1.
Lubok
–
A lubok is a Russian popular print, characterized by simple graphics and narratives derived from literature, religious stories and popular tales. Lubki prints were used as decoration in houses and inns, early examples from the late 17th and early 18th centuries were woodcuts, then engravings or etchings were typical, and from the mid-19th century lithography. They sometimes appeared in series, which might be regarded as predecessors of the comic strip. Cheap and simple books, similar to chapbooks, which consisted of pictures, are called lubok literature or. Both pictures and literature are commonly referred to simply as lubki, the Russian word lubok derives from lub - a special type of board that pictures were printed on. Russian lubki became a genre of during the last half of the seventeenth century. Russian lubok was primarily influenced by the woodcuts and engravings done in Germany, Italy and its popularity in Russia was a result of how inexpensive and fairly simple it was to duplicate a print using this new technique. Luboks were typically sold at various marketplaces to the lower and middle classes and this type of art was very popular with these two social classes because the lubok provided them with an inexpensive opportunity to display artwork in their houses. The Koren Picture-Bible, 1692-1696 established the most prominent style, an Old Russian rendering of international iconography and subjects, by mid-18th century, however, the woodcuts were mostly replaced with engraving or etching techniques, which enabled the prints to be more detailed and complex. After printing on paper, the picture would be hand-colored with diluted tempera paints, while the prints themselves were typically very simplistic and unadorned, the final product, with the tempera paint added, was surprisingly bright with vivid colors and lines. The dramatic coloring of the early woodcut prints was to some extent lost with the transfer to more detailed engravings, in addition to the images, these folk prints would also include a short story or lesson that correlated to the picture being presented. Russian scholar Alexander Boguslavsky claims that the style is a combination of Russian icon and manuscript painting traditions with the ideas. Typically, the luboks artist would include minimal text that was supplementary to the illustration that would cover the majority of the engraving. Folklorist Dmitri Rovinsky is known for his work with categorizing lubok. Jewish examples exist as well, many luboks can be classified into multiple categories. Russian lubok The satirical version played an important role in the luboks from Russian wartime and it is used to present Napoleon in a satirical manner while portraying the Russian peasants as the heroes of the war. This also inspired other Russians to help fight the war by attempting to, the luboks presented a manner for the Russians to mock the French enemy, while at the same time display the ‘Russianness” of Russia. “These war luboks satirized Napoleon and depicted French culture as degenerate”, the lubok was a means of reinforcing the idea of defeating the French invaders and displaying the horrible destruction Napoleon and his army caused Russia. All the different representation of the Russian heroes helped define and spread the belief in Russian identity, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 began on February 8,1904, at Port Arthur with a surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy
2.
Peter the Great
–
Peter the Great, Peter I or Peter Alexeyevich ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from 7 May 1682 until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his elder half-brother, Ivan V. Through a number of successful wars he expanded the Tsardom into a larger empire that became a major European power. He led a revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, westernized. Peters reforms made an impact on Russia and many institutions of Russian government trace their origins to his reign. From an early age, Peters education was put in the hands of tutors, most notably Nikita Zotov, Patrick Gordon. On 29 January 1676, Tsar Alexis died, leaving the sovereignty to Peters elder half-brother and this position changed when Feodor died in 1682. As Feodor did not leave any children, a dispute arose between the Miloslavsky family and Naryshkin family over who should inherit the throne, Peters other half-brother, Ivan V, was next in line for the throne, but he was chronically ill and of infirm mind. Consequently, the Boyar Duma chose the 10-year-old Peter to become Tsar with his mother as regent and this arrangement was brought before the people of Moscow, as ancient tradition demanded, and was ratified. Sophia Alekseyevna, one of Alexis daughters from his first marriage, in the subsequent conflict some of Peters relatives and friends were murdered, including Matveev, and Peter witnessed some of these acts of political violence. The Streltsy made it possible for Sophia, the Miloslavskys and their allies, to insist that Peter and Ivan be proclaimed joint Tsars, Sophia acted as regent during the minority of the sovereigns and exercised all power. For seven years, she ruled as an autocrat, a large hole was cut in the back of the dual-seated throne used by Ivan and Peter. Sophia would sit behind the throne and listen as Peter conversed with nobles, while feeding him information and giving him responses to questions and this throne can be seen in the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow. Peter was not particularly concerned that others ruled in his name and he engaged in such pastimes as shipbuilding and sailing, as well as mock battles with his toy army. Peters mother sought to force him to adopt a conventional approach. The marriage was a failure, and ten years later Peter forced his wife to become a nun, by the summer of 1689, Peter planned to take power from his half-sister Sophia, whose position had been weakened by two unsuccessful Crimean campaigns. When she learned of his designs, Sophia conspired with the leaders of the Streltsy, Sophia was eventually overthrown, with Peter I and Ivan V continuing to act as co-tsars. Peter forced Sophia to enter a convent, where she gave up her name, still, Peter could not acquire actual control over Russian affairs. Power was instead exercised by his mother, Natalya Naryshkina and it was only when Nataliya died in 1694 that Peter became an independent sovereign
3.
