1.
China Art Museum
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The China Art Museum, also called the China Art Palace, is a museum of modern Chinese art located in Pudong, Shanghai, China. The museum is housed in the former China Pavilion of Expo 2010 and it is one of the largest art museum in Asia. The predecessor of the China Art Museum was the Shanghai Art Museum, which was established in 1956 in a restaurant on West Nanjing Road. On 18 March 2000, the Shanghai Art Museum was moved to the former Shanghai Race Club building on the Peoples Square, with the move its exhibition space increased from 2,200 to 5,800 square meters. Shanghai hosted Expo 2010 from 1 May to 31 October 2010, due to its popularity, the China Pavilion was reopened for six extra months after the end of the Shanghai Expo. The China Art Museum and the Power Station of Art both opened on 1 October 2012, Chinas National Day, the old Shanghai Art Museum remained open until 31 December 2012, receiving more than 12,000 visitors in the last two days. The China Art Museum is more than ten times bigger than its predecessor, construction for the China Pavilion of the Shanghai Expo began on 28 December 2007, and the building was completed on 8 February 2010. It was the most expensive pavilion at the Expo, costing an estimated US$220 million, the 63-metre high pavilion, the tallest structure at the Expo, is dubbed the Crown of the East due to its resemblance to an ancient crown. The building was designed by a led by architect He Jingtang. The China Art Museum has a collection of about 14,000 artworks and it is divided into three periods and ten units, covering two floors with more than 6,000 works of art. The exhibition is curated by Lu Fusheng, the Exhibition for Noted Painters is a permanent exhibition that showcases works by some of the most famous modern Chinese artists. This exhibition showcases artworks created for a government project that encourages artworks featuring Shanghais historical and cultural development, the themes include people, historical events, folk customs, and architecture. The project lasted three years from 2010 to 2013, the Picturesque China – Developing Chinese Fine Art in the New Century was a year-long exhibition that features 21st-century artworks created by more than 260 Chinese artists. It was divided into five units, the exhibition ended on 30 September 2013. The museum frequently hosts special themed exhibitions, the museum is located at 205 Shangnan Road in Pudong, Shanghai. It has its own station, the China Art Museum Station, on Shanghai Metro Line 8 and it is also accessible via Yaohua Road Station on Line 7 and Line 8, and more than a dozen bus lines. Admissions are free except for special exhibitions, which cost 20 yuan, the museum is closed on Mondays except for national holidays. In the first year of its operation, China Art Museum received nearly 2 million visitors, media related to China Art Museum at Wikimedia Commons
2.
Dongcheng District, Beijing
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The Dongcheng District of Beijing covers the eastern half of Beijings urban core, the Old City. The districts population was 535,558 as of Chinas 2000 Census, settlement in the area dates back over a millennium. It did not formally become a district of the city until the establishment of the Republic of China in 1911. The name Dongcheng was first given to it in a 1958 reorganization, Dongcheng includes many of Beijings major cultural attractions, such as the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven, both UNESCO World Heritage Sites. More than a quarter of the citys Major National Historical and Cultural Sites are inside its boundaries, over three-quarters of the districts economic activity is in the service sector. Dongcheng is often described, and depicted on simplified maps, as the half of the area inside the 2nd Ring Road. However, the boundaries include some areas outside it as well, particularly on the north. In the former direction a small projection crosses the 3rd Ring Road, the 2010 merger with Chongwen added some land beyond the Ring Road on the south. At Wenzhin Street it turns eastward to follow Jingshan Front Street between the Forbidden City and Jingshan Park and it resumes its northward course along Jingshan East Street, turning west along Jingshan Back Street, thus leaving all of Jingshan in the Xicheng District to the west. At Dianmen Inner Street it turns again, following the east-west line that formally divided Beijing in the mid-15th century. At the streets end, the edge of Rendinghu Park, it follows the edge to the northeast. The boundary turns east at Huangsi Street, following the property lines of buildings on the north side. It crosses the street again a block east of Gulou Outer Street, from the parks northeastern corner it goes due east to Andingmen Outer Street, where it turns north. It continues north across the 3rd Ring Road for a kilometer to Jianan East Road and this is the districts northernmost section, now bordering on the Chaoyang District. After 500 m, it zigzags south, southeast and then west again along local streets to Shenggu Middle Road, there it turns south and crosses the Ring Road again, continuing on Xiaohangzhuang North Street. Another zigzag takes it along Xiaohangzhuang, Xinghua and Qingniangou roads to Heipingli East Street, at Jiaolin Alley it turns south again, following another irregular path through the neighborhoods here to just east of Minwang Hutong. At the river paralleling the Second Ring Road on its north, it turns east briefly to follow that, a short section detours north to take in some of the buildings on the north side of Xiangheyuan Road, after which it returns to what is now Xiangheyuan North Street. Turning southeast along Zuojiazhuang West Street, the turns to follow the north bank of the Landmark River eastward at the Chunxiu Road intersection
3.
