1.
French Renaissance
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The French Renaissance was the cultural and artistic movement in France between the 15th and early 17th centuries. The period is associated with the pan-European Renaissance, a word first used by the French historian Jules Michelet to define the artistic, the French Renaissance traditionally extends from the French invasion of Italy in 1494 during the reign of Charles VIII until the death of Henry IV in 1610. The reigns of Francis I of France and his son Henry II are generally considered the apex of the French Renaissance, the word Renaissance is a French word, whose literal translation into English is Rebirth. The word Renaissance was first used and defined by French historian Jules Michelet, in his 1855 work, as a French citizen and historian, Michelet also claimed the Renaissance as a French movement. His work is at the origin of the use of the French word Renaissance in other languages, for a chronological list of French Renaissance artists, see List of French Renaissance artists. In 1516, Francis I of France invited Leonardo da Vinci to the Château dAmboise and provided him with the Château du Clos Lucé, then called Château de Cloux, as a place to stay and work. Leonardo, a painter and inventor, arrived with three of his paintings, namely the Mona Lisa, Sainte Anne, and Saint Jean Baptiste. There are a number of French artists of talent in this period including the painter Jean Fouquet of Tours. Marie de Medici, Henry IVs queen, invited the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens to France, another Flemish artist working for the court was Frans Pourbus the younger. Outside France, working for the dukes of Lorraine, one finds a very different late mannerist style in the artists Jacques Bellange, Claude Deruet and Jacques Callot. Having little contact with the French artists of the period, they developed a heightened, extreme, and often erotic mannerism, the old Louvre castle in Paris was also rebuilt under the direction of Pierre Lescot and would become the core of a brand new Renaissance château. To the west of the Louvre, Catherine de Medici had built for her the Tuileries palace with extensive gardens and they became an extension of the chateaux that they surrounded, and were designed to illustrate the Renaissance ideals of measure and proportion. Burgundy, the mostly French-speaking area unified with the Kingdom of France in 1477, was the center of Europe in the early. The Burgundian style gave birth to the Franco-Flemish style of polyphony which dominated European music in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. However, by the end of the 15th century, a French national character was becoming distinct in music of the French royal and aristocratic courts, guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois are two notable examples from the Burgundian school during the early Renaissance period. The most renowned composer in Europe, Josquin des Prez, worked for a time in the court of Louis XII, Francis I, who became king that year, made the creation of an opulent musical establishment a priority. By far the most significant contribution of France to music in the Renaissance period was the chanson, the chanson in the early 16th century was characterised by a dactylic opening and contrapuntal style which was later adopted by the Italian canzona, the predecessor of the sonata. Typically chansons were for three or four voices, without accompaniment, but the most popular examples were inevitably made into instrumental versions as well
2.
Northern Mannerism
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Northern Mannerism is the form of Mannerism found in the visual arts north of the Alps in the 16th and early 17th centuries. The three main centres of the style were in France, especially in the period 1530–50, in Prague from 1576, and in the Netherlands from the 1580s—the first two phases very much led by royal patronage. In the last 15 years of the century, the style, by then becoming outdated in Italy, was widespread across northern Europe, in Northern Europe, however, such artists, and such an audience, could hardly be found. Romanism was more influenced by Italian art of the High Renaissance, and aspects of Mannerism. The most notable imports were Rosso Fiorentino, Francesco Primaticcio, Niccolò dellAbbate and this conjunction succeeded in generating a native French style with strong Mannerist elements that was then able to develop largely on its own. Her slim, long-legged and athletic figure became fixed in the erotic imaginary, high-style walnut furniture made in metropolitan centers like Paris and Dijon, employed strapwork framing and sculptural supports in dressoirs and buffets. The mysterious and sophisticated Saint-Porchaire ware, of only about sixty pieces survive. Apart from the Palace of Fontainebleau itself, other important buildings decorated in the style were the Château dAnet for Diane de Poitiers, and parts of the Palais du Louvre. After an interlude when work on Fontainebleau was abandoned at the height of the French Wars of Religion, maximilians son, Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor was to prove an even better patron than his father would have been, and Spranger never left his service. Works from Rudolfs Prague were highly finished and refined, with most paintings being relatively small, Rudolf also commissioned work from Italy, above all from Giambologna, who the Medicis would not allow to leave Florence, and four great mythological allegories were sent by Paolo Veronese. The Emperors influence affected art in other German courts, notably Munich, Rudolf was not very interested in religion, and in the Prague of Rudolf II, an explosion of mythological imagery was produced that had not been seen since Fontainebleau. Goddesses were usually naked, or nearly so, and a more overt atmosphere of eroticism prevails than is found in most Renaissance mythological works, the dominating figure was Hercules, identified with the emperor, as he had earlier been with earlier Habsburg and Valois monarchs. It seems, however, that the painted allegories from Prague contain neither very specific complicated meanings, Giambologna frequently chose, or let someone else choose, a title for his sculptures after their completion, for him it was only the forms that mattered. From this time on he no longer made prints after Sprangers extravaganzas, the monstrous muscle-men and over-elongated female nudes with tiny heads. Were replaced by figures with more normal proportions and movements, after his return from Italy Goltzius moved to a quieter proto-Baroque classicism, and his work in that style influenced many. Unlike many, notably his fellow Utrechter Abraham Bloemaert, once Wtewaels repertoire of styles was formed, Bloemaert painted many landscapes reconciling these types by combining close-up trees, with figures, and a small distant view from above to one side. Such subjects appealed to both aristocratic patrons and the market, which was far larger in the Netherlands. This was especially so in the Protestant north, after the movement of populations in the Revolt, karel van Mander is now remembered mainly as a writer on art rather than an artist
3.
