1.
Holbeinesque jewellery
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Holbeinesque jewellery includes pendants, brooches and earrings in the neo-Renaissance or Renaissance Revival style, and once again became fashionable in the 1860s. The style is characterised by a large, centrally-placed cabochon gemstone, cameo or intaglio mounted in gold and colourful enamel work, such as basse-taille, champlevé, cloisonné, beneath this, a drop-shaped pearl or diamond-set lozenge was suspended. The back of each piece is often elaborately engraved using scroll, other jewellery houses producing Holbeinesque pieces, were those of Jules Wièse, Boucheron, Chaumet and Vever. Besides paintings of his sitters wearing their jewellery, Holbein also left detailed drawings of pieces, some copied from his sitters pieces, putti, quatrefoil and fantastic masks were often used for embellishment. Holbeinesque jewellers could avail themselves of a vast range of sources for their designs. Media related to Holbeinesque jewellery at Wikimedia Commons
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Schwerin Palace
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Schwerin Palace, or Schwerin Castle, is a palatial schloss located in the city of Schwerin, the capital of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state, Germany. It is situated on an island in the main lake. For centuries the palace was the home of the dukes and grand dukes of Mecklenburg, today it serves as the residence of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state parliament. It is regarded as one of the most important works of romantic Historicism in Europe and is designated to become a World Heritage Site and it is nicknamed Neuschwanstein of the North. The first records of a castle at this date from AD973. There was a fort of the Polabian Slav tribe of the Obotrites on an island in the large Lake of Schwerin, in 1160, the fort became a target of Germanic noblemen planning to expand their territory eastward under the leadership of Henry the Lion. The Obotrites under Niklot destroyed the fort but left because of the Germanic military dominance, however, the German conquerors recognized the strategic and aesthetically interesting location of the island and started building a new fort. The foundation of the city of Schwerin took place in the same year, Schwerin became the seat of a bishopric. In 1358, the County of Schwerin was purchased by the descendants of Niklot and they soon relocated farther inland from Mikelenburg, near the city of Wismar, to Schwerin. During the late Gothic era, the prosperity and position of the dukes led to a growing need for a representative castle. The Bishops House from that period remains intact, under John Albert I, Duke of Mecklenburg, the building faced important changes. The fort became a palace, and the functionality of the fortress was replaced with ornamentation. The use of terracotta during the Renaissance was dominant in North German architecture, a few years after reworking the main building itself, from 1560 to 1563, John Albert rebuilt the palaces chapel. It became the first new Protestant church of the state, the architecture was inspired by churches in Torgau and Dresden. The Venetian Renaissance gate, its gable showing the carrying of the cross, was made by Hans Walther, windows on the northern face show biblical illustrations by well-known Dutch artist Willem van den Broecke. As the ducal residence needed additional defences, despite its island site and they were probably built by the same Italian architects who, under Francesco a Bornau, also designed the Dömitz Fortress. The bastions were later modified several times, and are standing today. Before the Thirty Years War, the architect Ghert Evert Piloot, in 1617, work began under his supervision, but soon had to cease because of the war
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Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
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Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is a federal state in northern Germany. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is the sixth largest German state by area, and the least densely populated, three of Germanys fourteen national parks are in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in addition to several hundred nature conservation areas. Major cities include Rostock, Schwerin, Neubrandenburg, Stralsund, Greifswald, Wismar, the University of Rostock and the University of Greifswald are among the oldest in Europe. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was the site of the 33rd G8 summit in 2007, due to its lengthy name, the state is often abbreviated as MV or shortened to MeckPomm. In English, it is translated as Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania or literally Mecklenburg-Cispomerania. Inhabitants are called either Mecklenburger or Pomeranians, the form is never used. The full name in German is pronounced and this is because the digraph <ck> marks a preceding short vowel in High German. Mecklenburg however is within the historical Low German language area, another explanation is that the c comes from a mannerism in High German officialese of writing unnecessary letters, a so-called Letternhäufelung. Human settlement in the area of modern Mecklenburg and Vorpommern began after the Ice Age, about two thousand years ago, Germanic peoples were recorded in the area. Most of them left during the Migration Period, heading towards Spain, Italy, in the 6th century Polabian Slavs populated the area. While Mecklenburg was settled by the Obotrites, Vorpommern was settled by the Veleti, along the coast, Vikings and Slavs established trade posts like Reric, Ralswiek and Menzlin. In the 12th century, Mecklenburg and Vorpommern were conquered by Henry the Lion and incorporated into the Duchy of Saxony, all of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was settled with Germans in the Ostsiedlung process, starting in the 12th century. In the late 12th century, Henry the Lion, Duke of the Saxons, conquered the Obotrites, subjugated its Nikloting dynasty, in the course of time, German monks, nobility, peasants and traders arrived to settle here. After the 12th century, the territory remained stable and relatively independent of its neighbours, Mecklenburg first became a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire in 1348. Though later partitioned and re-partitioned within the dynasty, Mecklenburg always shared a common history. The states of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz became Grand Duchies in 1815, Vorpommern, litererally Fore-Pomerania, is the smaller, western part of the former Prussian Province of Pomerania, the eastern part became part of Poland after the end of World War II. In the Middle Ages, the area was ruled by the Pomeranian dukes as part of the Duchy of Pomerania, Pomerania was under Swedish rule after the Peace of Westphalia from 1648 until 1815 as Swedish Pomerania. Pomerania became a province of Prussia in 1815 and remained so until 1945, wartime In May 1945, the armies of the Soviet Union and the Western allies met east of Schwerin
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Waddesdon Manor
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Waddesdon Manor is a country house in the village of Waddesdon, in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located in the Aylesbury Vale,6.6 miles west of Aylesbury, the house was built in the Neo-Renaissance style of a French château between 1874 and 1889 for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild as a weekend residence for grand entertaining. The last member of the Rothschild family to own Waddesdon was James de Rothschild and he bequeathed the house and its contents to the National Trust. It is now administered by a Rothschild charitable trust that is overseen by Jacob Rothschild and it is one of the National Trusts most visited properties, with around 335,000 visitors annually. Prior to the construction of Waddesdon Manor, no house existed on the site, Ferdinand de Rothschild wanted a house in the style of the great Renaissance châteaux of the Loire Valley. The Baron, a member of the Viennese branch of the Rothschild banking dynasty, Destailleur was already experienced in working in this style, having overseen the restoration of many châteaux in that region, in particular that of the Château de Mouchy. Through Destailleurs vision, Waddesdon embodied an eclectic style based on the châteaux so admired by his patron, Baron Ferdinand. The towers at Waddesdon were based on those of the Château de Maintenon, however, following the theme of unparalleled luxury at Waddesdon, the windows of the towers at Waddesdon were glazed, unlike those of the staircase at Chambord. They are also far more ornate, the structural design of Waddesdon, however, was not all retrospective. The house also had hot and cold running water in its bathrooms, central heating, the building contractor was Edward Conder & Son. Works were acquired for their quality and fine provenance. One of the highlights of the collection is the extraordinary musical automaton elephant, dating from 1774, in the 1890s, Baron Ferdinand focused on the Renaissance collection for his small museum in the New Smoking Room. This collection was bequeathed to the British Museum and is now known as the Waddesdon Bequest, the interior of Waddesdon Manor was photographed in 1897 for Baron Ferdinands privately published The Red Book. Subsequent owners added noted collections of Limoges enamel, arms and armour, maiolica, medieval manuscripts, prints, extensive landscaping of the hill was carried out, including leveling the top. The gardens and landscape park were laid out by the French landscape architect Elie Lainé, an attempt was made to transplant full-grown trees by chloroforming their roots, to limit the shock. While this novel idea was unsuccessful, many large trees were successfully transplanted. The gardens were enhanced with statuary, pavilions and an aviary that is still in use, the Proserpina fountain was brought to the Manor at the end of the 19th century from the Palace of the Dukes of Parma in northern Italy, the Ducal Palace of Colorno. The gardens are listed Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks, Baron Ferdinand played host to many important guests including the future Edward VII
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Rothschild family
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During the 19th century, the Rothschild family possessed the largest private fortune in the world, as well as the largest private fortune in modern world history. The Rothschild family has frequently been the subject of conspiracy theories, the first member of the family who was known to use the name Rothschild was Izaak Elchanan Rothschild, born in 1577. The name is derived from the German zum rothen Schild, meaning with the red sign, the familys ascent to international prominence began in 1744, with the birth of Mayer Amschel Rothschild in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He was the son of Amschel Moses Rothschild, a money changer who had traded with the Prince of Hesse, the family motto appears below the shield, Concordia, Integritas, Industria. Paul Johnson writes he Rothschilds are elusive, there is no book about them that is both revealing and accurate. Libraries of nonsense have been written about them, a woman who planned to write a book entitled Lies about the Rothschilds abandoned it, saying, ‘It was relatively easy to spot the lies, but it proved impossible to find out the truth. Their assets were held in financial instruments, circulating through the world as stocks, bonds, changes made by the Rothschilds allowed them to insulate their property from local violence, Henceforth their real wealth was beyond the reach of the mob, almost beyond the reach of greedy monarchs. Another essential part of Mayer Rothschilds strategy for success was to control of their banks in family hands. By this means, Jewish financiers obtained a share of international finance during the middle. The head of the group was the Rothschild family. It also states, Of more recent years, non-Jewish financiers have learned the same method, and, on the whole. Mayer Rothschild successfully kept the fortune in the family with carefully arranged marriages, by the late 19th century, however, almost all Rothschilds had started to marry outside the family, usually into the aristocracy or other financial dynasties. The surname Rothschild is rare in Germany, the German surname Rothschild is not related to the Protestant surname Rothchilds from the United Kingdom. Another line, of the British branch of the family, was elevated by Queen Victoria, research conducted by GreatGameIndia Magazine has revealed that the Rothschild family was one of the controller families of the East India Company. The Rothschilds already possessed a significant fortune before the start of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1815 alone, the Rothschilds provided £9.8 million in subsidy loans to Britains continental allies. The brothers helped coordinate Rothschild activities across the continent, and the family developed a network of agents, in one instance, the family network enabled Nathan to receive in London the news of Wellingtons victory at the Battle of Waterloo a full day ahead of the governments official messengers. It was then repeated in popular accounts, such as that of Morton. The basis for the Rothschilds most famously profitable move was made after the news of British victory had made public
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Revivalism (architecture)
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Revivalism in architecture is the use of visual styles that consciously echo the style of a previous architectural era. Modern-day revival styles can be summarized within New Classical Architecture, chinese architecture Japanese architecture Korean architecture Architecture of Vietnam, The following architecture are from the Indosphere. Media related to Historicist architecture at Wikimedia Commons