Art museum
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An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art. Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection, the term is used for both public galleries, which are non-profit or publicly owned museums that display selected collections of art. On the other hand, private galleries refers to the commercial enterprises for the sale of art, however, both types of gallery may host traveling exhibits or temporary exhibitions including art borrowed from elsewhere. In broad terms, in North American usage, the word gallery alone often implies a private gallery, the term contemporary art gallery refers usually to a privately owned for-profit commercial gallery. These galleries are found clustered together in large urban centers. Smaller cities are home to at least one gallery, but they may also be found in towns or villages. Contemporary art galleries are open to the general public without charge, however. They usually profit by taking a portion of art sales, from 25% to 50% is typical, there are also many non-profit or collective galleries. Some galleries in cities like Tokyo charge the artists a flat rate per day, curators often create group shows that say something about a certain theme, trend in art, or group of associated artists. Galleries sometimes choose to represent artists exclusively, giving them the opportunity to show regularly, a gallerys definition can also include the artist cooperative or artist-run space, which often operates as a space with a more democratic mission and selection process. A vanity gallery is an art gallery that charges fees from artists in order to show their work, the shows are not legitimately curated and will frequently or usually include as many artists as possible. Most art professionals are able to identify them on an artists resume, University art museums and galleries constitute collections of art that are developed, owned, and maintained by all kinds of schools, community colleges, colleges, and universities. This phenomenon exists in both the West and East, making it a global practice, although largely overlooked, there are over 700 university art museums in America alone. This number, in comparison to other kinds of art museums, throughout history, large and expensive works of art have generally been commissioned by religious institutions and monarchs and been displayed in temples, churches, and palaces. Although these collections of art were private, they were made available for viewing for a portion of the public. In classical times, religious institutions began to function as a form of art gallery. Wealthy Roman collectors of engraved gems and other precious objects often donated their collections to temples and it is unclear how easy it was in practice for the public to view these items. At the Palace of Versailles, entrance was restricted to wearing the proper apparel – the appropriate accessories could be hired from shops outside
4.
Chinese art
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Chinese art is visual art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists. The Chinese art in the Republic of China and that of overseas Chinese can also be considered part of Chinese art where it is based in or draws on Chinese heritage, early stone age art dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. After this early period Chinese art, like Chinese history, is classified by the succession of ruling dynasties of Chinese emperors. After contacts with Western art became increasingly important from the 19th century onwards, traditional Chinese painting involves essentially the same techniques as Chinese calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in black or colored ink, oils are not used. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings are made of paper, the finished work can be mounted on scrolls, such as hanging scrolls or handscrolls. Traditional painting can also be done on album sheets, walls, lacquerware, folding screens, the two main techniques in Chinese painting are, Gong-bi, meaning meticulous, uses highly detailed brushstrokes that delimits details very precisely. It is often coloured and usually depicts figural or narrative subjects. It is often practised by artists working for the court or in independent workshops. Bird-and-flower paintings were often in this style and this style is also referred to as xie yi or freehand style. Artists from the Han to the Tang dynasties mainly painted the human figure, much of what is known of early Chinese figure painting comes from burial sites, where paintings were preserved on silk banners, lacquered objects, and tomb walls. Many early tomb paintings were meant to protect the dead or help their souls get to paradise, others illustrated the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, or showed scenes of daily life. Most Chinese portraits showed a formal full-length frontal view, and were used in the family in ancestor veneration, Imperial portraits were more flexible, but were generally not seen outside the court, and portraiture formed no part of Imperial propaganda, as in other cultures. Many critics consider landscape to be the highest form of Chinese painting, the time from the Five Dynasties period to the Northern Song period is known as the Great age of Chinese landscape. In the south, Dong Yuan, Juran, and other artists painted the rolling hills and rivers of their native countryside in peaceful scenes done with softer and these two kinds of scenes and techniques became the classical styles of Chinese landscape painting. Chinese ritual bronzes from the Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties come from a period of over a thousand years from c,1500, and have exerted a continuing influence over Chinese art. They are cast with complex patterned and zoomorphic decoration, but avoid the human figure, smaller figures in pottery or wood were placed in tombs for many centuries afterwards, reaching a peak of quality in the Tang Dynasty. Buddhism is also the context of all large portrait sculpture, in total contrast to other areas in medieval China even painted images of the emperor were regarded as private. Imperial tombs have spectacular avenues of approach lined with real and mythological animals on a scale matching Egypt, and smaller versions decorate temples and palaces
5.