Rosso Fiorentino
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Giovanni Battista di Jacopo, known as Rosso Fiorentino, or Il Rosso, was an Italian Mannerist painter, in oil and fresco, belonging to the Florentine school. Born in Florence with the red hair that gave him his nickname, Rosso first trained in the studio of Andrea del Sarto alongside his contemporary, Pontormo. In late 1523, Rosso moved to Rome, where he was exposed to the works of Michelangelo, Raphael, and other Renaissance artists, resulting in the realignment of his artistic style. Fleeing Rome after the Sacking of 1527, Rosso eventually went to France where he secured a position at the court of Francis I in 1530, remaining there until his death. Together with Francesco Primaticcio, Rosso was one of the artists to work at the Chateau Fontainebleau as part of the First School of Fontainebleau. Following his death in 1540, Francesco Primaticcio took charge of the direction at Fontainebleau. That his masterpiece is in a city, away from the tourist track, was a factor in this. His poses are certainly contorted, and his figures often appear haggard and thin and his masterpiece is generally considered to be the Deposition or Descent from the Cross altarpiece in the Pinacoteca Comunale di Volterra. The three ladders and those carrying down Christ appear precarious, contrast this frenetic, windswept scene with the equally complex, but more restrained composition on the same theme by the near contemporary Florentine Mannerist Pontormo. Rosso would go on to paint a second, darker and more crowded Deposition altarpiece for the church of San Lorenzo in Sansepolcro, Rosso Fiorentinos biography at Web Gallery of Art Examples of Fiorentinos art Example of unfinished Rosso painting showing underdrawing
4.
Sack of Rome (1527)
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The Sack of Rome on 6 May 1527 was a military event carried out by the mutinous troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in Rome, then part of the Papal States. It marked a crucial victory in the conflict between Charles and the League of Cognac —the alliance of France, Milan, Venice, Florence. The army of the Holy Roman Emperor defeated the French army in Italy, the 34,000 Imperial troops mutinied and forced their commander, Charles III, Duke of Bourbon and Constable of France, to lead them towards Rome. Numerous bandits, along with the Leagues deserters, joined the army during its march, the Duke left Arezzo on 20 April 1527, taking advantage of the chaos among the Venetians and their allies after a revolt which had broken out in Florence against the Medici. In this way, the undisciplined troops sacked Acquapendente and San Lorenzo alle Grotte. The troops defending Rome were not at all numerous, consisting of 5,000 militiamen led by Renzo da Ceri and 189 Papal Swiss Guard, the citys fortifications included the massive walls, and it possessed a good artillery force, which the Imperial army lacked. Duke Charles needed to conquer the city swiftly, to avoid the risk of being trapped between the city and the Leagues army. On 6 May, the Imperial army attacked the walls at the Gianicolo, Duke Charles was fatally wounded in the assault, allegedly shot by Benvenuto Cellini. The Duke was wearing his famous white cloak to him out to his troops. The death of the last respected command authority among the Imperial army caused any restraint in the soldiers to disappear, Philibert of Châlon took command of the armies, but he was not as popular or feared, leaving him with little authority. One of the Swiss Guards most notable hours occurred at this time, almost the entire guard was massacred by Imperial troops on the steps of St Peters Basilica. After the brutal execution of some 1,000 defenders of the Papal capital and shrines, churches and monasteries, as well as the palaces of prelates and cardinals, were looted and destroyed. Even pro-Imperial cardinals had to pay to save their properties from the rampaging soldiers, on 8 May, Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, a personal enemy of Clement VII, entered the city. He was followed by peasants from his fiefs, who had come to avenge the sacks they had suffered by Papal armies, however, Colonna was touched by the pitiful conditions of the city and hosted in his palace a number of Roman citizens. The Vatican Library was saved because Philibert had set up his headquarters there, after three days of ravages, Philibert ordered the sack to cease, but few obeyed. In the meantime, Clement remained a prisoner in Castel SantAngelo, francesco Maria della Rovere and Michele Antonio of Saluzzo arrived with troops on 1 June in Monterosi, north of the city. Their cautious behaviour prevented them from obtaining a victory against the now totally undisciplined Imperial troops. At the same time Venice took advantage of this situation to capture Cervia and Ravenna, Emperor Charles V was greatly embarrassed by the fact that he had been powerless to stop his troops striking against Pope Clement VII and imprisoning him
5.