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Greek Revival architecture
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The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture, the term was first used by Charles Robert Cockerell in a lecture he gave as Professor of Architecture to the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1842. With a newfound access to Greece, or initially the books produced by the few who had actually been able to visit the sites, archaeologist-architects of the period studied the Doric and Ionic orders. This was especially the case in Britain, Germany and the United States, Greek Revival architecture took a different course in a number of countries, lasting until the Civil War in America and even later in Scotland. Despite the unbounded prestige of ancient Greece amongst the elite of Europe. The monuments of Greek antiquity were known chiefly from Pausanias and other literary sources, visiting Ottoman Greece was difficult and dangerous business prior to the period of stagnation beginning with the Great Turkish War. Few Grand Tourists called on Athens during the first half of the 18th century and it would take until the expedition funded by the Society of Dilettanti of 1751 by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett before serious archaeological inquiry began in earnest. Access to the originals in Greece itself only became easier after the Greek War of Independence ended in 1832, Lord Byrons participation, following James Stuarts travels to Greece in the early 1750s, intellectual curiosity quickly led to a desire to emulate. Stuart was commissioned after his return from Greece by George Lyttelton to produce the first Greek building in England, arguably the greatest British exponent of the style was Decimus Burton. In London twenty three Greek Revival Commissioners churches were built between 1817 and 1829, the most notable being St. Pancras church by William and Henry William Inwood. Such was the popularity of the Doric in Edinburgh that the city now enjoys a striking visual uniformity, nevertheless, Greek continued to be in favour in Scotland well into the 1870s in the singular figure of Alexander Thomson, known as Greek Thomson. In Germany, the Greek revival is predominantly found in two centres, Berlin and Munich, the earliest Greek building was the Brandenburg Gate by Carl Gotthard Langhans, who modelled it on the Propylaea. Ten years after the death of Frederick the Great, the Berlin Akademie initiated a competition for a monument to the king that would promote morality, similarly, in Munich von Klenzes Glyptothek and Walhalla were the fulfilment of Gillys vision of an orderly and moral German world. The purity and seriousness of the style was intended as an assertion of German national values and partly intended as a riposte to France. By comparison, the Greek revival in France was never popular with either the state or the public, what little there is started with Charles de Waillys crypt in the church of St Leu-St Gilles, and Claude Nicolas Ledouxs Barriere des Bonshommes. It would take until Laboustres Neo-Grec of the Second Empire for the Greek revival to flower briefly in France, the style was especially attractive in Russia, if only because they shared the Eastern Orthodox faith with the Greeks. The historic centre of Saint Petersburg was rebuilt by Alexander I of Russia, the Saint Petersburg Bourse on Vasilievsky Island has a temple front with 44 Doric columns. Leo von Klenzes expansion of the palace that is now the Hermitage Museum is another example of the style, following the Greek War of Independence, Romantic Nationalist ideology encouraged the use of historically Greek architectural styles in place of Ottoman or pan-European ones
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Gothic Revival architecture
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Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. Gothic Revival draws features from the original Gothic style, including decorative patterns, finials, scalloping, lancet windows, hood mouldings, the Gothic Revival movement emerged in 19th-century England. Its roots were intertwined with deeply philosophical movements associated with a re-awakening of High Church or Anglo-Catholic belief concerned by the growth of religious nonconformism, ultimately, the Anglo-Catholicism tradition of religious belief and style became widespread for its intrinsic appeal in the third quarter of the 19th century. The Gothic Revival was paralleled and supported by medievalism, which had its roots in antiquarian concerns with survivals, as industrialisation progressed, a reaction against machine production and the appearance of factories also grew. Proponents of the such as Thomas Carlyle and Augustus Pugin took a critical view of industrial society. To Pugin, Gothic architecture was infused with the Christian values that had been supplanted by classicism and were being destroyed by industrialisation, poems such as Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson recast specifically modern themes in medieval settings of Arthurian romance. In German literature, the Gothic Revival also had a grounding in literary fashions, guarino Guarini, a 17th-century Theatine monk active primarily in Turin, recognized the Gothic order as one of the primary systems of architecture and made use of it in his practice. Some of the earliest evidence of a revival in Gothic architecture is from Scotland, inveraray Castle, constructed from 1746, with design input from William Adam, displays the incorporation of turrets. These were largely conventional Palladian style houses that incorporated some features of the Scots baronial style. The eccentric landscape designer Batty Langley even attempted to improve Gothic forms by giving them classical proportions, a younger generation, taking Gothic architecture more seriously, provided the readership for J. Brittens series of Cathedral Antiquities, which began appearing in 1814. In 1817, Thomas Rickman wrote an Attempt. to name and define the sequence of Gothic styles in English ecclesiastical architecture, the categories he used were Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular. It went through numerous editions and was still being republished by 1881. The largest and most famous Gothic cathedrals in the U. S. A. are St. Patricks Cathedral in New York City and Washington National Cathedral on Mount St. Alban in northwest Washington, D. C. One of the biggest churches in Gothic Revival style in Canada is Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate in Ontario, Gothic Revival architecture was to remain one of the most popular and long-lived of the Gothic Revival styles of architecture. The revived Gothic style was not limited to architecture, classical Gothic buildings of the 12th to 16th Centuries were a source of inspiration to 19th-century designers in numerous fields of work. Architectural elements such as pointed arches, steep-sloping roofs and fancy carvings like lace ant lattice work were applied to a range of Gothic Revival objects. Sir Walter Scotts Abbotsford exemplifies in its furnishings the Regency Gothic style, parties in medieval historical dress and entertainment were popular among the wealthy in the 1800s but has spread in the late 20th century to the well-educated middle class as well. By the mid-19th century, Gothic traceries and niches could be inexpensively re-created in wallpaper, the illustrated catalogue for the Great Exhibition of 1851 is replete with Gothic detail, from lacemaking and carpet designs to heavy machinery
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Renaissance architecture
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Stylistically, Renaissance architecture followed Gothic architecture and was succeeded by Baroque architecture. Developed first in Florence, with Filippo Brunelleschi as one of its innovators, the style was carried to France, Germany, England, Russia and other parts of Europe at different dates and with varying degrees of impact. Italy of the 15th century, and the city of Florence in particular, was home to the Renaissance, the scholarly approach to the architecture of the ancient coincided with the general revival of learning. A number of factors were influential in bringing this about, Italian architects had always preferred forms that were clearly defined and structural members that expressed their purpose. Many Tuscan Romanesque buildings demonstrate these characteristics, as seen in the Florence Baptistery, Italy had never fully adopted the Gothic style of architecture. In the 15th century, Florence, Venice and Naples extended their power through much of the area that surrounded them and this enabled Florence to have significant artistic influence in Milan, and through Milan, France. Successive Popes, especially Julius II, 1503–13, sought to extend the Pope’s temporal power throughout Italy, in the early Renaissance, Venice controlled sea trade over goods from the East. Trade brought wool from England to Florence, ideally located on the river for the production of fine cloth, by dominating Pisa, Florence gained a seaport, and also maintained dominance of Genoa. In this commercial climate, one family in particular turned their attention from trade to the business of money-lending. The Medici became the chief bankers to the princes of Europe, becoming virtually princes themselves as they did so, along the trade routes, and thus offered some protection by commercial interest, moved not only goods but also artists, scientists and philosophers. This commenced in the mid 15th century and gained momentum in the 16th century, the construction of the Sistine Chapel with its uniquely important decorations and the entire rebuilding of St Peters, one of Christendoms most significant churches, were part of this process. In wealthy republican Florence, the impetus for church-building was more civic than spiritual, the unfinished state of the enormous cathedral dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary did no honour to the city under her patronage. The dome inspired further religious works in Florence, through Humanism, civic pride and the promotion of civil peace and order were seen as the marks of citizenship. Some major ecclesiastical building works were commissioned, not by the church. During the Renaissance, architecture became not only a question of practice, printing played a large role in the dissemination of ideas. The first treatise on architecture was De re aedificatoria by Leon Battista Alberti in 1450 and it was to some degree dependent on Vitruviuss De architectura, a manuscript of which was discovered in 1414 in a library in Switzerland. De re aedificatoria in 1485 became the first printed book on architecture, Sebastiano Serlio produced the next important text, the first volume of which appeared in Venice in 1537, it was entitled Regole generali darchitettura. It is known as Serlios Fourth Book since it was the fourth in Serlios original plan of a treatise in seven books, in all, five books were published
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Florence
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Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the Metropolitan City of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants, Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time. It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, from 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. The Historic Centre of Florence attracts 13 million tourists each year and it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture, the city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florences artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in 2008, the city had the 17th highest average income in Italy. Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe, the language spoken in the city during the 14th century was, and still is, accepted as the Italian language. Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War and they similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European historys most important noble families, Lorenzo de Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century, Leo X, catherine de Medici married king Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future king Louis XIII, the Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de Medici in 1737. The Etruscans initially formed in 200 BC the small settlement of Fiesole and it was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century, Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to again and commerce prospered
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Humanism
