Champagne
Champagne is sparkling wine. Many people use the term Champagne as a generic term for sparkling wine but in some countries, it is illegal to label any product Champagne unless it both comes from the Champagne region and is produced under the rules of the appellation. In the EU countries only that sparkling wine which comes from the Champagne region of France can be labelled as Champagne. Where EU law applies, this alcoholic drink is produced from grapes grown in the Champagne region of France following rules that demand, among other things, secondary fermentation of the wine in the bottle to create carbonation, specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes from specific parcels in the Champagne appellation and specific pressing regimes unique to the region; the grapes Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Chardonnay are used in the production of all Champagne, but a tiny amount of pinot blanc, pinot gris and petit meslier are vinified as well. Champagne appellation law allows only grapes grown according to appellation rules in designated plots within the appellation to be used in the production of Champagne.
Champagne became associated with royalty in the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries. The leading manufacturers made efforts to associate their Champagnes with nobility and royalty through advertising and packaging, which led to popularity among the emerging middle class; the most prestigious Champagne cellars are located in the cities of Epernay. Still wines from the Champagne region were known before medieval times; the Romans were the first to plant vineyards in this area of north-east France, with the region being tentatively cultivated by the 5th century. In fact, cultivation was slow due to the unpopular edict by Emperor Domitian that all colonial vines must be uprooted; when Emperor Probus, the son of a gardener, rescinded the edict, a temple to Bacchus was erected, the region started to produce a red and fruity wine that contrasted with heavier Italian brews fortified with resin and herbs. Churches owned vineyards and monks produced wine for use in the sacrament of Eucharist. French kings were traditionally anointed in Reims, champagne was served as part of coronation festivities.
The Champenois were envious of the reputation of the wines made by their Burgundian neighbours to the south and sought to produce wines of equal acclaim. However, the northerly climate of the region gave the Champenois a unique set of challenges in making red wine. At the far extremes of sustainable viticulture, the grapes would struggle to ripen and would have bracing levels of acidity and low sugar levels; the wines would be lighter bodied and thinner than the Burgundy wines they were seeking to outdo. Contrary to legend and popular belief, Dom Pérignon did not invent sparkling wine, though he did make important contributions to the production and quality of both still and sparkling Champagne wines; the oldest recorded sparkling wine is Blanquette de Limoux, invented by Benedictine monks in the Abbey of Saint-Hilaire, near Carcassonne in 1531. They achieved this by bottling. Over a century the English scientist and physician Christopher Merret documented the addition of sugar to a finished wine to create a second fermentation, six years before Dom Pérignon set foot in the Abbey of Hautvillers.
Merret presented a paper at the Royal Society, in which he detailed what is now called méthode champenoise, in 1662. Merret's discoveries coincided with English glass-makers' technical developments that allowed bottles to be produced that could withstand the required internal pressures during secondary fermentation. French glass-makers at this time could not produce bottles of the required strength; as early as 1663 the poet Samuel Butler referred to "brisk champagne". In France the first sparkling champagne was created accidentally. At the time, bubbles were considered a fault. In 1844 Adolphe Jaquesson invented the muselet to prevent the corks from blowing out. Initial versions were inconvenient to remove; when it was deliberately produced as a sparkling wine, champagne was for a long time made by the méthode rurale, where the wine was bottled before the initial fermentation had finished. Champagne did not use the méthode champenoise until the 19th century, about 200 years after Merret documented the process.
The 19th century saw an exponential growth in champagne production, going from a regional production of 300,000 bottles a year in 1800 to 20 million bottles in 1850. In 2007, champagne sales hit an all-time record of 338.7 million bottles. In the 19th century champagne was noticeably sweeter than the champagnes of today; the trend towards drier champagne began when Perrier-Jouët decided not to sweeten his 1846 vintage before exporting it to London. The designation Brut Champagne was created for the British in 1876; the Champagne winemaking community, under the auspices of the Comité Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne, has developed a comprehensive set of rules and regulations for all wine produced in the region to protect its economic interests. They include codification of the most suitable growing places; this includes pruning, vineyard yield, the degree of pressing, the time that wine must remain on its lees before bottling. It can limit the release of Champagne to market to maintain prices.