British Museum
–
The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture, and is located in the Bloomsbury area of London. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician, the museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. Although today principally a museum of art objects and antiquities. Its foundations lie in the will of the Irish-born British physician, on 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. They were joined in 1757 by the Old Royal Library, now the Royal manuscripts, together these four foundation collections included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf. The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public, sloanes collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests. The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary, the body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on the now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost. With the acquisition of Montagu House the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759. During the few years after its foundation the British Museum received several gifts, including the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts. A list of donations to the Museum, dated 31 January 1784, in the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid and Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts dominated the antiquities displays. Gifts and purchases from Henry Salt, British consul general in Egypt, beginning with the Colossal bust of Ramesses II in 1818, many Greek sculptures followed, notably the first purpose-built exhibition space, the Charles Towneley collection, much of it Roman Sculpture, in 1805. In 1816 these masterpieces of art, were acquired by The British Museum by Act of Parliament. The collections were supplemented by the Bassae frieze from Phigaleia, Greece in 1815, the Ancient Near Eastern collection also had its beginnings in 1825 with the purchase of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities from the widow of Claudius James Rich. The neoclassical architect, Sir Robert Smirke, was asked to draw up plans for an extension to the Museum. For the reception of the Royal Library, and a Picture Gallery over it, and put forward plans for todays quadrangular building, much of which can be seen today. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished and work on the Kings Library Gallery began in 1823, the extension, the East Wing, was completed by 1831. The Museum became a site as Sir Robert Smirkes grand neo-classical building gradually arose
4.
Woodcut
–
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print, the block is cut along the wood grain. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with a roller, leaving ink upon the flat surface. Multiple colors can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks, single-leaf woodcut is a term for a woodcut presented as a single image or print, as opposed to a book illustration. Among these the best known are the 16th century Hieronymus Andreae, Hans Lützelburger and Jost de Negker, all of whom ran workshops, the formschneider in turn handed the block on to specialist printers. There were further specialists who made the blank blocks and this is why woodcuts are sometimes described by museums or books as designed by rather than by an artist, but most authorities do not use this distinction. The division of labour had the advantage that a trained artist could adapt to the medium relatively easily, there were various methods of transferring the artists drawn design onto the block for the cutter to follow. Either the drawing would be made directly onto the block, or a drawing on paper was glued to the block, either way, the artists drawing was destroyed during the cutting process. Other methods were used, including tracing, in both Europe and the Far East in the early 20th century, some artists began to do the whole process themselves. In Japan, this movement was called sōsaku-hanga, as opposed to shin-hanga, in the West, many artists used the easier technique of linocut instead. Compared to intaglio techniques like etching and engraving, only low pressure is required to print, as a relief method, it is only necessary to ink the block and bring it into firm and even contact with the paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print. In Europe a variety of woods including boxwood and several nut and fruit woods like pear or cherry were commonly used, in Japan, there are three methods of printing to consider, Stamping, Used for many fabrics and most early European woodcuts. Used for European woodcuts and block-books later in the fifteenth century, also used for many Western woodcuts from about 1910 to the present. The block goes face up on a table, with the paper or fabric on top, the back is rubbed with a hard pad, a flat piece of wood, a burnisher, or a leather frotton. A traditional Japanese tool used for this is called a baren, later in Japan, complex wooden mechanisms were used to help hold the woodblock perfectly still and to apply proper pressure in the printing process. This was especially helpful once multiple colors were introduced and had to be applied with precision atop previous ink layers, printing in a press, presses only seem to have been used in Asia in relatively recent times. Printing-presses were used from about 1480 for European prints and block-books, simple weighted presses may have been used in Europe before the print-press, but firm evidence is lacking
5.