Mao Zedong
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His Marxist–Leninist theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Mao adopted Marxism–Leninism while working at Peking University and became a member of the Communist Party of China. On October 1,1949, Mao proclaimed the foundation of the Peoples Republic of China, in the following years Mao solidified his control through land reform campaigns against landlords, and perceived enemies of the state he termed as counter-revolutionaries. In 1957, he launched the Great Leap Forward campaign that aimed to rapidly transform Chinas economy from an economy to an industrial one. The campaign contributed to a famine, whose death toll is estimated at between 15 and 45 million. In 1972, Mao welcomed American President Richard Nixon in Beijing, signalling a policy of opening China, Mao suffered a series of heart attacks in 1976, and died in September, aged 82. He was succeeded as Paramount leader by Hua Guofeng, who was sidelined and replaced by Deng. A controversial figure, Mao is regarded as one of the most important individuals in modern world history, Mao Zedong was born on December 26,1893 in Shaoshan village, Hunan Province, China. His father, Mao Yichang, was an impoverished peasant who had become one of the wealthiest farmers in Shaoshan. Growing up in rural Hunan, Mao Zedong described his father as a stern disciplinarian, Maos mother, Wen Qimei, was a devout Buddhist who tried to temper her husbands strict attitude. Zedong too became a Buddhist, but abandoned this faith in his mid-teenage years, at age 8, Mao was sent to Shaoshan Primary School. At age 13, Mao finished primary education, and his father united him in a marriage to the 17-year-old Luo Yigu. Mao refused to recognise her as his wife, becoming a critic of arranged marriage. Luo was locally disgraced and died in 1910, interested in history, Mao was inspired by the military prowess and nationalistic fervour of George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte. The famine spread to Shaoshan, where starving peasants seized his fathers grain and he disapproved of their actions as morally wrong, but claimed sympathy for their situation. At age 16, Mao moved to a primary school in nearby Dongshan. In 1911, Mao began middle school in Changsha, Revolutionary sentiment was strong in the city, where there was widespread animosity towards Emperor Puyis absolute monarchy and many were advocating republicanism. The republicans figurehead was Sun Yat-sen, an American-educated Christian who led the Tongmenghui society, in Changsha, Mao was influenced by Suns newspaper, The Peoples Independence, and called for Sun to become president in a school essay
6.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
7.
Chinese painting
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Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the style is known today in Chinese as guóhuà, meaning national or native painting. Traditional painting involves essentially the same techniques as calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in ink or coloured pigments. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings are made are paper, the finished work can be mounted on scrolls, such as hanging scrolls or handscrolls. Traditional painting can also be done on album sheets, walls, lacquerware, folding screens, the two main techniques in Chinese painting are, Gongbi, meaning meticulous, uses highly detailed brushstrokes that delimits details very precisely. It is often coloured and usually depicts figural or narrative subjects. It is often practised by artists working for the court or in independent workshops. Ink and wash painting, in Chinese shui-mo also loosely termed watercolour or brush painting and this style is also referred to as xieyi or freehand style. Landscape painting was regarded as the highest form of Chinese painting, the time from the Five Dynasties period to the Northern Song period is known as the Great age of Chinese landscape. In the south, Dong Yuan, Juran, and other artists painted the rolling hills and rivers of their native countryside in peaceful scenes done with softer and these two kinds of scenes and techniques became the classical styles of Chinese landscape painting. Chinese painting and calligraphy distinguish themselves from other arts by emphasis on motion. The practice is traditionally first learned by rote, in which the shows the right way to draw items. The apprentice must copy these items strictly and continuously until the movements become instinctive, in contemporary times, debate emerged on the limits of this copyist tradition within modern art scenes where innovation is the rule. Changing lifestyles, tools, and colors are also influencing new waves of masters, the earliest paintings were not representational but ornamental, they consisted of patterns or designs rather than pictures. Early pottery was painted with spirals, zigzags, dots, or animals and it was only during the Warring States period that artists began to represent the world around them. Calligraphy and painting were thought to be the purest forms of art, the implements were the brush pen made of animal hair, and black inks made from pine soot and animal glue. In ancient times, writing, as well as painting, was done on silk, however, after the invention of paper in the 1st century AD, silk was gradually replaced by the new and cheaper material. Original writings by famous calligraphers have been valued throughout Chinas history and are mounted on scrolls
8.