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Pan-European Picnic
The Pan-European Picnic was a peace demonstration held on the Austrian-Hungarian border near Sopron, Hungary on 19 August 1989, the day before the Hungarian holiday commemorating Stephen I of Hungary. Part of the Revolutions of 1989 leading to the lifting of the Iron Curtain and the reunification of Germany, it was organised by the Paneuropean Union and the opposition Hungarian Democratic Forum under the sponsorship of Archduke Otto von Habsburg and Imre Pozsgay. In 1989, the situation in Central Europe was tense. Despite dictatorial governments, the people in Eastern Bloc countries demanded democratic elections, freedom of speech, the withdrawal of Soviet troops; the Iron Curtain and its physical manifestations in guarded border fences and crossings, e.g. as seen in Czechoslovakia and in East Germany, were a dominant factor in the movement to unite Europe. Although some countries, such as East Germany, had a hard-line Communist power structure, such as Hungary, took a reform-oriented approach.
Supported by Mikhail Gorbachev's new policies, the reformist Communist countries' leadership accepted the necessity for change. Non-governmental organizations and new political parties played a sizable role in the movement towards a democratic, multiparty system; that year, round-table discussions were held in several Central European countries to develop a consensus on changing the political system. In February formal discussions began in Warsaw and on 4 April the Polish Round Table Agreement was signed, legalising Solidarity and scheduling parliamentary elections for 4 June. Solidarity's victory surpassed all expectations. Beginning in 1989, Romanian citizens were filling refugee camps at the Hungarian-Romanian border near Debrecen. In the early summer of 1989, thirty to forty thousand people sought asylum in Hungary. Although the Hungarian government had been bound by a bilateral agreement to return the refugees to Romania, Hungary signed the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1989.
The financial situation was difficult in Hungary, Prime Minister Miklós Németh decided that his government could not afford to maintain automated border control along the border with Austria. Németh believed. At the border between East and West Berlin several hundred people were killed, with border guards ordered to shoot escapees; the last person shot to death was Chris Gueffroy, in February 1989. East Germans, who spent their summer holidays on Lake Balaton, remained in Hungary during the summer of 1989. On 20 June Otto von Habsburg, heir apparent of the House of Habsburg and member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1999, addressed an audience at the university of Debrecen about Europe without borders and the European Parliament elections' impact on Central Europe, his speech was followed by a dinner, at which two representatives of the conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum party suggested a picnic for local residents at the Austro-Hungarian border to celebrate the bonds between Austrians and Hungarians.
Although the Hungarian Democratic Forum's national leadership of the MDF had reservations, Filep recruited participants and searched for a suitable location. She wanted to include guests at the "common destiny camp", a gathering of intellectuals and opposition activists from Central and Eastern European countries in Martonvásár scheduled to end date on 20 August; the site chosen for the picnic was on Bratislava Road in Sopron, a border crossing since 1922. The gathering was intended as an informal meeting of Hungarians at the border meadow. Permission to open the border station for three hours was granted, so pedestrians from both countries could experience Europe without borders, its organisers recruited Otto von Habsburg and Imre Pozsgay, a reformist member of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party and Minister of State, as patrons of the event. Former Prime Minister Németh explained in 1989, a 2014 documentary, that the picnic offered the Hungarian government a way out of a situation which had arisen with East German tourists holidaying in Hungary that summer: No one of us forecast it that during the summer we will have another hot potato in our hands, namely the German refugee problem.
I got the first news that, after the 2–3 weeks long holiday, some of the GDR citizens decided to stay, it was clear to me, that this is now very serious. In Budapest, around the Lake Balaton, all the camping sites were fully packed along the road, without any facilities around them, of course. End of September, the cold weather arrives, we did not have facilities to provide, these people will die here, during the winter. So, why didn't I just send them home? For years we were obliged to pick up East Germans and send them on special airplanes, organized by the infamous Stasi, to take them home, in many cases to prison or serious harassment. We couldn't keep doing that not with 100,000 people. We had to find a clear solution. We could not keep them here, we could not send them back; the only remaining option was the unthinkable: to somehow send them to the west, but this was bound to provoke not only Honecker and his regime in East Germany, but the hard-liners in Moscow, so what to do, what to do?