Paper
–
Paper is a thin material produced by pressing together moist fibres of cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets. It is a material with many uses, including writing, printing, packaging, cleaning. The modern pulp and paper industry is global, with China leading its production, the oldest known archaeological fragments of the immediate precursor to modern paper, date to the 2nd century BC in China. The pulp papermaking process is ascribed to Cai Lun, a 2nd-century AD Han court eunuch, with paper as an effective substitute for silk in many applications, China could export silk in greater quantity, contributing to a Golden Age. Because of papers introduction to the West through the city of Baghdad, in the 19th century, industrial manufacture greatly lowered its cost, enabling mass exchange of information and contributing to significant cultural shifts. In 1844, the Canadian inventor Charles Fenerty and the German F. G. Keller independently developed processes for pulping wood fibres, before the industrialisation of the paper production the most common fibre source was recycled fibres from used textiles, called rags. The rags were from hemp, linen and cotton, a process for removing printing inks from recycled paper was invented by German jurist Justus Claproth in 1774. Today this method is called deinking and it was not until the introduction of wood pulp in 1843 that paper production was not dependent on recycled materials from ragpickers. The word paper is etymologically derived from Latin papyrus, which comes from the Greek πάπυρος, although the word paper is etymologically derived from papyrus, the two are produced very differently and the development of the first is distinct from the development of the second. Papyrus is a lamination of natural plant fibres, while paper is manufactured from fibres whose properties have changed by maceration. To make pulp from wood, a chemical pulping process separates lignin from cellulose fibres and this is accomplished by dissolving lignin in a cooking liquor, so that it may be washed from the cellulose, this preserves the length of the cellulose fibres. Paper made from chemical pulps are also known as wood-free papers–not to be confused with paper, this is because they do not contain lignin. The pulp can also be bleached to produce paper, but this consumes 5% of the fibres, chemical pulping processes are not used to make paper made from cotton. There are three main chemical pulping processes, the process dates back to the 1840s and it was the dominant method extent before the second world war. Most pulping operations using the process are net contributors to the electricity grid or use the electricity to run an adjacent paper mill. Another advantage is that this process recovers and reuses all inorganic chemical reagents, soda pulping is another specialty process used to pulp straws, bagasse and hardwoods with high silicate content. There are two major mechanical pulps, thermomechanical pulp and groundwood pulp, in the TMP process, wood is chipped and then fed into steam heated refiners, where the chips are squeezed and converted to fibres between two steel discs. In the groundwood process, debarked logs are fed into grinders where they are pressed against rotating stones to be made into fibres
6.