Oil painting
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Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. Commonly used drying oils include linseed oil, poppy seed oil, walnut oil, the choice of oil imparts a range of properties to the oil paint, such as the amount of yellowing or drying time. Certain differences, depending on the oil, are visible in the sheen of the paints. An artist might use different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The paints themselves also develop a particular consistency depending on the medium, the oil may be boiled with a resin, such as pine resin or frankincense, to create a varnish prized for its body and gloss. Its practice may have migrated westward during the Middle Ages, Oil paint eventually became the principal medium used for creating artworks as its advantages became widely known. In recent years, water miscible oil paint has come to prominence and, to some extent, water-soluble paints contain an emulsifier that allows them to be thinned with water rather than paint thinner, and allows very fast drying times when compared with traditional oils. Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with the artist sketching the subject onto the canvas with charcoal or thinned paint, Oil paint is usually mixed with linseed oil, artist grade mineral spirits, or other solvents to make the paint thinner, faster or slower-drying. A basic rule of oil paint application is fat over lean and this means that each additional layer of paint should contain more oil than the layer below to allow proper drying. If each additional layer contains less oil, the painting will crack. This rule does not ensure permanence, it is the quality and type of oil leads to a strong. There are many media that can be used with the oil, including cold wax, resins. These aspects of the paint are closely related to the capacity of oil paint. Traditionally, paint was transferred to the surface using paintbrushes. Oil paint remains wet longer than other types of artists materials, enabling the artist to change the color. At times, the painter might even remove a layer of paint. This can be done with a rag and some turpentine for a time while the paint is wet, Oil paint dries by oxidation, not evaporation, and is usually dry to the touch within a span of two weeks. It is generally dry enough to be varnished in six months to a year, art conservators do not consider an oil painting completely dry until it is 60 to 80 years old
9.
Sculpture
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Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
10.
Caricature
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A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or through other artistic drawings. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics, Caricatures can be insulting or complimentary and can serve a political purpose or be drawn solely for entertainment. Caricatures of politicians are commonly used in cartoons, while caricatures of movie stars are often found in entertainment magazines. The term is derived from the Italian caricare—to charge or load, an early definition occurs in the English doctor Thomas Brownes Christian Morals, published posthumously in 1716. Expose not thy self by four-footed manners unto monstrous draughts, with the footnote, When Mens faces are drawn with resemblance to some other Animals, the Italians call it, to be drawn in Caricatura Thus, the word caricature essentially means a loaded portrait. Some of the earliest caricatures are found in the works of Leonardo da Vinci, the point was to offer an impression of the original which was more striking than a portrait. Caricature took a road to its first successes in the aristocratic circles of France and Italy. These caricatures were the work of Brig. -Gen, george Townshend whose caricatures of British General James Wolfe, depicted as Deformed and crass and hideous, were drawn to amuse fellow officers. Elsewhere, two great practitioners of the art of caricature in 18th-century Britain were Thomas Rowlandson and James Gillray, Rowlandson was more of an artist and his work took its inspiration mostly from the public at large. Gillray was more concerned with the vicious visual satirisation of political life and they were, however, great friends and caroused together in the pubs of London. In a lecture titled The History and Art of Caricature, the British caricaturist Ted Harrison said that the caricaturist can choose to either mock or wound the subject with an effective caricature. Drawing caricatures can simply be a form of entertainment and amusement – in which case gentle mockery is in order – or the art can be employed to make a social or political point. A caricaturist draws on the characteristics of the subject, the acquired characteristics. Sir Max Beerbohm, created and published caricatures of the men of his own time. His style of single-figure caricatures in formalized groupings was established by 1896 and his published works include Caricatures of Twenty-five Gentlemen, The Poets Corner, and Rossetti and His Circle. He published widely in magazines of the time, and his works were exhibited regularly in London at the Carfax Gallery. George Cruikshank created political prints that attacked the family and leading politicians. He went on to create caricatures of British life for popular publications such as The Comic Almanack
11.