A flyer was produced, advertising the picnic wi
Grilling
Grilling is a form of cooking that involves dry heat applied to the surface of food from above or below. Grilling involves a significant amount of direct, radiant heat, tends to be used for cooking meat and vegetables quickly. Food to be grilled is cooked on a grill pan, or griddle. Heat transfer to the food when using a grill is through thermal radiation. Heat transfer when using a grill griddle is by direct conduction. In the United States, when the heat source for grilling comes from above, grilling is called broiling. In this case, the pan that holds the food is called a broiler pan, heat transfer is through thermal radiation. Direct heat grilling can expose food to temperatures in excess of 260 °C. Grilled meat acquires a distinctive roast aroma and flavor from a chemical process called the Maillard reaction; the Maillard reaction only occurs when foods reach temperatures in excess of 155 °C. Studies have shown that cooking beef, pork and fish at high temperatures can lead to the formation of heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are carcinogens.
Marination may reduce the formation of these compounds. Grilling is presented as a healthy alternative to cooking with oils, although the fat and juices lost by grilling can contribute to drier food. In Japanese cities, yakitori carts, restaurants, or shops can be found; these marinated grilled meat on a stick. Yakiniku is a type of food where meat and/or vegetables are grilled directly over small charcoal or gas grills at high temperatures. In Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, a popular food item from food vendors is satay, marinated meat on a bamboo skewer grilled over a charcoal fire and served with peanut sauce. In Germany, the most prominent outdoor form of grilling is using the gridiron over a bed of burning charcoal. Care is taken. Beer is sprinkled over the sausages or meat and used to suppress flames; the meat is marinated before grilling. Besides charcoal, sometimes gas and electric heat sources are used. Other methods are used less frequently. In Northern Mexico, carne asada is a staple food.
Popular cuts include arrachera and rib eye, as well as chorizo and chicken, among others. Charcoal, mesquite or firewood are used for the grilling. In Argentina and Uruguay, both asado and steak a la parrilla are staple dishes and hailed as national specialties. In Sweden, grilling directly over hot coals is the most prominent form of grilling; the meat is Boston butt, pork chops or pork fillet. It is common to cook meat and vegetables together on a skewer, this is called "grillspett". In the United Kingdom, Commonwealth countries, Ireland, grilling refers to cooking food directly under a source of direct, dry heat; the "grill" is a separate part of an oven where the food is inserted just under the element. This practice is referred to as "broiling" in North America. Sometimes the term grilling may refer to cooking with heat from below, as in the United States. In the 1970s and 1980s the electric, two sided vertical grill marketed by the Sunbeam company achieved cult status because of its quick, no added fat operation.
In electric ovens, grilling may be accomplished by placing the food near the upper heating element, with the lower heating element off and the oven door open. Grilling in an electric oven may create a large amount of smoke and cause splattering in the oven. Both gas and electric ovens have a separate compartment for grilling, such as a drawer below the flame or one of the stove top heating elements. In the United States, the use of the word grill refers to cooking food directly over a source of dry heat with the food sitting on a metal grate that leaves "grill marks." Grilling is done outdoors on charcoal grills or gas grills. Grilling may be performed using stove-top "grill pans" which have raised metal ridges for the food to sit on, or using an indoor electric grill. A skewer, brochette, or rotisserie may be used to cook small pieces of food; the resulting food product is called a "kabob" or "kebab" which means "to grill" in Persian. Kebab is short for "shish kebab". Mesquite or hickory wood chips may be added on top of the coals to create a smoldering effect that provides additional flavor to the food.