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The term was coined in 1808 by the early nineteenth century German educational reformer and theologian Friedrich Niethammer and gradually adopted into English. Niethammer had wished to introduce into German education the humane values of ancient Greece, the word Humanism is ultimately derived from the Latin concept humanitas, and, like most other words ending in -ism, entered English in the nineteenth century. Those who earnestly desire and seek after these are most highly humanized. For the desire to pursue of that kind of knowledge, and the training given by it, has granted to humanity alone of all the animals. Gellius says that in his day humanitas is commonly used as a synonym for philanthropy – or kindness and he himself was involved in public affairs. By assigning pride of place to Paideia in his comment on the etymology of humanitas, gelliuss writings fell into obscurity during the middle ages, but during the Italian Renaissance, Gellius became a favorite author. Teachers and scholars of Greek and Latin grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, during the French Revolution, and soon after, in Germany, humanism began to refer to an ethical philosophy centered on humankind, without attention to the transcendent or supernatural. The designation Religious Humanism refers to organized groups that sprang up during the late-nineteenth and it is similar to Protestantism, although centered on human needs, interests, and abilities rather than the supernatural. The first Humanist Manifesto was issued by a conference held at the University of Chicago in 1933, signatories included the philosopher John Dewey, but the majority were ministers and theologians. But in the century, during the French Enlightenment, a more ideological use of the term had come into use. In 1765, the author of an article in a French Enlightenment periodical spoke of The general love of humanity. A virtue hitherto quite nameless among us, and which we will venture to call humanism, for the time has come to create a word for such a beautiful and necessary thing. The latter part of the 18th and the early 19th centuries saw the creation of numerous philanthropic and benevolent societies dedicated to human betterment. Humanism began to acquire a negative sense, the Oxford English Dictionary records the use of the word humanism by an English clergyman in 1812 to indicate those who believe in the mere humanity of Christ, i. e. Unitarians and Deists. Human-centered philosophy that rejected the supernatural may also be found circa 1500 BCE in the Lokayata system of Indian philosophy, nasadiya Sukta, a passage in the Rig Veda, contains one of the first recorded assertions of agnosticism. Another instance of ancient humanism as a system of thought is found in the Gathas of Zarathustra. Zarathustras philosophy in the Gathas lays out a conception of humankind as thinking beings, dignified with choice, in China, Yellow Emperor is regarded as the humanistic primogenitor. Sage kings such as Yao and Shun are humanistic figures as recorded, king Wu of Zhou has the famous saying, Humanity is the Ling of the world
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Mannerism
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Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, lasting until about 1580 in Italy, when the Baroque style began to replace it. Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century, stylistically, Mannerism encompasses a variety of approaches influenced by, and reacting to, the harmonious ideals associated with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and early Michelangelo. Where High Renaissance art emphasizes proportion, balance, and ideal beauty, Mannerism exaggerates such qualities, Mannerism is notable for its intellectual sophistication as well as its artificial qualities. Mannerism favors compositional tension and instability rather than the balance and clarity of earlier Renaissance painting, Mannerism in literature and music is notable for its highly florid style and intellectual sophistication. The definition of Mannerism and the phases within it continue to be a subject of debate among art historians, for example, some scholars have applied the label to certain early modern forms of literature and music of the 16th and 17th centuries. The term is used to refer to some late Gothic painters working in northern Europe from about 1500 to 1530. Mannerism also has been applied by analogy to the Silver Age of Latin literature, the word mannerism derives from the Italian maniera, meaning style or manner. Like the English word style, maniera can either indicate a type of style or indicate an absolute that needs no qualification. Vasari was also a Mannerist artist, and he described the period in which he worked as la maniera moderna, james V. Mirollo describes how bella maniera poets attempted to surpass in virtuosity the sonnets of Petrarch. This notion of bella maniera suggests that artists thus inspired looked to copying and bettering their predecessors, in essence, bella maniera utilized the best from a number of source materials, synthesizing it into something new. As a stylistic label, Mannerism is not easily defined, “High Renaissance” connoted a period distinguished by harmony, grandeur and the revival of classical antiquity. The term Mannerist was redefined in 1967 by John Shearman following the exhibition of Mannerist paintings organised by Fritz Grossmann at Manchester City Art Gallery in 1965. The label “Mannerism” was used during the 16th century to comment on social behaviour, however, for later writers, such as the 17th-century Gian Pietro Bellori, la maniera was a derogatory term for the perceived decline of art after Raphael, especially in the 1530s and 1540s. From the late 19th century on, art historians have used the term to describe art that follows Renaissance classicism. By the end of the High Renaissance, young artists experienced a crisis, no more difficulties, technical or otherwise, remained to be solved. The young artists needed to find a new goal, and they sought new approaches, at this point Mannerism started to emerge. The new style developed between 1510 and 1520 either in Florence, or in Rome, or in both cities simultaneously and this period has been described as a natural extension of the art of Andrea del Sarto, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Michelangelo from an early age had developed a style of his own, one of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and subsequent artists attempted to imitate it
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Baroque
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The style began around 1600 in Rome and Italy, and spread to most of Europe. The aristocracy viewed the dramatic style of Baroque art and architecture as a means of impressing visitors by projecting triumph, power, Baroque palaces are built around an entrance of courts, grand staircases, and reception rooms of sequentially increasing opulence. However, baroque has a resonance and application that extend beyond a reduction to either a style or period. It is also yields the Italian barocco and modern Spanish barroco, German Barock, Dutch Barok, others derive it from the mnemonic term Baroco, a supposedly laboured form of syllogism in logical Scholastica. The Latin root can be found in bis-roca, in informal usage, the word baroque can simply mean that something is elaborate, with many details, without reference to the Baroque styles of the 17th and 18th centuries. The word Baroque, like most periodic or stylistic designations, was invented by later critics rather than practitioners of the arts in the 17th, the term Baroque was initially used in a derogatory sense, to underline the excesses of its emphasis. In particular, the term was used to describe its eccentric redundancy and noisy abundance of details, although it was long thought that the word as a critical term was first applied to architecture, in fact it appears earlier in reference to music. Another hypothesis says that the word comes from precursors of the style, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola and he did not make the distinctions between Mannerism and Baroque that modern writers do, and he ignored the later phase, the academic Baroque that lasted into the 18th century. Long despised, Baroque art and architecture became fashionable between the two World Wars, and has remained in critical favour. In painting the gradual rise in popular esteem of Caravaggio has been the best barometer of modern taste, William Watson describes a late phase of Shang-dynasty Chinese ritual bronzes of the 11th century BC as baroque. The term Baroque may still be used, usually pejoratively, describing works of art, craft, the appeal of Baroque style turned consciously from the witty, intellectual qualities of 16th-century Mannerist art to a visceral appeal aimed at the senses. It employed an iconography that was direct, simple, obvious, germinal ideas of the Baroque can also be found in the work of Michelangelo. Even more generalised parallels perceived by some experts in philosophy, prose style, see the Neapolitan palace of Caserta, a Baroque palace whose construction began in 1752. In paintings Baroque gestures are broader than Mannerist gestures, less ambiguous, less arcane and mysterious, more like the stage gestures of opera, Baroque poses depend on contrapposto, the tension within the figures that move the planes of shoulders and hips in counterdirections. Baroque is a style of unity imposed upon rich, heavy detail, Baroque style featured exaggerated lighting, intense emotions, release from restraint, and even a kind of artistic sensationalism. There were highly diverse strands of Italian baroque painting, from Caravaggio to Cortona, the most prominent Spanish painter of the Baroque was Diego Velázquez. The later Baroque style gradually gave way to a more decorative Rococo, while the Baroque nature of Rembrandts art is clear, the label is less often used for Vermeer and many other Dutch artists. Flemish Baroque painting shared a part in this trend, while continuing to produce the traditional categories
14.
Italianate architecture
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The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. The style of architecture that was created, though also characterised as Neo-Renaissance, was essentially of its own time. The Italianate style was first developed in Britain about 1802 by John Nash and this small country house is generally accepted to be the first Italianate villa in England, from which is derived the Italianate architecture of the late Regency and early Victorian eras. The Italianate style was developed and popularised by the architect Sir Charles Barry in the 1830s. Barrys Italianate style drew heavily for its motifs on the buildings of the Italian Renaissance, the style was not confined to England and was employed in varying forms, long after its decline in popularity in Britain, throughout Northern Europe and the British Empire. From the late 1840s to 1890 it achieved popularity in the United States. A late intimation of Nashs development of the Italianate style was his 1805 design of Sandridge Park at Stoke Gabriel in Devon. Later examples of the Italianate style in England tend to take the form of Palladian-style building often enhanced by a belvedere complete with Renaissance-type balustrading at the roof level. Sir Charles Barry, most notable for his works on the Tudor, unlike Nash he found his inspiration in Italy itself. Barry drew heavily on the designs of the original Renaissance villas of Rome, the Lazio and his most defining work in this style was the large Neo-Renaissance mansion Cliveden. Thomas Cubitt, a London building contractor, incorporated simple classical lines of the Italianate style as defined by Sir Charles Barry into many of his London terraces. Following the completion of Osborne House in 1851, the became a popular choice of design for the small mansions built by the new. These were mostly built in cities surrounded by large but not extensive gardens, on occasions very similar, if not identical, designs to these Italianate villas would be topped by mansard roofs, and then termed chateauesque. However, after a modest spate of Italianate villas, and French chateaux by 1855 the most favoured style of an English country house was Gothic, the Italianate style came to the small town of Newton Abbot in Devon, with Isambard Brunels atmospheric railway pumping houses. An example that is not very known, but a clear example of Italianate architecture, is St. Christophers Anglican church in Hinchley Wood, Surrey. When the Ottomans exiled Fakhreddine to Tuscany in 1613, he entered an alliance with the Medicis, upon his return to Lebanon in 1618, he began modernising Lebanon. He developed an industry, upgraded olive-oil production, and brought with him numerous Italian engineers who began the construction of mansions. The cities of Beirut and Sidon were especially built in the Italianate style, the influence of these buildings, such as the ones in Deir el Qamar, influenced building in Lebanon for many centuries and continues to the present time
15.
17th-century French art
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In the early part of the 17th century, late mannerist and early Baroque tendencies continued to flourish in the court of Marie de Medici and Louis XIII. Art from this period shows influences from both the north of Europe and from Roman painters of the Counter-Reformation, artists in France frequently debated the merits between Peter Paul Rubens and Nicolas Poussin. There was also a strong Caravaggio school represented in the period by the paintings of Georges de La Tour. The wretched and the poor were featured in an almost Dutch manner in the paintings by the three Le Nain brothers. In the paintings of Philippe de Champaigne there are both propagandistic portraits of Louis XIII s minister Cardinal Richelieu and other more contemplative portraits of people in the Jansenist sect. The Palace of Versailles, initially a hunting lodge built by his father, was transformed by Louis XIV into a marvelous palace for fêtes and parties. Architect Louis Le Vau, painter and designer Charles Le Brun, the initial impetus for this transformation of Versailles is generally linked to the private château Vaux-le-Vicomte built for Louis XIVs minister of Finance Nicolas Fouquet. Having offered a festival for the king in the newly finished residence in 1661. The architects and artists under his patronage were all put to work on Versailles, in his youth, Louis XIV had suffered during the civil and parliamentary insurrection known as the Fronde. Versailles became a gilded cage, To leave spelled disaster for a noble, for all official charges, a word or glance from the king could make or destroy a career. The king himself followed a strict daily program, and there was little privacy, yet the difficult wars at the end of his long reign and the religious problems created by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes made his last years dark ones. French artists of the seventeenth century Baroque painting Classicism Perrault’s Colonnade Anthony Blunt, Art, french Art Vol III, The Ancient Régime ISBN 2-08-013617-8
16.