Watercolor painting
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Watercolor or watercolour, also aquarelle, a diminutive of the Latin for water, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-based solution. Watercolor refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork, the traditional and most common support—material to which the paint is applied—for watercolor paintings is paper. Other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum, or leather, fabric, wood, Watercolor paper is often made entirely or partially with cotton, which gives a good texture and minimizes distortion when wet. Watercolors are usually translucent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolors can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white, in East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, india, Ethiopia, and other countries have long watercolor painting traditions as well. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in mainland China, however, its continuous history as an art medium begins with the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, who painted several fine botanical, wildlife, an important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol as part of the Dürer Renaissance. Despite this early start, watercolors were used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons. Notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck, Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, however, botanical illustration and wildlife illustration perhaps form the oldest and most important traditions in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular during the Renaissance, both as hand-tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with such as John James Audubon. Several factors contributed to the spread of watercolor painting during the 18th century, Watercolor artists were commonly brought with the geological or archaeological expeditions, funded by the Society of Dilettanti, to document discoveries in the Mediterranean, Asia, and the New World. This example popularized watercolors as a form of personal tourist journal, the confluence of these cultural, engineering, scientific, tourist, and amateur interests culminated in the celebration and promotion of watercolor as a distinctly English national art. William Blake published several books of hand-tinted engraved poetry, provided illustrations to Dantes Inferno, from the late 18th century through the 19th century, the market for printed books and domestic art contributed substantially to the growth of the medium. Satirical broadsides by Thomas Rowlandson, many published by Rudolph Ackermann, were extremely popular. Among the important and highly talented contemporaries of Turner and Girtin, were John Varley, John Sell Cotman, Anthony Copley Fielding, Samuel Palmer, William Havell, the Swiss painter Louis Ducros was also widely known for his large format, romantic paintings in watercolor. These societies provided annual exhibitions and buyer referrals for many artists, in particular, the graceful, lapidary, and atmospheric watercolors by Richard Parkes Bonington created an international fad for watercolor painting, especially in England and France in the 1820s
12.
Lacquer
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The term lacquer is used for a number of hard and potentially shiny finishes applied to materials such as wood. These fall into a number of different groups. This dries to a hard and smooth surface layer which is durable, waterproof. Asian lacquer is sometimes painted with pictures, inlaid with shell and other materials, or carved, as well as dusted with gold and given other further decorative treatments. In modern techniques, lacquer means a range of clear or coloured wood finishes that dry by solvent evaporation or a process that produces a hard. The finish can be of any level from ultra matte to high gloss. It is also used for paint, which is a paint that typically dries better on a hard. Lacquer is more durable than shellac and these ultimately derive from Sanskrit lākshā, which was used for both the Lac insect and the scarlet resinous secretion it produces that was used as wood finish. Lac resin was once imported in quantity into Europe from India along with Eastern woods. Lacquer sheen is a measurement of the shine for a given lacquer, different manufacturers have their own names and standards for their sheen. The most common names from least shiny to most shiny are, flat, matte, egg shell, satin, semi-gloss, urushiol-based lacquers differ from most others, being slow-drying, and set by oxidation and polymerization, rather than by evaporation alone. In order for it to set properly it requires a humid, the phenols oxidize and polymerize under the action of an enzyme laccase, yielding a substrate that, upon proper evaporation of its water content, is hard. These lacquers produce very hard, durable finishes that are beautiful and very resistant to damage by water, acid, alkali or abrasion. The active ingredient of the resin is urushiol, a mixture of various phenols suspended in water, the resin is derived from a tree indigenous to China, species Toxicodendron vernicifluum, commonly known as the Lacquer Tree. The fresh resin from the T. vernicifluum trees causes urushiol-induced contact dermatitis, the Chinese treated the allergic reaction with crushed shellfish, which supposedly prevents lacquer from drying properly. Lacquer skills became very highly developed in Asia, and many highly decorated pieces were produced, the earliest extant lacquer object, a red wooden bowl, was unearthed at a Hemudu culture site in China. By the Han Dynasty, many centres of production became firmly established. The knowledge of the Chinese methods of the process spread from China during the Han, Tang and Song dynasties, eventually it was introduced to Korea, Japan, Southeast