Old master print
–
An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition. Fifteenth-century prints are rare that they are classed as old master prints even if they are of crude or merely workmanlike artistic quality. A date of about 1830 is usually taken as marking the end of the period whose prints are covered by this term, the main techniques used, in order of their introduction, are woodcut, engraving, etching, mezzotint and aquatint, although there are others. Different techniques are combined in a single print. With rare exceptions printed on textiles, such as silk, or on vellum, many great European artists, such as Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, and Francisco Goya, were dedicated printmakers. In their own day, their international reputations largely came from their prints, influences between artists were also mainly transmitted beyond a single city by prints, for the same reason. Prints therefore are frequently brought up in detailed analyses of individual paintings in art history, today, thanks to colour photo reproductions, and public galleries, their paintings are much better known, whilst their prints are only rarely exhibited, for conservation reasons. But some museum print rooms allow visitors to see their collection, the oldest technique is woodcut, or woodblock printing, which was invented as a method for printing on cloth in China, and perhaps separately in Egypt in the Byzantine period. This had reached Europe via the Byzantine or Islamic worlds before 1300, religious images and playing cards are documented as being produced on paper, probably printed, by a German in Bologna in 1395. However, the most impressive printed European images to survive from before 1400 are printed on cloth, for use as hangings on walls or furniture, including altars, some were used as a pattern to embroider over. Some religious images were used as bandages, to speed healing, the earliest print images are mostly of a high artistic standard, and were clearly designed by artists with a background in painting. Whether these artists cut the blocks themselves, or only inked the design on the block for another to carve, is not known, the great majority of surviving 15th-century prints are religious, although these were probably the ones more likely to survive. Their makers were sometimes called Jesus maker or saint-maker in documents, as with manuscript books, monastic institutions sometimes produced, and often sold, prints. No artists can be identified with specific woodcuts until towards the end of the century, the little evidence we have suggests that woodcut prints became relatively common and cheap during the fifteenth century, and were affordable by skilled workers in towns. For example, what may be the earliest surviving Italian print, the school caught fire, and the crowd who gathered to watch saw the print carried up into the air by the fire, before falling down into the crowd. This was regarded as an escape and the print was carried to Forlì Cathedral. Like the majority of prints before approximately 1460, only a single impression of this print has survived, Woodcut blocks are printed with light pressure, and are capable of printing several thousand impressions, and even at this period some prints may well have been produced in that quantity. Many prints were hand-coloured, mostly in watercolour, in fact the hand-colouring of prints continued for many centuries, Italy, Germany, France and the Netherlands were the main areas of production, England does not seem to have produced any prints until about 1480
7.
Peasant
–
A peasant is a member of a traditional class of farmers, either laborers or owners of small farms, especially in the Middle Ages under feudalism, or more generally, in any pre-industrial society. In Europe, peasants were divided into three classes according to their status, slave, serf, and free tenant. Peasants either hold title to land in fee simple, or hold land by any of several forms of tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold. The implication of the term is that the peasant is uneducated, ignorant, the word peasant is also commonly used in a non-pejorative sense as a collective noun for the rural population in the poor and under-developed countries of the world. The word peasant is derived from the 15th century French word païsant, meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, Peasants typically made up the majority of the agricultural labour force in a pre-industrial society. The majority of the people in the Middle Ages were peasants, more generally, the word peasant is sometimes used to refer pejoratively to those considered to be lower class, perhaps defined by poorer education and/or a lower income. The open field system of agriculture dominated most of northern Europe during medieval times, under this system, peasants lived on a manor presided over by a lord or a bishop of the church. Peasants paid rent or labor services to the lord in exchange for their right to cultivate the land, fallowed land, pastures, forests, and wasteland were held in common. The open field system required cooperation among the peasants of the manor and it was gradually replaced by individual ownership and management of land. This process happened in a pronounced and truncated way in Eastern Europe. Lacking any catalysts for change in the 14th century, Eastern European peasants largely continued upon the original medieval path until the 18th and 19th centuries, even before emancipation in 1861, serfdom was on the wane in Russia. The proportion of serfs within the empire had decreased from 45-50 percent at the end of the eighteenth century. In Germany, peasants continued to center their lives in the well into the 19th century. They belonged to a body and helped to manage the community resources. In the East they had the status of serfs bound permanently to parcels of land, a peasant is called a Bauer in German and Bur in Low German. In most of Germany, farming was handled by tenant farmers who paid rents, Peasant leaders supervised the fields and ditches and grazing rights, maintained public order and morals, and supported a village court which handled minor offenses. Inside the family the patriarch made all the decisions, and tried to arrange marriages for his children. Much of the communal life centered on church services and holy days
8.