Other hardwoods such as pecan, apple and oak may be used. As is true of any high-temperature frying or baking, when meat is grilled at high temperatures, the cooking process can generate carcinogenic chemicals. Two processes are thought to be responsible. Heterocyclic amines are formed when amino acids and creatine react at high temperatures. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are formed when fat and juices from meat grilled directly over an open fire drip onto the fire, causing flames; these flames contain PAHs that adhere to the surface of the meat. However it is possible to reduce carcinogens when grilling meat, or mitigate their effect. Garlic, olive oil and vitamin E have been shown to reduce formation of both HCAs and PAHs. V-profiled grill elements placed at an angle may help drain much of the meat juices and dripping fat, transport them away from the heat source. Hea
François Lemoyne
François Lemoyne or François Le Moine was a French rococo painter. He was a winner of the Prix de Rome, professor of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture, Premier peintre du Roi to Louis XV, he was tutor to François Boucher. Throughout his career, Lemoyne sought to be seen as the heir to Charles Le Brun and the leading painter of his generation, titles vied for by his rival Jean-François de Troy. Lemoyne's work and talent, notably plied in Versailles, earned him the esteem of his contemporaries and the name of the "new Le Brun", he collaborated with or worked alongside other artists of the era, including Nonotte, Gilles Dutilleul, Charles de La Fosse, Coypel. He took his own life at the height of his career. With his death, the fashion of large allegorical ceilings disappeared. Lemoyne was born in Paris in 1688 and studied under Louis Galloche until 1713. In 1711, Lemoyne travelled to Italy to continue his studies. After his return to Paris, Lemoyne was accepted as a full member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in 1718 and elected as a professor in 1733.
In 1723, Lemoyne returned to Italy for a second trip. In 1727, the duc d'Antin, serving as the director of the Bâtiments du Roi, held an art competition in the hopes of reviving history painting among members of the Académie. Only one Salon had been held since 1704, so this offered a rare opportunity for public exhibition of paintings. Twelve paintings were submitted in all, by artists including Charles-Antoine Coypel and Noel-Nicholas Coypel. Opinion was divided, with critical opinion favoring the paintings by the two Coypels, but in the end the first place prize of 5,000 livres was jointly awarded to Lemoyne and de Troy, a compromise which frustrated them both. In 1728, Lemoyne was awarded a royal commission to paint the ceiling of the Salon d’Hercule at Versailles, which he worked on from 1733–36, he had seen similar paintings in Italy, sought to prove that the French could excel at à ciel ouvert as much as the Italians. When the work was complete, he received "unanimous praise," including accolades from Voltaire and Cardinal Fleury.
His career was at its peak in 1736. The following year, 1737, Lemoyne committed suicide in Paris; the reasons for this are not known, though excess of work, court intrigue at Versailles, the death of his wife, temperamental instability, frustration at his inability to attain artistic perfection have been submitted. He chose death by sword, stabbing himself a total of nine times in the throat; this was six months after finishing the ceiling painting "L'apothéose d'Hercule" in the Salon d'Hercule in the grand appartement du roi, the day after completing the painting Time Saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy for his friend and patron François Berger. Lemoyne has been characterized by David Wakefield as "industrious and serious." Lemoyne's early studies in Rome instilled in him knowledge of the works of the Old Masters, Raphael and Titian, though his strongest influence was undoubtedly Rubens. During his second trip in 1723, Lemoyne admired the ceiling of the Palazzo Barberini and found inspiration in the works of the Venetians Paolo Veronese.
Over the course of his career, Lemoyne's style shifted more in favor of the Italian influence. Pierre Rosenberg describes Lemoyne's style as "refined and introverted." Philip Conisbee refers to Lemoyne's paintings as having a "sensuous beauty" similar to works by Correggio. Ruth and Booz, the painting he won the Prix de Rome with. St Jean dans le Désert, in Nantes Cathedral. Hercules and Cacus Tancred Surrendering Arms to Clorinda, commissioned by Berger. Perseus and Andromeda at the Wallace Collection, London. Hercules and Omphale in the Louvre, Paris. Continence of Scipio, the painting he displayed at the 1727 competition. Louis XV donnant la Paix à l'Europe, Salon de la Paix in Versailles Narcissus Venus and Adonis Ceiling of the Salon d'Hercule in Versailles Arch of the Church of Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin in Paris Diane chasseresse Les Nymphes He worked at Saint-Sulpice and at the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés Time Saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy at the Wallace Collection, London. Cours sur la peinture du XVIIIe, 2006, Université Nancy 2 Xavier Salmon: François Lemoyne à Versailles, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-909838-57-9 Jean-Luc Bordeaux, Francois Le Moyne and His Generations, published in 1984-1985 jointly by the Getty Trust and the Louvre Arthena.