Second Empire (architecture)
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Second Empire is an architectural style, most popular in the latter half of the 19th century and early years of the 20th century. It was so named for the elements in vogue during the era of the Second French Empire. The style quickly spread and evolved as Baroque Revival architecture throughout Europe and its suitability for super-scaling allowed it to be widely used in the design of municipal and corporate buildings. In the United States, where one of the architects working in the style was Alfred B. Mullett, buildings in the style were often closer to their 17th-century roots than examples of the found in Europe
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Wollaton Hall
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Wollaton Hall is an Elizabethan country house of the 1580s standing on a small but prominent hill in Wollaton Park, Nottingham, England. The house is now Nottingham Natural History Museum, with Nottingham Industrial Museum in the out-buildings, the surrounding parkland has a herd of deer, and is regularly used for large-scale outdoor events such as rock concerts, sporting events and festivals. Though much re-modelled inside, the startlingly bold exterior remains largely intact, the style is an advanced Elizabethan with early Jacobean elements. The floor plan has been said to derive from Serlios drawing of Giuliano da Majanos Villa Poggio Reale near Naples of the late 15th century, with elevations derived from Hans Vredeman de Vries. The building is of Ancaster stone from Lincolnshire, and is said to have paid for with coal from the Wollaton pits owned by Willoughby. Cassandra Willoughby, Duchess of Chandos recorded in 1702 that the master masons, the decorative gondola mooring rings carved in stone on the exterior walls offer some evidence of this, as do other architectural features. There are also obvious French and Dutch influences, the exterior and hall have extensive and busy carved decoration, featuring strapwork and a profusion of decorative forms. The window tracery of the floors in the central block and the general business of the decoration look back to the Middle Ages. The building consists of a block dominated by a hall three storeys high, with a stone screen at one end and galleries at either end. From this there are views of the park and surrounding country. There are towers at each corner, projecting out from this top floor, at each corner of the house is a square pavilion of three storeys, with decorative features rising above the roof line. Much of the basement storey is cut from the rock the house sits on, the house was unused for about four decades before 1687, following a fire in 1642, and then re-occupied and given the first of several campaigns of re-modelling of the interiors. Paintings on the ceilings of the two staircases and round the walls of one are attributed to Sir James Thornhill and perhaps also Laguerre. Re-modelling was carried out by Wyattville in 1801 and continued intermittently until the 1830s, the gallery of the main hall contains Nottinghamshires oldest pipe organ, thought to date from the end of the 17th century, possibly by the builder Gerard Smith. It is still blown by hand, beneath the hall are many cellars and passages, and a well and associated reservoir tank, in which some accounts report that an admiral of the Willoughby family took a daily bath. The Willoughbys were noted for the number of explorers they produced, Willoughbys Land is named after him. In 1881, the house was owned by the head of the Willoughby family, Digby Willoughby, 9th Baron Middleton. The hall was bought by Nottingham Council, and opened as a museum in 1925 and it re-opened in April 2007 after being closed for refurbishment
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Palazzo Pitti
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The Palazzo Pitti, in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the side of the River Arno. The core of the present palazzo dates from 1458 and was originally the residence of Luca Pitti. The palace was bought by the Medici family in 1549 and became the residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It grew as a treasure house as later generations amassed paintings, plates, jewelry. In the late 18th century, the palazzo was used as a base by Napoleon. The palace and its contents were donated to the Italian people by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1919, the palazzo is now the largest museum complex in Florence. The principal palazzo block, often in a building of design known as the corps de logis, is 32,000 square metres. It is divided into several principal galleries or museums detailed below, the construction of this severe and forbidding building was commissioned in 1458 by the Florentine banker Luca Pitti, a principal supporter and friend of Cosimo de Medici. The early history of the Palazzo Pitti is a mixture of fact, Pitti is alleged to have instructed that the windows be larger than the entrance of the Palazzo Medici. Besides obvious differences from the architects style, Brunelleschi died 12 years before construction of the palazzo began. The design and fenestration suggest that the architect was more experienced in utilitarian domestic architecture than in the humanist rules defined by Alberti in his book De Re Aedificatoria. Though impressive, the original palazzo would have no rival to the Florentine Medici residences in terms of either size or content. Whoever the architect of the Palazzo Pitti was, he was moving against the flow of fashion. The rusticated stonework gives the palazzo a severe and powerful atmosphere, reinforced by the series of seven arch-headed apertures. The Roman-style architecture appealed to the Florentine love of the new style allantica, work stopped after Pitti suffered financial losses following the death of Cosimo de Medici in 1464. Luca Pitti died in 1472 with the building unfinished, the building was sold in 1549 by Buonaccorso Pitti, a descendant of Luca Pitti, to Eleonora di Toledo. Raised at the court of Naples, Eleonora was the wife of Cosimo I de Medici of Tuscany
19.
Palace of Facets
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The Palace of the Facets is a building in the Moscow Kremlin, Russia, which contains what used to be the main banquet reception hall of the Muscovite Tsars. It is the oldest preserved building in Moscow. Located on Kremlin Cathedral Square, between the Cathedral of the Annunciation and the Dormition Cathedral, currently, it is an official ceremonial hall in the residence of the President of the Russian Federation and thus admission is limited to prearranged tours only. Named after its distinctive stonework eastern façade with horizontal rows of sharp-edged stones, although from the façade, it appears to be a three-story rectangular building from the outside, it is actually a one-story building with a semi-basement. On the west side the building is connected to the central building of the Grand Kremlin Palace. The first floor of the Palace of the Facets consists of the main hall, both are decorated with rich frescoes and gilded carvings. The splendid vaulted main hall has an area of about 500 m², the entire vault and the walls are frescoed with elaborate several themes from the history of the Russian State and the Russian Orthodox Church. This was used as a room and banqueting hall for the 16th-century and 17th-century tsars and is still used for holding formal state receptions. The paintings were restored in the 1880s by icon painters from Palekh by order of Tsar Alexander III, on the palaces southern facade is the Red Porch, an external staircase decorated with stylized lion sculptures on the railings. The tsars passed down this staircase on their way to the Cathedral of the Dormition for their coronations, the last such procession was at the coronation of Nicholas II in 1896. In the Streltsy Uprising in 1682 several of Tsar Peter the Greats rebellious relatives were hurled down the staircase onto the pikes of the Streltsy guard. Demolished by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s and replaced with a canteen for Kremlin workers, the new palace was completed in 1492 and served as the most important venue for formal receptions of the Tsar, coronation celebrations, feasts, and state ceremonies. Tsar Ivan the Terrible celebrated his conquest of the Kazan Khanate at the Palace of Facets for three days in 1552. Likewise, Tsar Peter the Great used the palace to celebrate his 1709 victory over Sweden at the Battle of Poltava and it was also within the Palace of Facets that the Zemsky Sobor was held in 1654, resulting in the Treaty of Pereyaslav uniting the Russian Empire with Ukraine. Over the centuries, the Palace of Facets suffered repeatedly from major damage and was rebuilt several times in its history. However, it has continued to be used for state receptions even in modern times, in June 2012, after an extensive restoration, the Palace of Facets was reopened to public, though in practice only organized prearranged tours are available. The Moscow Kremlin, history of Russias unique monument, ASIN, B0010XM7BQ Official webpage Palazzo dei Diamanti
20.
Filippo Brunelleschi
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Filippo Brunelleschi was an Italian designer and a key figure in architecture, recognised to be the first modern engineer, planner and sole construction supervisor. He was one of the fathers of the Renaissance. He is generally known for developing a technique for linear perspective in art. Heavily depending on mirrors and geometry, to reinforce Christian spiritual reality and it also had the most profound – and quite unanticipated – influence on the rise of modern science. His accomplishments also include other works, sculpture, mathematics, engineering. His principal surviving works are to be found in Florence, Italy, unfortunately, his two original linear perspective panels have been lost. Brunelleschi was born in Florence, Italy, little is known about his early life, the only sources being Antonio Manetti and Giorgio Vasari. According to these sources, Filippos father was Brunellesco di Lippo, a notary, Filippo was the middle of their three children. The young Filippo was given a literary and mathematical education intended to enable him to follow in the footsteps of his father, a civil servant. Being artistically inclined, however, Filippo enrolled in the Arte della Seta, the silk merchants Guild, which also included goldsmiths, metalworkers and he became a master goldsmith in 1398. It was thus not a coincidence that his first important building commission, in 1401, Brunelleschi entered a competition to design a new set of bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery. Seven competitors each produced a bronze panel, depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac. Brunelleschis entry, which, with that of Lorenzo Ghiberti, is one of two to have survived, made reference to the Greco-Roman Boy with Thorn. Brunelleschis panel consists of several pieces bolted to the back plate, Brunelleschi is considered a seminal figure of the Renaissance. Around 1400, there emerged a cultural interest in humanitas, or humanism, however, this interest was restricted to a few scholars, writers, and philosophers before it began to influence the visual arts. It was in period that Brunelleschi and his friend Donatello visited Rome to study its ancient ruins. Donatello, like Brunelleschi, was trained as a goldsmith, though he worked in the studio of contemporarily well-known painter Ghiberti. Although the glories of Ancient Rome were a matter of popular discourse at the time, it seems no one had studied the physical fabric of its ruins in any detail until Brunelleschi
21.
Treasure
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Treasure is a concentration of riches, often those that originate from ancient history, considered lost and/or forgotten until being rediscovered. Some jurisdictions legally define what constitutes treasure, such as in the British Treasure Act 1996, the phrase blood and treasure or lives and treasure has been used to refer to the human and monetary costs associated with massive endeavours such as war that expend both. Searching for hidden treasure is a theme in legend, treasure hunters do exist. A buried treasure is an important part of the beliefs surrounding pirates. According to popular conception, pirates often buried their stolen fortunes in remote places and they differ widely in plot and literary treatment but all are derived from the William Kidd legend. The whole inner spirit and a deal of the material detail of my first chapters. Were the property of Washington Irving, a treasure map is a variation of a map to mark the location of buried treasure, a lost mine, a valuable secret or a hidden location. More common in fiction than in reality, pirate treasure maps are often depicted in works of fiction as hand drawn, regardless of the terms literary use, anything that meets the criterion of a map that describes the location of a treasure could appropriately be called a treasure map. One of the earliest known instances of a document listing buried treasure is the copper scroll, believed to have been written between 50 and 100 AD, the scroll contains a list of 63 locations with detailed directions pointing to hidden treasures of gold and silver. KEN Thus far, no item mentioned in the scroll has been found, scholars remain divided on whether the copper scroll represents real burials, and, if so, the total measurements and the owners. Although buried pirate treasure is a literary theme, there are very few documented cases of pirates actually burying treasure. Drake did not create a map, another case in 1720 involved British Captain Stratton of the Prince Eugene who, after supposedly trading rum with pirates in the Caribbean, buried his gold near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. One of his crew, Morgan Miles, turned him in to the authorities, in any case, Captain Stratton was not a pirate, and made no map. The pirate most responsible for the legends of buried pirate treasure was Captain Kidd, over the years many people have tried to find the supposed remnants of Kidds treasure on Gardiners Island and elsewhere, but none has ever been found. People have claimed to have discovered maps and other clues led to pirate treasure. These claims are not supported by scholars, in the 1985 film The Goonies, an old treasure map leads to the secret stash of a legendary 17th-century pirate, an almost exact imitation of Stevensons plot in Treasure Island. In the 2004 film National Treasure, a treasure map becomes the source of the quest itself, in the 1994 comedy City Slickers II, The Legend of Curlys Gold, a treasure map is made by criminals who are analogous to modern day pirates. In the film Waterworld, a vague and cryptic treasure map has been tattooed on the back of the child character Enola
22.
Loire Valley
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The Loire Valley, spanning 280 kilometres, is located in the middle stretch of the Loire River in central France, primarily within the administrative region named Centre-Val de Loire. The area of the Loire Valley comprises about 800 square kilometres and it is referred to as the Cradle of the French and the Garden of France due to the abundance of vineyards, fruit orchards, and artichoke, and asparagus fields, which line the banks of the river. Notable for its towns, architecture, and wines, the valley has been inhabited since the Middle Palaeolithic period. In 2000, UNESCO added the part of the Loire River valley to its list of World Heritage Sites. The valley includes historic towns such as Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Orléans, Saumur, the climate is favorable most of the year, the river often acting as a line of demarcation in Frances weather between the northern climate and the southern. The river has a significant effect on the mesoclimate of the region, the climate can be cool with springtime frost while wine harvest months may have rain. Summers are hot, however, influences from the Atlantic moderate the temperature with breezes, Loire wines tend to exhibit a characteristic fruitiness with fresh, crisp flavors. On December 2,2000, UNESCO added the part of the river valley. When the French kings began constructing their huge châteaux here, the nobility, not wanting or even daring to be far from the seat of power and their presence in the lush, fertile valley began attracting the very best landscape designers. In addition to its many châteaux, the cultural monuments illustrate to a degree the ideals of the Renaissance. Many of the châteaux were designed to be built on the top of hills, many of the châteaux had extremely detailed and expensive churches on the grounds, or within the actual château itself. Loire Valley world heritage site Loire Valley Chateau du Rivau Chinon Fortress Western France Tourist Board
23.