Engraving
–
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it. Wood engraving is a form of printing and is not covered in this article. Engraving was an important method of producing images on paper in artistic printmaking, in mapmaking. Other terms often used for printed engravings are copper engraving, copper-plate engraving or line engraving, hand engraving is a term sometimes used for engraving objects other than printing plates, to inscribe or decorate jewellery, firearms, trophies, knives and other fine metal goods. Traditional engravings in printmaking are also engraved, using just the same techniques to make the lines in the plate. Each graver is different and has its own use, engravers use a hardened steel tool called a burin, or graver, to cut the design into the surface, most traditionally a copper plate. Modern professional engravers can engrave with a resolution of up to 40 lines per mm in high grade work creating game scenes, dies used in mass production of molded parts are sometimes hand engraved to add special touches or certain information such as part numbers. In addition to engraving, there are engraving machines that require less human finesse and are not directly controlled by hand. They are usually used for lettering, using a pantographic system, there are versions for the insides of rings and also the outsides of larger pieces. Such machines are used for inscriptions on rings, lockets. Gravers come in a variety of shapes and sizes that yield different line types, the burin produces a unique and recognizable quality of line that is characterized by its steady, deliberate appearance and clean edges. The angle tint tool has a curved tip that is commonly used in printmaking. Florentine liners are flat-bottomed tools with multiple lines incised into them, ring gravers are made with particular shapes that are used by jewelry engravers in order to cut inscriptions inside rings. Flat gravers are used for work on letters, as well as wriggle cuts on most musical instrument engraving work, remove background. Knife gravers are for line engraving and very deep cuts, round gravers, and flat gravers with a radius, are commonly used on silver to create bright cuts, as well as other hard-to-cut metals such as nickel and steel. Square or V-point gravers are typically square or elongated diamond-shaped and used for cutting straight lines, V-point can be anywhere from 60 to 130 degrees, depending on purpose and effect. These gravers have very small cutting points, other tools such as mezzotint rockers, roulets and burnishers are used for texturing effects. Burnishing tools can also be used for stone setting techniques
9.
Reformation
–
The period is usually considered to have begun with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses by Luther in 1517 to the Thirty Years War and ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The Protestant position, however, would come to incorporate doctrinal changes such as sola scriptura, the initial movement within Germany diversified, and other reform impulses arose independently of Luther. The spread of Gutenbergs printing press provided the means for the dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular. The largest groups were the Lutherans and Calvinists, Lutheran churches were founded mostly in Germany, the Baltics and Scandinavia, while the Reformed ones were founded in Switzerland, Hungary, France, the Netherlands and Scotland. The new movement influenced the Church of England decisively after 1547 under Edward VI and Elizabeth I, there were also reformation movements throughout continental Europe known as the Radical Reformation, which gave rise to the Anabaptist, Moravian and other Pietistic movements. The Roman Catholic Church responded with a Counter-Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent, much work in battling Protestantism was done by the well-organised new order of the Jesuits. In general, Northern Europe, with the exception of most of Ireland, southern Europe remained Roman Catholic, while Central Europe was a site of a fierce conflict, culminating in the Thirty Years War, which left it devastated. The oldest Protestant churches, such as the Unitas Fratrum and Moravian Church, the later Protestant Churches generally date their doctrinal separation from the Roman Catholic Church to the 16th century. The Reformation began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church, by priests who opposed what they perceived as false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice. They especially objected to the teaching and the sale of indulgences, and the abuses thereof, and to simony, the reformers saw these practices as evidence of the systemic corruption of the Churchs hierarchy, which included the pope. Unrest due to the Great Schism of Western Christianity excited wars between princes, uprisings among the peasants, and widespread concern over corruption in the Church, New perspectives came from John Wycliffe at Oxford University and from Jan Hus at the Charles University in Prague. Hus rejected indulgences and adopted a doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, the Roman Catholic Church officially concluded this debate at the Council of Constance by condemning Hus, who was executed by burning despite a promise of safe-conduct. Wycliffe was posthumously condemned as a heretic and his corpse exhumed and burned in 1428, the Council of Constance confirmed and strengthened the traditional medieval conception of church and empire. The council did not address the national tensions or the theological tensions stirred up during the century and could not prevent schism. Pope Sixtus IV established the practice of selling indulgences to be applied to the dead, Pope Alexander VI was one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes. He was the father of seven children, including Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, in response to papal corruption, particularly the sale of indulgences, Luther wrote The Ninety-Five Theses. The Reformation was born of Luthers dual declaration – first, the discovering of Jesus and salvation by faith alone, the Protestant reformers were unanimous in agreement and this understanding of prophecy furnished importance to their deeds. It was the point and the battle cry that made the Reformation nearly unassailable
10.
France
–
France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