( reviewed by the late Philip Conisbee in the Burlington Magazine in 1985
Public toilet
A public toilet is a room or small building with toilets that does not belong to a particular household. Rather, the toilet is available for use by the general public, travellers, employees of a business, school pupils, prisoners etc. Public toilets are separated into male and female facilities, although some are unisex for small or single-occupancy public toilets. Public toilets are accessible to people with disabilities. Public toilets are known by many other names depending on the country. Examples are: restroom, men's room, women's room in the US, washroom in Canada, toilets, water closet and gents in Europe; some public toilets are free of charge. In the latter case they are called pay toilets and sometimes have of a coin-operated turnstile. Local authorities or commercial businesses may provide public toilet facilities; some are unattended. In many cultures, it is customary to tip the attendant if they provide a specific service, such as might be the case at upscale nightclubs or restaurants.
Public toilets are found in many different places: inner-city locations, factories, schools and other places of work and study. Museums, bars, entertainment venues provide public toilets. Railway stations, filling stations, long distance public transport vehicles such as trains and planes provide toilets for general use. Portable toilets are available at large outdoor events. In many Asian and countries influenced by Muslim cultures, public toilets are of the squat type, as this is regarded as more hygienic for a shared facility. Public toilets are known by many names in different varieties of English. In American English, "restroom" denotes a facility featuring toilets and sinks designed for use by the public, but "bathroom" is common in schools. "Comfort station" sometimes refers to a visitor welcome center such as those in national parks. In Canadian English, public facilities are called "washrooms", although usage varies regionally; the word "toilet" denotes the fixture itself rather than the room.
The word "washroom" is used to mean "utility room" or "mud room" as it is in some parts of the United States. "Bathroom" is used to refer to the room in a person's home that includes a bathtub or shower. In public athletic or aquatic facilities, showers are available in locker rooms. In Britain, Hong Kong and New Zealand, the terms in use are "public toilet", "public lavatory", "public convenience", more informally, "public loo"; as public toilets were traditionally signed as "gentlemen" or "ladies", the colloquial terms "the gents' room" and "the ladies' room", or "the gents" and "the ladies" are used to indicate the facilities themselves. The British Toilet Association, sponsor of the Loo of the Year Awards, refers to public toilets collectively as "away-from-home" toilets. In Philippine English, "comfort room", or "C. R.", is the most common term in use. Some European languages used words cognate with "toilet", or the initialism "W. C.", an abbreviation for "water closet", an older term for the flush toilet.
Public urinals are known in several Romance languages by the name of a Roman Emperor: vespasienne in French, vespasiani in Italian, vespasiene in Romanian. Mosques and other places Muslims gather, have public sex-segregated "ablution rooms" since Islam requires specific procedures for cleansing parts of the body before prayer; these rooms adjoin the toilets, which are subject to Muslim hygienical jurisprudence and Islamic toilet etiquette. Many public toilets are permanent small buildings visible to passers-by on the street. Others are underground, including older facilities in Canada. Contemporary street toilets include self-cleaning toilets in self-contained pods. An Indian version of these automated toilet pods, remotely monitored by sensors, are the Electronic Public Toilets or eToilets. Another traditional type, modernized is the screened French street urinal known as a pissoir. An updated cylindrical urinal that lowers beneath street level out of the way and pops up during hours when it is needed is the Urilift Pop Up Urinal.