Italian Renaissance
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The term Renaissance is in essence a modern one that came into currency in the 19th century, in the work of historians such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt. The French word renaissance means Rebirth, and the era is best known for the renewed interest in the culture of classical antiquity after the period that Renaissance humanists labeled the Dark Ages. Though today perhaps best known for Italian Renaissance art and architecture, the period saw major achievements in literature, music, philosophy, Italy became the recognized European leader in all these areas by the late 15th century, and to varying degrees retained this lead until about 1600. This was despite a turbulent and generally disastrous period in Italian politics, the European Renaissance began in Tuscany, and centred in the city of Florence. It later spread to Venice, where the remains of ancient Greek culture were brought together, the Renaissance later had a significant effect on Rome, which was ornamented with some structures in the new allantico mode, then was largely rebuilt by humanist sixteenth-century popes. The Italian Renaissance peaked in the century as foreign invasions plunged the region into the turmoil of the Italian Wars. However, the ideas and ideals of the Renaissance endured and spread into the rest of Europe, setting off the Northern Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance is best known for its cultural achievements. Accounts of Renaissance literature usually begin with Petrarch and his friend, famous vernacular poets of the 15th century include the renaissance epic authors Luigi Pulci, Matteo Maria Boiardo, and Ludovico Ariosto. 15th century writers such as the poet Poliziano and the Platonist philosopher Marsilio Ficino made extensive translations from both Latin and Greek, the same is true for architecture, as practiced by Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Andrea Palladio, and Bramante. Their works include Florence Cathedral, St. Peters Basilica in Rome, yet cultural contributions notwithstanding, some present-day historians also see the era as one of the beginning of economic regression for Italy. By the Late Middle Ages, Latium, the heartland of the Roman Empire. Rome was a city of ancient ruins, and the Papal States were loosely administered, and vulnerable to external interference such as that of France, and later Spain. The Papacy was affronted when the Avignon Papacy was created in southern France as a consequence of pressure from King Philip the Fair of France, in the south, Sicily had for some time been under foreign domination, by the Arabs and then the Normans. Sicily had prospered for 150 years during the Emirate of Sicily, in contrast Northern and Central Italy had become far more prosperous, and it has been calculated that the region was among the richest of Europe. The Crusades had built lasting trade links to the Levant, the main trade routes from the east passed through the Byzantine Empire or the Arab lands and onwards to the ports of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. Luxury goods bought in the Levant, such as spices, dyes, moreover, the inland city-states profited from the rich agricultural land of the Po valley. From France, Germany, and the Low Countries, through the medium of the Champagne fairs, land and river trade routes brought goods such as wool, wheat, and precious metals into the region. The extensive trade that stretched from Egypt to the Baltic generated substantial surpluses that allowed significant investment in mining, thus, while northern Italy was not richer in resources than many other parts of Europe, the level of development, stimulated by trade, allowed it to prosper
24.
Longleat
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Longleat is an English stately home and the seat of the Marquesses of Bath. It is a leading and early example of the Elizabethan prodigy house and it is adjacent to the village of Horningsham and near the towns of Warminster and Westbury in Wiltshire and Frome in Somerset. It is noted for its Elizabethan country house, maze, landscaped parkland and safari park. The house is set in 1,000 acres of parkland landscaped by Capability Brown, with 4,000 acres of let farmland and 4,000 acres of woodland, which includes a Center Parcs holiday village. It was the first stately home to open to the public, the house was built by Sir John Thynne and was designed mainly by Robert Smythson, after the original priory was destroyed by fire in 1567. It took 12 years to complete and is regarded as one of the finest examples of Elizabethan architecture in Britain. Longleat is occupied by Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, a descendant of the builder, however. Longleat was previously an Augustinian priory, the name comes from leat, an artificial waterway or channel such as that which supplies a watermill. Sir Charles Appleton purchased Longleat for Sir John Thynn in 1541 for £53, Appleton was a builder with experience gained from working on The Old School Baltonsborough, Bedwyn Broil and Somerset House. In April 1567 the original house caught fire and burnt down, a replacement house was effectively completed by 1580. Adrian Gaunt, Alan Maynard, Robert Smythson, the Earl of Hertford and Humpfrey Lovell all contributed to the new building, formal gardens, canals, fountains and parterres were created by George London with sculptures by Arnold Quellin and Chevalier David. The Best Gallery, Long Gallery, Old Library and Chapel were all added due to Wren. In 1707, Thomas Thynne founded a school for boys in the market town of Warminster, near to his family seat, to teach the boys of Warminster, Longbridge Deverill. Over time this became known as the Lord Weymouth School, in 1973 Lord Weymouths School merged with St. Monicas School for girls, Thomas Thynne, 2nd Viscount Weymouth married Louisa Carteret whose ghost is reputed to haunt the house as the Green Lady. Thomas Thynne, 1st Marquess of Bath employed Capability Brown who replaced the gardens with a landscaped park and dramatic drives. Thomas Thynne, 2nd Marquess of Bath employed Jeffry Wyatville to modernise the house, Wyatville demolished several parts of the house, including Wrens staircase, and replaced them with galleries and a grand staircase. He also constructed many outbuildings including the Orangery, Henry Thynne, 3rd Marquess of Bath John Thynne, 4th Marquess of Bath collected Italian fine arts. He employed John Crace, whose work included Brighton Pavilion, Woburn Abbey, Chatsworth House
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Hatfield House
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Hatfield House is a country house set in a large park, the Great Park, on the eastern side of the town of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England. It is an example of Jacobean architecture. The estate includes extensive grounds and surviving parts of an earlier palace, the house, currently the home of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury, is open to the public. An earlier building on the site was the Royal Palace of Hatfield, only part of this still exists, a short distance from the present house. That palace was the home and favourite residence of Queen Elizabeth I. Built in 1497 by the Bishop of Ely, King Henry VIIs minister John Cardinal Morton, the palace was seized by Henry VIII with other church properties. The nearby parish church of St Etheldredas, in Old Hatfield once served the Bishops Palace as well as the village, Henry VIIIs children, King Edward VI and the future Queen Elizabeth I, spent their youth at Hatfield Palace. She successfully defended her conduct with wit and defiance, seymour was executed in 1549 for numerous other crimes against the crown. After her two months of imprisonment in the Tower of London by her sister Queen Mary, Elizabeth returned to Hatfield. The Queen Elizabeth Oak on the grounds of the estate is said to be the location where Elizabeth was told she was Queen following Marys death, in November 1558, Elizabeth held her first Council of State in the Great Hall. The library displays a 22 feet long illuminated parchment roll showing the pedigree of the Queen with ancestors back to Adam, the Marble Hall holds the Rainbow Portrait of Elizabeth. Cecil liked to build and so tore down three wings of the palace in 1608 and used the bricks to build the present structure. The richly carved wooden Grand Staircase and the stained glass window in the private chapel are among the houses original Jacobean features. Cecils descendant, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, was three times prime minister during the years of Queen Victorias reign. The city of Salisbury in the colony of Rhodesia was founded in his time and he is also known for often putting members of his family into the Government while Prime Minister. CRUs were created to help repatriated British prisoners of war to back to civilian life. On 12 July 1945, the King and Queen visited the CRU at Hatfield, the Gardens, covering 42 acres, date from the early 17th century, and were laid out by John Tradescant the elder. Tradescant visited Europe and brought back trees and plants that had never previously been grown in England, the gardens included orchards, fountains, scented plants, water parterres, terraces, herb gardens and a foot maze
26.
Mentmore Towers
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Mentmore Towers, historically known simply as Mentmore, is a 19th-century English country house built between 1852 and 1854 for the Rothschild family in the village of Mentmore in Buckinghamshire. The mansion has been described as one of the greatest houses of the Victorian era, Mentmore was the first of what were to become virtual Rothschild enclaves in the Vale of Aylesbury. Baron Mayer de Rothschild began purchasing land in the area in 1846, later, other members of the family built houses at Tring in Hertfordshire, Ascott, Aston Clinton, Waddesdon and Halton. Much of the parkland was sold in 1944, but Mentmore remained with family until 1977, in 1999, it was sold to investor Simon Halabi, who planned to build additional hotel and conference facilities. Mentmore Towers is a Grade I listed building, with its park, baron Rothschild hired Sir George Paxton, who had previously designed the much-admired Crystal Palace, to design Mentmore. The builder was the London firm George Myers, frequently employed by members of the Rothschild family, the design is closely based on that of Robert Smythsons Wollaton Hall. Baron Mayer de Rothschild and his wife did not live long after the Towers completion, after the Baronesss death it was inherited by her daughter Hannah, later Countess of Rosebery. Following her death from Brights Disease in 1890 at age 39, in the late 1920s, the fifth earl gave the estate to his son Harry Meyer Archibald Primrose, Lord Dalmeny, who in 1929 on the death of his father, became the sixth Earl. Both earls bred numerous winners of horse races at the two stud farms on the estate, including five Epsom Derby winners. These were Ladas, Sir Visto, and Cicero from the Crafton Stud, plus Ocean Swell, the second wife of the sixth Earl, Eva Primose, Countess of Rosebery, was interested in the arts and was acquainted with Kenneth Clark and other national art museum directors. As a result of Lady Roseberys friendships, Mentmore was chosen by the British government to store part of the British national art collections during the Second World War. The collections of the National Portrait Gallery were subsequently stored at Mentmore for the duration of the war, along with pieces from the Royal Collection, including the Gold State Coach. Further works transferred to Mentmore included the portraits from Speakers House in the Palace of Westminster, the collection was stored in the battery room subsequently nicknamed the refuge, part of the gas house, a group of outbuildings where gas and electric light were supplied for the estate. Four men guarded the refuge at night, and two during the day, the government refused to spend such large sums from the fund, and the sale fell through. The government was offered the house and contents for UK £2 million, after three more years of fruitless discussion, the executors of the estate sold the contents by public auction, and the large collection lost. The estate made over £6,000,000, but a fraction of its estimated worth today. Among the paintings sold were works by Gainsborough, Reynolds, Boucher, Drouais, Moroni and other known artists. Also represented were the finest German and Russian silver- and goldsmiths and this Rothschild/Mentmore collection is said to have been one of the finest ever to be assembled in private hands, other than the collections of the Russian and British royal families
27.
Jacobethan
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The Jacobethan architectural style is also called Jacobean Revival. To save the time of those who do not wish to distinguish between these periods of uncertainty, I will henceforward use the term Jacobethan. The term caught on with art historians, examples of this style are Harlaxton Manor in Lincolnshire, Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire and Sandringham House in Norfolk, England. In June 1835, when the competition was announced for designs for new Houses of Parliament, of the ninety-seven designs submitted, six were in a self-described Elizabethan style. In 1838, with the Gothic revival was well under way in Britain, Joseph Nash, pugins office designing Gothic details, struck out on his own with a lithographed album Architecture of the Middle Ages, Drawn from Nature and on Stone in 1838. Two young architects already providing Jacobethan buildings were James Pennethorne and Anthony Salvin, salvins Jacobethan Harlaxton Manor, near Grantham, Lincolnshire, its first sections completed in 1837, is the great example that defines the style. The Jacobethan Revival survived the late 19th century and became a part of the commercial builders repertory through the first 20 years of the 20th century. Apart from its origins in the UK, the style became popular both in Canada and throughout the United States during those periods, for sturdy baronial dwellings in a free Renaissance style, a key exponent of the style in Britain was T. G. Jackson. Some examples can also be found in buildings in the former British Empire, such as Rashtrapati Niwas, more recently the term has proved useful to literary studies that are emphasizing the continuity of English literature in the half century 1575–1625. For example the 1603 death of Elizabeth I falls in the middle of Shakespeares career as dramatist, tudorbethan architecture Jacobean era Mowl, Tim
28.