Francis I of France
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Francis I was the first King of France from the Angoulême branch of the House of Valois, reigning from 1515 until his death. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and he succeeded his cousin and father-in-law Louis XII, who died without a male heir. Francis reign saw important cultural changes with the rise of absolute monarchy in France, the spread of humanism and Protestantism, Jacques Cartier and others claimed lands in the Americas for France and paved the way for the expansion of the first French colonial empire. For his role in the development and promotion of a standardized French language, he became known as le Père et Restaurateur des Lettres. He was also known as François au Grand Nez, the Grand Colas, following the policy of his predecessors, Francis continued the Italian Wars. In his struggle against Imperial hegemony, he sought the support of Henry VIII of England at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. When this was unsuccessful, he formed a Franco-Ottoman alliance with the Muslim sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, a controversial move for a Christian king at the time. Francis was born on 12 September 1494 at the Château de Cognac in the town of Cognac, which at that time lay in the province of Saintonge, today the town lies in the department of Charente. Francis was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. His family was not expected to inherit the throne, as his third cousin King Charles VIII was still young at the time of his birth, as was his fathers cousin the Duke of Orléans, later King Louis XII. However, Charles VIII died childless in 1498 and was succeeded by Louis XII, the Salic Law prevailed in France, thus females were ineligible to inherit the throne. Therefore, the four-year-old Francis became the heir presumptive to the throne of France in 1498 and was vested with the title of Duke of Valois. In 1505, Louis XII, having fallen ill, ordered that his daughter Claude and Francis be married immediately, Claude was heiress to the Duchy of Brittany through her mother, Anne of Brittany. Following Annes death, the took place on 18 May 1514. Louis died shortly afterwards and Francis inherited the throne and he was crowned King of France in the Cathedral of Reims on 25 January 1515, with Claude as his queen consort. As Francis was receiving his education, ideas emerging from the Italian Renaissance were influential in France, some of his tutors, such as François Desmoulins de Rochefort and Christophe de Longueil, were attracted by these new ways of thinking and attempted to influence Francis. His academic education had been in arithmetic, geography, grammar, history, reading, spelling, Francis came to learn chivalry, dancing, and music and he loved archery, falconry, horseback riding, hunting, jousting, real tennis and wrestling. He ended up reading philosophy and theology and he was fascinated with art, literature, poetry and his mother, who had a high admiration for Italian Renaissance art, passed this interest on to her son
6.
Francesco Primaticcio
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Francesco Primaticcio was an Italian Mannerist painter, architect and sculptor who spent most of his career in France. Together with Rosso Fiorentino he was one of the artists to work at the Chateau Fontainebleau spending much of his life there. Following Rossos death in 1540, Primaticcio took control of the direction at Fontainebleau, furnishing the painters and stuccators of his team, such as Nicolò dellAbate. Francis I trusted his eye and sent him back to Italy on buying trips in 1540, in Rome, part of Primaticcios commission was to take casts of the best Roman sculptures in the papal collections, some of which were cast in bronze to decorate the parterres at Fontainebleau. Primaticcio retained his position as painter to Francis heirs, Henry II. His masterpiece, the Salle dHercule at Fontainebleau, occupied him, Primaticcios crowded Mannerist compositions and his long-legged canon of beauty influenced French art for the rest of the century
7.
