, founded in 1931. Switzerlands system of democracy and the fact that the country has four official languages mean that the structure of Swiss public service broadcasting is rather complicated. The fifth business unit of the SRG SSR is the news platform Swissinfo. The corporate name, SRG SSR, is derived from its initials in German, French, Italian, in English, the organisation is known as the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, it often uses the abbreviation SBC. The moniker idée suisse, which refers to the service mission of the organisation, was adopted in 1999 and was removed from the name in May 2011. Europes third public radio station started broadcasting from Lausanne in 1922,980 licences were bought in 1923. Within a few years radio cooperatives working along the same principles had started throughout the country. In 1930 it was decided that radio was an important public service that should not be allowed to become a maker for private interests. In 1931 SRG SSR was founded, as an organisation for the regional broadcast associations. The same year it was agreed that all news reports in the new medium had to be provided by the Swiss news agency SDA, the first national transmitters began operating in 1931, Radio Sottens for French, Radio Beromünster for German, and 1933 Radio Monte Ceneri for Italian. In 1938 Romansh was recognised as the fourth national language. During the Second World War, SRG SSR filled an important function as a neutral, unbiased supplier of news, Radio Beromünster and Radio Monte Ceneri became known as the only free German and Italian-language radio stations in Europe. In 1950 SRG SSR was one of 23 founding broadcasting organisations of the European Broadcasting Union, in 1939 television test transmissions started in Zürich. In 1953 regular TV transmissions started in German – one hour per evening, a year later, in 1954, French transmissions were broadcast from Geneva. For the Italian-speaking region, the programmes were re-transmitted with Italian subtitles until dedicated Italian studios were built in 1958,50,000 TV licences were bought the first year. In 1960 the company was renamed Schweizerische Radio- und Fernsehgesellschaft to reflect the addition of television services, in 1964 the Federal Council allowed television advertising, as a means of keeping licence fees down. In the same year a dedicated Romansh broadcasting unit was created in Chur, in 1968 colour television was introduced, and the number of licence fee payers passed one million. In 1978 the radio channels started stereo transmissions, in 1983 the Federal Council relaxed the Swiss media legislation to permit local private and commercial radio channels