Vladimir Palace
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The Vladimir Palace was the last imperial palace to be constructed in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was designed by a team of architects for Alexander IIs son, construction work lasted from 1867 to 1872. Like the Winter Palace and the Marble Palace, the Vladimir Palace fronts Palace Embankment, the façade, richly ornamented with stucco rustication, was patterned after Leon Battista Albertis palazzi in Florence. The main porch is built of Bremen sandstone and adorned with griffins, coats-of-arms, other details are cast in portland cement. This interior ornamentation, further augmented by Maximilian Messmacher in 1880-1892, is considered a monument to the 19th-century passion for historicism. After the October Revolution, the became the home of the Academics House. Much attractive tiling, and many architectural details have been retained. Also preserved has been much of Vladimirs collection of late 19th-century porcelain, most of it manufactured in the Imperial Porcelain Factory, and painted or decorated by its leading artists. T. A. Solovyeva, Dvortsovaya Naberezhnaya, St. Petersburg,2005 E. S. Khmelnitskaya, Farfor v sobranii Dvortsa velikogo Vladimira Aleksandrovicha, St. Petersburg,2006
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Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
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Leon Battista Alberti
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Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher and cryptographer, he epitomised the Renaissance Man. Although Alberti is known mostly for being an artist, he was also a mathematician of many sorts, Albertis life was described in Giorgio Vasaris Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Leon Battista Alberti was born in 1404 in Genoa and his mother is unknown, and his father was a wealthy Florentine who had been exiled from his own city, allowed to return in 1428. Alberti was sent to boarding school in Padua, then studied Law at Bologna and he lived for a time in Florence, then travelled to Rome in 1431 where he took holy orders and entered the service of the papal court. During this time he studied the ancient ruins, which excited his interest in architecture, Alberti was gifted in many ways. He was tall, strong and an athlete who could ride the wildest horse. He distinguished himself as a writer while he was still a child at school, in 1435, he began his first major written work, Della pittura, which was inspired by the burgeoning pictorial art in Florence in the early 15th century. In this work he analyses the nature of painting and explores the elements of perspective, composition, in 1447 he became the architectural advisor to Pope Nicholas V and was involved with several projects at the Vatican. His first major commission was in 1446 for the facade of the Rucellai Palace in Florence. This was followed in 1450 by a commission from Sigismondo Malatesta to transform the Gothic church of San Francesco in Rimini into a memorial chapel, the Tempio Malatestiano. In 1452, he completed De re aedificatoria, a treatise on architecture, using as its basis the work of Vitruvius, the work was not published until 1485. It was followed in 1464 by his less influential work, De statua, Albertis only known sculpture is a self-portrait medallion, sometimes attributed to Pisanello. Alberti was employed to design two churches in Mantua, San Sebastiano, which was never completed, and for which Albertis intention can only be speculated, and the Basilica of SantAndrea. The design for the church was completed in 1471, a year before Albertis death. As an artist, Alberti distinguished himself from the ordinary craftsman and he was a humanist, and part of the rapidly expanding entourage of intellectuals and artisans supported by the courts of the princes and lords of the time. Alberti, as a member of family and as part of the Roman curia, had special status. He was a welcomed guest at the Este court in Ferrara, the Duke of Urbino was a shrewd military commander, who generously spent money on the patronage of art. Alberti planned to dedicate his treatise on architecture to his friend, among Albertis smaller studies, pioneering in their field, were a treatise in cryptography, De componendis cifris, and the first Italian grammar
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Czech Republic
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The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, is a nation state in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the northeast. The Czech Republic covers an area of 78,866 square kilometres with mostly temperate continental climate and it is a unitary parliamentary republic, has 10.5 million inhabitants and the capital and largest city is Prague, with over 1.2 million residents. The Czech Republic includes the territories of Bohemia, Moravia. The Czech state was formed in the late 9th century as the Duchy of Bohemia under the Great Moravian Empire, after the fall of the Empire in 907, the centre of power transferred from Moravia to Bohemia under the Přemyslid dynasty. In 1002, the duchy was formally recognized as part of the Holy Roman Empire, becoming the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1198 and reaching its greatest territorial extent in the 14th century. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the whole Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy alongside the Archduchy of Austria, the Protestant Bohemian Revolt against the Catholic Habsburgs led to the Thirty Years War. After the Battle of the White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule, reimposed Roman Catholicism, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in World War II, and was liberated in 1945 by the armies of the Soviet Union and the United States. The Czech country lost the majority of its German-speaking inhabitants after they were expelled following the war, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won the 1946 elections. Following the 1948 coup détat, Czechoslovakia became a one-party communist state under Soviet influence, in 1968, increasing dissatisfaction with the regime culminated in a reform movement known as the Prague Spring, which ended in a Soviet-led invasion. Czechoslovakia remained occupied until the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when the communist regime collapsed, on 6 March 1990, the Czech Socialistic Republic was renamed to the Czech Republic. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004, it is a member of the United Nations, the OECD, the OSCE, and it is a developed country with an advanced, high income economy and high living standards. The UNDP ranks the country 14th in inequality-adjusted human development, the Czech Republic also ranks as the 6th most peaceful country, while achieving strong performance in democratic governance. It has the lowest unemployment rate in the European Union, the traditional English name Bohemia derives from Latin Boiohaemum, which means home of the Boii. The current name comes from the endonym Čech, spelled Cžech until the reform in 1842. The name comes from the Slavic tribe and, according to legend, their leader Čech, the etymology of the word Čech can be traced back to the Proto-Slavic root *čel-, meaning member of the people, kinsman, thus making it cognate to the Czech word člověk. The country has traditionally divided into three lands, namely Bohemia in the west, Moravia in the southeast, and Czech Silesia in the northeast. Following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia at the end of 1992, the Czech part of the former nation found itself without a common single-word geographical name in English, the name Czechia /ˈtʃɛkiə/ was recommended by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs
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National Theatre (Prague)
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The National Theatre in Prague is known as the alma mater of Czech opera, and as the national monument of Czech history and art. Today the National Theatre consists of three ensembles, opera, ballet and drama. They alternate in their performances in the building of the National Theatre, in the Theatre of the Estates. All three artistic ensembles select their repertoire both from classical heritage, and modern authors, the cornerstone of the National Theatre was laid on 16 May 1868, but the idea of building a theatre dates back to the autumn of 1844 at the gatherings of patriots in Prague. Simultaneously with the realization of this minimal programme asserted by F. L, rieger and the Provincial Committee, the young progressive advocates of the original ambitious concept of the building launched an offensive. He then came out on top in an open competition. On 16 May 1868, the stone was laid. In 1875 the new building reached its height and in 1877 the theatre was roofed over. As of 1873 there was a competition for the interior decoration of the building. On the one hand, the themes were in the spirit of the Neo-Renaissance concept of a classic building and they provided the fundamental ideology guiding artistic expression, which today is described as the art of the generation of the National Theatre. The National Theatre was opened for the first time on 11 June 1881, bedřich Smetanas opera Libuše was given its world premiere, conducted by Adolf Čech. Another 11 performances were presented after that, then the theatre was closed down to enable the completion of the finishing touches. While this work was under way a fire out on 12 August 1881, which destroyed the copper dome, the auditorium. The fire was seen as a catastrophe and was met with a mighty wave of determination to take up a new collection. This national enthusiasm, however, did not correspond to the battles that flared up following the catastrophe. Architect Josef Zítek was no longer in the running, and his pupil architect Josef Schulz was summoned to work on the reconstruction. He was the one to assert the expansion of the edifice to include the block of flats belonging to Dr. Polák that was situated behind the building of the Provisional Theatre. He made this building a part of the National Theatre and simultaneously changed somewhat the area of the auditorium to improve visibility
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Architectural style
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An architectural style is characterized by the features that make a building or other structure notable or historically identifiable. A style may include such elements as form, method of construction, building materials, styles therefore emerge from the history of a society. They are documented in the subject of architectural history, at any time several styles may be fashionable, and when a style changes it usually does so gradually, as architects learn and adapt to new ideas. Styles often spread to places, so that the style at its source continues to develop in new ways while other countries follow with their own twist. A style may also spread through colonialism, either by foreign colonies learning from their home country, one example is the Spanish missions in California, brought by Spanish priests in the late 18th century and built in a unique style. After a style has gone out of fashion, revivals and re-interpretations may occur, for instance, classicism has been revived many times and found new life as neoclassicism. Each time it is revived, it is different, the Spanish mission style was revived 100 years later as the Mission Revival, and that soon evolved into the Spanish Colonial Revival. Vernacular architecture works slightly differently and is listed separately and it is the native method of construction used by local people, usually using labour-intensive methods and local materials, and usually for small structures such as rural cottages. It varies from region to region even within a country, as western society has developed, vernacular styles have mostly become outmoded due to new technology and to national building standards. Paul Jacobsthal and Josef Strzygowski are among the art historians who followed Riegl in proposing grand schemes tracing the transmission of elements of styles across great ranges in time and this type of art history is also known as formalism, or the study of forms or shapes in art. Terms originated to describe architectural periods were often applied to other areas of the visual arts, and then more widely still to music, literature. In architecture stylistic change often follows, and is possible by. While many architectural styles explore harmonious ideals, Mannerism wants to take style a step further and explores the aesthetics of hyperbole, Mannerism is notable for its intellectual sophistication as well as its artificial qualities. Mannerism favours compositional tension and instability rather than balance and clarity, the definition of Mannerism, and the phases within it, continues to be the subject of debate among art historians. An example of mannerist architecture is the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. in the country side outside of Rome. The proliferation of engravers during the 16th century spread Mannerist styles more quickly than any previous styles, a center of Mannerist design was Antwerp during its 16th-century boom. Through Antwerp, Renaissance and Mannerist styles were introduced in England, Germany. During the Mannerist Renaissance period, architects experimented with using architectural forms to emphasize solid, the Renaissance ideal of harmony gave way to freer and more imaginative rhythms
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Palazzo del Te
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Palazzo del Te or Palazzo Te is a palace in the suburbs of Mantua, Italy. It is an example of the mannerist style of architecture. In Italian this now suggests use for tea-drinking, which may account for the divergence in usage, Palazzo del Te was constructed 1524–34 for Federico II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua. He decided in 1524 to build a palace, or Villa Suburbana. The site chosen was that of the stables at Isola Del Te on the fringe of the marshes just outside Mantuas city walls. The architect commissioned was Giulio Romano, a pupil of Raphael, the shell of the palazzo was erected within 18 months. It is basically a house built around a cloistered courtyard. A formal garden complemented the house and this was enclosed by colonnaded outbuildings terminated by a semi-circular colonnade known as the Esedra. Like the Villa Farnesina in Rome, the location allowed for a mixing of both Palace and Villa architecture. The four exterior façades have flat pilasters against rusticated walls, the fenestration indicating that the piano nobile is on the floor with a secondary floor above. The East façade differs from the three by having Palladian motifs on its pilaster and an open loggia at its centre rather than an arch to the courtyard. The facades are not as symmetrical as they appear, and the spans between the columns are irregular, the centre of the North and South facades are pierced by two-storey arches without portico or pediment, simply a covered way leading to the interior courtyard. Once the shell of the building was completed, for ten years a team of plasterers, carvers and fresco painters laboured, under Giulio Romanos direction, local decorative painters such as Benedetto Pagni and Rinaldo Mantovano worked extensively on the frescos. These frescoes remain today and are the most remarkable feature of the Palazzo, in July 1630, during the War of the Mantuan Succession, Mantua and the palace were sacked over three days by an Imperial army of 36,000 Landsknecht mercenaries. The remaining populace fell victim to one of the worst plagues in history that the invaders had brought with them, the Palazzo was looted from top to bottom and remained an empty shell, nymphs, god, goddesses and giants remain on the walls of the empty echoing rooms. Part of the Palazzo today houses the Museo Civico del Palazzo Te and it contains a collection of Mesopotamian art. Official website Mantua tourist guide Mantua tourist guide Summerson, John, The Classical Language of Architecture,1980 edition, Thames and Hudson World of Art series, ISBN0500201773
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John Ruskin
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John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and his writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin also penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters, the elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society and he also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation. He was hugely influential in the half of the 19th century. After a period of decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability, from the 1850s he championed the Pre-Raphaelites who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues, Unto This Last marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, in 1871, he began his monthly letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain, published under the title Fors Clavigera. In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society, as a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today. Ruskin was the child of first cousins. His father, John James Ruskin, was a sherry and wine importer founding partner and de facto manager of Ruskin, Telford. John James was born and brought up in Edinburgh, Scotland, to a mother from Glenluce and his wife, Margaret Cox, née Cock, was the daughter of an aunt on the English side of the family and a publican in Croydon. She had joined the Ruskin household when she became companion to John Jamess mother, John James had hoped to practice law, but was instead articled as a clerk in London. His father, John Thomas Ruskin, described as a grocer, was an inadequate businessman, to save the family from bankruptcy, John James, whose prudence and success were in stark contrast to his father, took on all debts, settling the last of them in 1832. John James and Margaret were engaged in 1809, but opposition to the union from John Thomas, Ruskin was born at 54 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, London, south of St Pancras railway station. His childhood was characterised by the influences of his father and mother. John James Ruskin helped to develop his sons Romanticism and they shared a passion for the works of Byron, Shakespeare and especially Walter Scott
36.