It is installed in entertainment districts and is operational only during weekends and nights. This urinal brand, invented in the Netherlands offers a pop-up toilet for women. Private firms may maintain permanent public toilets; the companies are permitted to use the external surfaces of the enclosures for advertising. The installations are part of a street furniture contract between the out-of-home advertising company and the city government, allow these public conveniences to be installed and maintained without requiring funds from the municipal budget. Various portable toilet technologies are used as public toilets. Portables can be moved into place where and when needed and are popular at outdoor festivals and events. A portable toilet can either be connected to the local sewage system or store the waste in a holding tank until it is emptied by a vacuum truck. Portable composting toilets require removal of the container to a composting facility; the standard wheelchair-accessible public toilet features wider doors, ample space for turning, lowered sinks, grab bars for saf
Baking
Baking is a method of cooking food that uses dry heat in an oven, but can be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread but many other types of foods are baked. Heat is transferred "from the surface of cakes and breads to their center; as heat travels through, it transforms batters and doughs into baked goods and more with a firm dry crust and a softer centre". Baking can be combined with grilling to produce a hybrid barbecue variant by using both methods or one after the other. Baking is related to barbecuing because the concept of the masonry oven is similar to that of a smoke pit; because of historical social and familial roles, baking has traditionally been performed at home by women for day-to-day meals and by men in bakeries and restaurants for local consumption. When production was industrialized, baking was automated by machines in large factories; the art of baking remains a fundamental skill and is important for nutrition, as baked goods breads, are a common and important food, both from an economic and cultural point of view.
A person who prepares baked goods as a profession is called a baker. All types of food can be baked. Various techniques have been developed to provide this protection. In addition to bread, baking is used to prepare cakes, pies, quiches, scones, crackers and more; these popular items are known collectively as "baked goods," and are sold at a bakery, a store that carries only baked goods, or at markets, grocery stores, farmers markets or through other venues. Meat, including cured meats, such as ham can be baked, but baking is reserved for meatloaf, smaller cuts of whole meats, or whole meats that contain stuffing or coating such as bread crumbs or buttermilk batter; some foods are surrounded with moisture during baking by placing a small amount of liquid in the bottom of a closed pan, letting it steam up around the food, a method known as braising or slow baking. Larger cuts prepared without stuffing or coating are more roasted, a similar process, using higher temperatures and shorter cooking times.
Roasting, however, is only suitable for finer cuts of meat, so other methods have been developed to make tougher meat cuts palatable after baking. One of these is the method known as en croûte, which protects the food from direct heat and seals the natural juices inside. Meat, game, fish or vegetables can be prepared by baking en croûte. Well-known examples include Beef Wellington; the en croûte method allows meat to be baked by burying it in the embers of a fire – a favorite method of cooking venison. Salt can be used to make a protective crust, not eaten. Another method of protecting food from the heat while it is baking is to cook it en papillote. In this method, the food is covered by baking paper to protect it; the cooked parcel of food is sometimes served unopened, allowing diners to discover the contents for themselves which adds an element of surprise. Eggs can be used in baking to produce savoury or sweet dishes. In combination with dairy products cheese, they are prepared as a dessert.
For example, although a baked custard can be made using starch, the flavor of the dish is much more delicate if eggs are used as the thickening agent. Baked custards, such as crème caramel, are among the items that need protection from an oven's direct heat, the bain-marie method serves this purpose; the cooking container is half submerged in water in another, larger one, so that the heat in the oven is more applied during the baking process. Baking a successful soufflé requires that the baking process be controlled; the oven temperature must be even and the oven space not shared with another dish. These factors, along with the theatrical effect of an air-filled dessert, have given this baked food a reputation for being a culinary achievement. A good baking technique are needed to create a baked Alaska because of the difficulty of baking hot meringue and cold ice cream at the same time. Baking can be used to prepare other foods such as pizzas, baked potatoes, baked apples, baked beans, some casseroles and pasta dishes such as lasagne.
The first evidence of baking occurred when humans took wild grass grains, soaked them in water, mixed everything together, mashing it into a kind of broth-like paste. The paste was cooked by resulting in a bread-like substance; when humans mastered fire, the paste was roasted on hot embers, which made bread-making easier, as it could now be made any time fire was created. The world's oldest oven was discovered in Croatia in 2014 dating back 6500 years ago; the Ancient Egyptians baked bread using yeast, which they had been using to brew beer. Bread baking began in Ancient Greece around 600 BC. "Ovens and worktables have been discovered in archaeological digs from Turkey to Palestine and date back to 5600 BC."Baking flourished during the Roman Empire. Beginning around 300 B. C. the pastry cook became an occupation for Romans and became a respected profession because pastries were considered decadent, Romans loved festivity and celebration. Thus, pastr
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum is New York City's third largest in physical size and holds an art collection with 1.5 million works. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown Heights and Park Slope neighborhoods of Brooklyn and founded in 1895, the Beaux-Arts building, designed by McKim and White, was planned to be the largest art museum in the world; the museum struggled to maintain its building and collection, only to be revitalized in the late 20th century, thanks to major renovations. Significant areas of the collection include antiquities their collection of Egyptian antiquities spanning over 3,000 years. European, African and Japanese art make for notable antiquities collections as well. American art is represented, starting at the Colonial period. Artists represented in the collection include Mark Rothko, Edward Hopper, Norman Rockwell, Winslow Homer, Edgar Degas, Georgia O'Keeffe, Max Weber; the museum has a "Memorial Sculpture Garden" which features salvaged architectural elements from throughout New York City.
The roots of the Brooklyn Museum extend back to the 1823 founding by Augustus Graham of the Brooklyn Apprentices' Library in Brooklyn Heights. The Library moved into the Brooklyn Lyceum building on Washington Street in 1841. Two years the institutions merged to form the Brooklyn Institute, which offered exhibitions of painting and sculpture and lectures on diverse subjects. In 1890, under its director Franklin Hooper, Institute leaders reorganized as the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and began planning the Brooklyn Museum; the museum remained a subdivision of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, along with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Brooklyn Children's Museum until the 1970s when all became independent. Opened in 1897, the Brooklyn Museum building is a steel frame structure encased in classical masonry, designed by the famous architectural firm of McKim and White and built by the Carlin Construction Company; the initial design for the Brooklyn Museum was four times as large as the actualized version.
Daniel Chester French, the noted sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial, was the principal designer of the pediment sculptures and the monolithic 12.5-foot figures along the cornice. The figures were carved by the Piccirilli Brothers. French designed the two allegorical figures Brooklyn and Manhattan flanking the museum's entrance, created in 1916 for the Brooklyn approach to the Manhattan Bridge, relocated to the museum in 1963. By 1920, the New York City Subway reached the museum with a subway station; the Brooklyn Institute's director Franklin Hooper was the museum's first director, succeeded by William Henry Fox who served from 1914 to 1934. He was followed by Philip Newell Youtz, Laurance Page Roberts, Isabel Spaulding Roberts, Charles Nagel, Jr. and Edgar Craig Schenck. Thomas S. Buechner became the museum's director in 1960, making him one of the youngest directors in the country. Buechner oversaw a major transformation in the way the museum displayed art and brought some one thousand works that had languished in the museum's archives and put them on display.
Buechner played a pivotal role in rescuing the Daniel Chester French sculptures from destruction due to an expansion project at the Manhattan Bridge in the 1960s. Duncan F. Cameron held the post from 1971 to 1973, with Michael Botwinick succeeding him and Linda S. Ferber acting director for part of 1983 until Robert T. Buck became director in 1983 and served until 1996; the Brooklyn Museum changed its name to Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1997, shortly before the start of Arnold L. Lehman's term as director. On March 12, 2004, the museum announced. In April 2004, the museum opened the James Polshek-designed entrance pavilion on the Eastern Parkway façade. In September 2014, Lehman announced that he was planning to retire around June 2015. In May 2015, Creative Time president and artistic director Anne Pasternak was named the museum's next director; the Brooklyn Museum, along with numerous other New York institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, is part of the Cultural Institutions Group.
Member institutions occupy land or buildings owned by the City of New York and derive part of their yearly funding from the City. The Brooklyn Museum supplements its earned income with funding from Federal and State governments, as well as with donations by individuals and organizations. In 1999, the museum hosted the Charles Saatchi exhibition Sensation, resulting in a court battle over New York City's municipal funding of institutions exhibiting controversial art decided in favor of the museum on First Amendment grounds. In 2005, the museum was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. Major benefactors include Frank Lusk Babbott; the museum is the site of the annual Brooklyn Artists Ball which has included celebrity hosts such as Sarah Jessica Parker and Liv Tyler. The Brooklyn Museum exhibits collections that seek to embody the rich artistic heritage of world cultures.
The museum is well known for its expansive collections of E
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