Neoclassicism
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The main Neoclassical movement coincided with the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, and continued into the early 19th century, laterally competing with Romanticism. In architecture, the style continued throughout the 19th, 20th, European Neoclassicism in the visual arts began c.1760 in opposition to the then-dominant Baroque and Rococo styles. Each neo-classicism selects some models among the range of classics that are available to it. They ignored both Archaic Greek art and the works of Late Antiquity, the Rococo art of ancient Palmyra came as a revelation, through engravings in Woods The Ruins of Palmyra. While the movement is described as the opposed counterpart of Romanticism. The case of the main champion of late Neoclassicism, Ingres, demonstrates this especially well. The revival can be traced to the establishment of formal archaeology, the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann were important in shaping this movement in both architecture and the visual arts. With the advent of the Grand Tour, a fad of collecting antiquities began that laid the foundations of many great collections spreading a Neoclassical revival throughout Europe, Neoclassicism in each art implies a particular canon of a classical model. In English, the term Neoclassicism is used primarily of the arts, the similar movement in English literature. This, which had been dominant for decades, was beginning to decline by the time Neoclassicism in the visual arts became fashionable. Though terms differ, the situation in French literature was similar, in music, the period saw the rise of classical music, and Neoclassicism is used of 20th-century developments. Ingress coronation portrait of Napoleon even borrowed from Late Antique consular diptychs and their Carolingian revival, much Neoclassical painting is more classicizing in subject matter than in anything else. A fierce, but often very badly informed, dispute raged for decades over the merits of Greek and Roman art, with Winckelmann. The work of artists, who could not easily be described as insipid, combined aspects of Romanticism with a generally Neoclassical style. Unlike Carstens unrealized schemes, the etchings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi were numerous and profitable and his main subject matter was the buildings and ruins of Rome, and he was more stimulated by the ancient than the modern. Neoclassicism in painting gained a new sense of direction with the success of Jacques-Louis Davids Oath of the Horatii at the Paris Salon of 1785. Despite its evocation of republican virtues, this was a commission by the royal government, David managed to combine an idealist style with drama and forcefulness. David rapidly became the leader of French art, and after the French Revolution became a politician with control of government patronage in art
37.
The Hague
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The Hague is a city on the western coast of the Netherlands, and the capital city of the province of South Holland. With a population of 520,704 inhabitants and more than one million including the suburbs, it is the third-largest city of the Netherlands. The Rotterdam The Hague Metropolitan Area, with a population of approximately 2.7 million, is the 12th-largest in the European Union and the most populous in the country. Located in the west of the Netherlands, The Hague is in the centre of the Haaglanden conurbation and lies at the southwest corner of the larger Randstad conurbation. The Hague is the seat of the Dutch government, parliament, the Supreme Court, and the Council of State, but the city is not the capital of the Netherlands, which constitutionally is Amsterdam. King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands plans to live at Huis ten Bosch and works at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague, the Hague is also home to the world headquarters of Royal Dutch Shell and numerous other major Dutch companies. The Hague originated around 1230, when Count Floris IV of Holland purchased land alongside a pond, in 1248, his son and successor William II, King of the Romans, decided to extend the residence to a palace, which would later be called the Binnenhof. He died in 1256 before this palace was completed but parts of it were finished by his son Floris V, of which the Ridderzaal and it is still used for political events, such as the annual speech from the throne by the Dutch monarch. From the 13th century onwards, the counts of Holland used The Hague as their administrative centre, the village that originated around the Binnenhof was first mentioned as Haga in a charter dating from 1242. In the 15th century, the smarter des Graven hage came into use, literally The Counts Wood, with connotations like The Counts Hedge, s-Gravenhage was officially used for the city from the 17th century onwards. Today, this name is used in some official documents like birth. The city itself uses Den Haag in all its communication and their seat was located in The Hague. At the beginning of the Eighty Years War, the absence of city walls proved disastrous, in 1575, the States of Holland even considered demolishing the city but this proposal was abandoned, after mediation by William of Orange. From 1588, The Hague also became the seat of the government of the Dutch Republic, in order for the administration to maintain control over city matters, The Hague never received official city status, although it did have many of the privileges normally granted only to cities. In modern administrative law, city rights have no place anymore, only in 1806, when the Kingdom of Holland was a puppet state of the First French Empire, was the settlement granted city rights by Louis Bonaparte. After the Napoleonic Wars, modern-day Belgium and the Netherlands were combined in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands to form a buffer against France, as a compromise, Brussels and Amsterdam alternated as capital every two years, with the government remaining in The Hague. After the separation of Belgium in 1830, Amsterdam remained the capital of the Netherlands, when the government started to play a more prominent role in Dutch society after 1850, The Hague quickly expanded. The growing city annexed the rural municipality of Loosduinen partly in 1903, the city sustained heavy damage during World War II
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Peace Palace
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The Peace of Palace is an international law administrative building in The Hague, the Netherlands. It houses the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Hague Academy of International Law and the Peace Palace Library. The Palace officially opened on 28 August 1913, and was built to provide a home for the PCA. Andrew Dickson White, whose efforts were instrumental in creating the court, the European Heritage Label was awarded to the Peace Palace on 8 April 2014. The Peace Palace has been occupied at different times by a number of organisations, from 1901 until the opening of the Palace in 1913, the Permanent Court of Arbitration was housed at Prinsegracht 71 in The Hague. Permanent Court of International Justice and its successor the International Court of Justice, in 1922 the Permanent Court of International Justice of the League of Nations was added to the occupants. This meant the Library was forced to move to a building. In 1946, when the United Nations replaced the League of Nations, Peace Palace Library of International Law. Being the original vision of Carnegie, the library grew quickly to house the best collection of material on international law. Although this stature is well in the past, the still contains some original classical works, as the original copies of Hugo Grotius works on peace and law. The Carnegie Stichting The Hague Academy of International Law, established in 1914, strongly advocated by Tobias Michael Carel Asser. Funds for the Academy came from another project by Andrew Carnegie, namely the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The idea of the Palace started from a discussion in 1900 between the Russian diplomat Friedrich Martens and American diplomat White over providing a home for the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Carnegie had his reservations, and at first was only interested in donating money for the establishment of a library of international law. White, however, was able to convince Carnegie, and in 1903 Carnegie agreed to donate the US$1.5 million needed to house the court as well as to endow it with a library of international law. Were such a fabric to be created, men would make pilgrimages from all parts of the world to see it. The main difficulty now is that the people of the nations do not really know what was done for them by the Conference. This foundation is responsible for these issues
39.
Charles Barry
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He also developed the Italian Renaissance garden style for the many gardens he designed around country houses. Born on 23 May 1795 in Bridge Street, Westminster, he was the son of Walter Edward Barry, a stationer. He was baptised at St Margarets, Westminster, into the Church of England and his father remarried shortly after Frances died and Barrys stepmother Sarah would bring him up. He was educated at schools in Homerton and then Aspley Guise, before being apprenticed to Middleton & Bailey, Lambeth architects and surveyors. Barry exhibited drawings at the Royal Academy annually from 1812 to 1815 and he visited France and, while in Paris, spent several days at the Musée du Louvre. In Rome he sketched antiquities, sculptures and paintings at the Vatican Museums and other galleries, before carrying on to Naples, Pompeii, Bari, while in Italy, Barry met Charles Lock Eastlake, an architect, William Kinnaird and Francis Johnson and Thomas Leverton Donaldson. From Constantinople he visited the Troad, Assos, Pergamon and back to Smyrna, on 18 June 1819, Barry parted from Baillie at Tripoli, Lebanon. Over this time, Barry created more than 500 sketches, Barry then travelled on to Cyprus, Rhodes, Halicarnassus, Ephesus and Smyrna from where he sailed on 16 August 1819 for Malta. Barry then sailed from Malta to Syracuse, Sicily, then Italy and his travels in Italy exposed him to Renaissance architecture and after arriving in Rome in January 1820, he met architect John Lewis Wolfe, who inspired Barry himself to become an architect. Their friendship continued until Barry died, the building that inspired Barrys admiration for Italian architecture was the Palazzo Farnese. Over the following months, he and Wolfe together studied the architecture of Vicenza, Venice, Verona and Florence, where the Palazzo Strozzi greatly impressed him. While in Rome he had met Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne, through whom he met Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland and their London home, Holland House, was the centre of the Whig Party. Barry remained a supporter of the Liberal party, the successor to the Whig Party. Barry was invited to the gatherings at the house, and there met many of the prominent members of the group, Barry set up his home and office in Ely Place in 1821. In 1827 he moved to 27 Foley Place, then in 1842 he moved to 32 Great George Street and finally to The Elms, now 29 Clapham Common Northside, the Georgian house of five bays and three stories was designed by Samuel Pepys Cockerell as his own home. Probably thanks to his fiancées friendship with John Soane, Barry was recommended to the Church Building Commissioners and these were in the Gothic Revival architecture style, including two in Lancashire, St. Matthew, Campfield, Manchester, and All Saints Church, Whitefield. Barry designed three churches for the Commissioners in Islington, Holy Trinity, St. Johns and St. Pauls, all in the Gothic in style and built between 1826 and 1828. His final church for the Commissioners was the Gothic St Peters Church, Brighton, the Gothic Hurstpierpoint church, with its tower and spire, unlike his earlier churches was much closer to the Cambridge Camden Societys approach to church design
40.
Travellers Club
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The Travellers Club is a gentlemens club situated at 106 Pall Mall, London, United Kingdom. It is the oldest of the surviving Pall Mall clubs, having established in 1819. It was described as the quintessential English gentlemans club by the Los Angeles Times in 2004, the original concept of the club, by Lord Castlereagh and others, dates from the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars. They envisaged a club where gentlemen who travelled abroad might meet, the original rules of 1819 excluded from membership anyone “who has not travelled out of the British islands to a distance of at least five hundred miles from London in a direct line”. The members of the clubs first Committee included the Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Auckland, novelist Anthony Powell was a member and the club is featured in various guises in the work of Graham Greene, Jules Verne, William Makepeace Thackeray and John Le Carre. Other well known current members include Field Marshal Lord Bramall, Terry Waite, Sir Christopher Ondaatje, Douglas Hurd, Bruce Anderson, the clubs original premises were at 12 Waterloo Place. It moved to 49 Pall Mall in 1821, the architect was Sir Charles Barry who was later to be the architect for the Houses of Parliament, and the Travellers Club building proved to be one of his masterpieces. It takes the form of a Renaissance palace which is said to have inspired by Raphaels Palazzo Pandolfini in Florence. It was completed in 1832, with the tower added in 1842, the club building includes a smoking room, the cocktail bar and adjacent Bramall room, the Outer Morning Room, and the dining room. The Times on 10 January 2004 noted the dining, heavy on fish and game with echoes of school food. The magnificent library is decorated with a cast of the Bassae Frieze from the 5th century BCE Greek temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae. The originals of this frieze were discovered by the architect Charles Robert Cockerell, who was on the first Committee of the Club in 1819, the library has a large and important collection of books, from the antiquarian to the modern, mainly on travel. There are a number of bedrooms at the club for out-of-town members, gentlemen are required to wear a jacket and tie, denim, sports shoes and other casual attire are not permitted. H. S. Escott, Chapter VIII, Club Makers and Club Members, Sturgis & Walton Company, New York,19142003 article on secret diplomatic negotiations with Libya at the Travellers Club
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Pall Mall, London
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Pall Mall /ˌpæl ˈmæl/ is a street in the St Jamess area of the City of Westminster, Central London. It connects St Jamess Street to Trafalgar Square and is a section of the regional A4 road, the streets name is derived from pall-mall, a ball game played there during the 17th century. The area was built up during the reign of Charles II with fashionable London residences and it became known for high-class shopping in the 18th century, and gentlemens clubs in the 19th. The Reform, Athenaeum and Travellers Clubs have survived to the 21st century, the War Office was based on Pall Mall during the second half of the 19th century, and the Royal Automobile Clubs headquarters have been on the street since 1908. The street is around 0.4 miles long and runs east in the St Jamess area, from St Jamess Street across Waterloo Place, to the Haymarket, the street numbers run consecutively from north-side east to west and then continue on the south-side west to east. It is part of the A4, a road running west from Central London. London Bus Route 9 runs westwards along Pall Mall, connecting Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly, Pall Mall was constructed in 1661, replacing an earlier highway slightly to the south that ran from the Haymarket to the royal residence, St Jamess Palace. When St. Jamess Park was laid out by order of Henry VIII in the 16th century, in 1620, the Privy Council ordered the High Sheriff of Middlesex to clear a number of temporary buildings next to the wall that were of poor quality. Pall-mall, a game similar to croquet, was introduced to England in the early-17th century by James I. The game, already popular in France and Scotland, was enjoyed by James sons Henry, in 1630, St Jamess Field, Londons first pall-mall court, was laid out to the north of the Haymarket – St James road. After the Restoration and King Charles IIs return to London on 29 May 1660, Samuel Pepyss diary entry for 2 April 1661 records that he. Went into St. Jamess Park, where I saw the Duke of York playing at Pelemele and this new court suffered from dust blown over the wall from coaches travelling along the highway. In July 1661 posts and rails were erected, stopping up the old road, the court for pall-mall was very long and narrow, and often known as an alley, so the old court provided a suitable route for relocating the eastern approach to St Jamess Palace. A grant was made to Dan ONeale, Groom of the Bedchamber, the grant was endorsed Our warrant for the building of the new street to St Jamess. A new road was built on the site of the old pall-mall court and it was named Catherine Street, after Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II, but was better known as Pall Mall Street or the Old Pall Mall. The pall-mall field was a place for recreation and Pepys records several other visits. By July 1665 Pepys used Pell Mell to refer to the street as well as the game, in 1662, Pall Mall was one of several streets thought fitt immediately to be repaired, new paved or otherwise amended under the Streets, London and Westminster Act 1662. The paving commissioners appointed to oversee the work included the Earl of St Albans, the terms of the act allowed commissioners to remove any building encroaching on the highway, with compensation for those at least 30 years old
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Joseph Paxton
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Paxton was born in 1803, the seventh son of a farming family, in Milton Bryan, Bedfordshire. Some references, incorrectly, list his year as 1801. This is, as he admitted in later life, a result of misinformation he provided in his teens and he became a garden boy at the age of fifteen for Sir Gregory Osborne Page-Turner at Battlesden Park, near Woburn. After several moves, he obtained a position in 1823 at the Horticultural Societys Chiswick Gardens, the Horticultural Societys gardens were close to the gardens of William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire at Chiswick House. The duke met the young gardener as he strolled in his gardens and became impressed with his skill and he offered the 20-year-old Paxton the position of head gardener at Chatsworth, which was considered one of the finest landscaped gardens of the time. Although the duke was in Russia, Paxton set off for Chatsworth on the Chesterfield coach arriving at Chatsworth at half past four in the morning and he married Bown in 1827, and she proved capable of managing his affairs, leaving him free to pursue his ideas. He enjoyed a relationship with his employer who recognised his diverse talents. One of Paxtons first projects was to redesign the garden around the new wing of the house. He became skilled at moving mature trees, the largest, weighing about eight tons, was moved from Kedleston Road in Derby. Among several other projects at Chatsworth were the rock garden. At the time the use of houses was in its infancy. The next great building at Chatsworth was built for the first seeds of the Victoria regia lily which had sent to Kew from the Amazon in 1836. Although they had germinated and grown they had not flowered and in 1849 a seedling was given to Paxton to try out at Chatsworth. He entrusted it to Eduard Ortgies, a gardener and within two months the leaves were 4.5 ft in diameter, and a month later it flowered. It continued growing and it became necessary to build a larger house. Inspired by the waterlilys huge leaves – a natural feat of engineering – he found the structure for his conservatory which he tested by floating his daughter Annie on a leaf, the secret was in the rigidity provided by the radiating ribs connecting with flexible cross-ribs. Constant experimentation over a number of years led him to devise the design that inspired the Crystal Palace. With a cheap and light frame, the conservatory design had a ridge-and-furrow roof to let in more light
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Motif (visual arts)
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In art and iconography, a motif is an element of an image. A motif may be repeated in a pattern or design, often many times, the related motif of confronted animals is often seen alone, but may also be repeated, for example in Byzantine silk and other ancient textiles. Ornamental or decorative art can usually be analysed into a number of different elements and these may often, as in textile art, be repeated many times in a pattern. Important examples in Western art include acanthus, egg and dart, many designs in Islamic culture are motifs, including those of the sun, moon, animals such as horses and lions, flowers, and landscapes. Motifs can have effects and be used for propaganda. The idea of a motif has become used more broadly in discussing literature, geometric, typically repeated, Meander, palmette, rosette, gul in Oriental rugs, acanthus, egg and dart, Bead and reel, Pakudos, Sauwastika, Adinkra symbols. Figurative, Master of Animals, confronted animals, velificatio, Death, dover Publications, ISBN 0-486-26869-1 Jones, Owen. Dover Publications, Revised edition, ISBN 0-486-25463-1 Welch, Patricia Bjaaland, chinese art, a guide to motifs and visual imagery. Turtle Publishing, ISBN 0-8048-3864-X Visual motifs Theater of Drawing
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Rustication (architecture)
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The visible face of each individual block is cut back around the edges to make its size and placing very clear. In addition the central part of the face of each block may be given a rough or patterned surface. Rusticated masonry is usually dressed, or squared off neatly, on all sides of the stones except the face that will be visible when the stone is put in place. This is given wide joints that emphasize the edges of block, by angling the edges. The main part of the face may worked flat and smooth or left or worked with a more or less rough or patterned surface. Rustication is often used to give weight to the ground floor in contrast to smooth ashlar above. Though intended to convey a rustic simplicity, the finish is highly artificial, and it remains in use in some modern architecture. Rough finishes on stone are very common in architecture outside the European tradition. For example, the bases of Japanese castles and other fortifications usually use rough stone, probably the earliest and most influential example is the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, built between 1444 and 1484, with two contrasting rusticated finishes. The ground floor has an irregular and genuinely rugged appearance, with a variation in the degree to which parts of the faces of blocks project from the wall that is rarely equalled later. Above, the rustication is merely to emphasize the blocks. Also in Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, begun 1489, with large oblong rounded cushions, and these facades only used the classical orders in mullions and aedicules, with arched forms in rustication the main relief from the massive flat walls. The Palazzo Rucellai, probably of the 1460s, begins to classicize such facades, using smooth-faced rustication throughout, in Rome, Donato Bramantes Palazzo Caprini provided a standard model for the integration of rustication with the orders. The first major Renaissance building in Spain, the Palace of Charles V in Granada, had a deeply rusticated ground floor facade with regular rounded cushions, the technique was enthusiatically taken up by the next generation of Mannerist architects, with Giulio Romano in the lead. Most early examples of rustic style are therefore built for sophisticated patrons in the leading centres of taste. The Mannerist architectural writer Sebastiano Serlio and others of his generation enjoyed the play between rusticated and finished architectural elements, the Italians brought in to expand the Palace of Fontainebleau introduced the technique to France. Its spread to Germany and England took longer, but by about the end of the 16th century it had reached all parts of Europe. In his Banqueting House in London, Inigo Jones gave a lightly rusticated surface texture to emphasize the blocks on both storeys, and to them behind his orders of pilasters and columns
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