Bologna
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Bologna is the largest city of the Emilia-Romagna Region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy, located in the heart of an area of about one million. The first settlements back to at least 1000 BC. The city has been a centre, first under the Etruscans. Home to the oldest university in the world, University of Bologna, founded in 1088, Bologna is also an important transportation crossroad for the roads and trains of Northern Italy, where many important mechanical, electronic and nutritional industries have their headquarters. According to the most recent data gathered by the European Regional Economic Growth Index of 2009, Bologna is the first Italian city, Bologna is home to numerous prestigious cultural, economic and political institutions as well as one of the most impressive trade fair districts in Europe. In 2000 it was declared European capital of culture and in 2006, the city of Bologna was selected to participate in the Universal Exposition of Shanghai 2010 together with 45 other cities from around the world. Bologna is also one of the wealthiest cities in Italy, often ranking as one of the top cities in terms of quality of life in the country, after a long decline, Bologna was reborn in the 5th century under Bishop Petronius. According to legend, St. Petronius built the church of S. Stefano. After the fall of Rome, Bologna was a stronghold of the Exarchate of Ravenna in the Po plain. In 728, the city was captured by the Lombard king Liutprand, the Germanic conquerors formed a district called addizione longobarda near the complex of S. Stefano. Charlemagne stayed in this district in 786, traditionally said to be founded in 1088, the University of Bologna is widely considered to be the first university. The university originated as a centre of study of medieval Roman law under major glossators. It numbered Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarca among its students, the medical school is especially famous. In the 12th century, the families engaged in continual internecine fighting. Troops of Pope Julius II besieged Bologna and sacked the artistic treasures of his palace, in 1530, in front of Saint Petronio Church, Charles V was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement VII. Then a plague at the end of the 16th century reduced the population from 72,000 to 59,000, the population later recovered to a stable 60, 000–65,000. However, there was also great progress during this era, in 1564, the Piazza del Nettuno and the Palazzo dei Banchi were built, along with the Archiginnasio, the centre of the University
8.
Modena
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Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. One of Ferraris cars, the 360 Modena, was named after the town itself, the University of Modena, founded in 1175 and expanded by Francesco II dEste in 1686, has traditional strengths in economics, medicine and law and is the second oldest athenaeum in Italy. Italian military officers are trained at the Military Academy of Modena, the Biblioteca Estense houses historical volumes and 3,000 manuscripts. The Cathedral of Modena, the Torre della Ghirlandina and Piazza Grande are a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997, Modena is also known in culinary circles for its production of balsamic vinegar. Modena lies on the Pianura Padana, and is bounded by the two rivers Secchia and Panaro, both affluents of the Po River and their presence is symbolized by the Two Rivers Fountain in the citys center, by Giuseppe Graziosi. The city is connected to the Panaro by the Naviglio channel, the Apennines begin some 10 kilometres from the city, to the south. The commune is divided into four circoscrizioni and these are, Centro storico Crocetta Buon Pastore San Faustino Modena has a humid subtropical climate, with an average annual precipitation of 809 millimetres. Summers are warm and winters are chilly and wetter, with the possibility of snowfall and this climate is described by the Köppen climate classification as Cfa. From 1945 to 1992, Modena had a consecutive series of Communist mayors. From the 1990s, the city has been governed by center-left coalitions, at the April 2006 elections, the city of Modena gave about 50% of its votes to the Democratic Party. The legislative body of the municipality is the City Council which is composed by 35 members elected every five years, Modenas executive body is the City Committee composed by 9 assessors, the deputy-mayor and the mayor. The current mayor of Modena is Giancarlo Muzzarelli, member of the Democratic Party of Italy, the territory around Modena was inhabited by the Villanovans in the Iron Age, and later by Ligurian tribes, Etruscans, and the Gaulish Boii. Livy described it as a fortified citadel where Roman magistrates took shelter, the outcome of the siege is not known, but the city was most likely abandoned after Hannibals arrival. Mutina was refounded as a Roman colony in 183 BC, to be used as a base by Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. In the 1st century BC Mutina was besieged twice, the first siege was by Pompey in 78 BC, when Mutina was defended by Marcus Junius Brutus. The city eventually surrendered out of hunger, and Brutus fled, in the civil war following Caesars assassination, the city was besieged again, this time by Mark Antony, in 44 BC, and defended by Decimus Junius Brutus. Octavian relieved the city with the help of the Senate, cicero called it Mutina splendidissima in his Philippics. It is said that Mutina was never sacked by Attila, for a dense fog hid it, as of December 2008, Italian researchers have discovered the pottery center where the oil lamps that lit the ancient Roman empire were made
9.
Henry II of France
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Henry II was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559. The second son of Francis I, he became Dauphin of France upon the death of his elder brother Francis III, Duke of Brittany, as a child, Henry and his elder brother spent over four years in captivity in Spain as hostages in exchange for their father. Henry pursued his fathers policies in matter of arts, wars and he persevered in the Italian Wars against the House of Habsburg and tried to suppress the Protestant Reformation, even as the Huguenot numbers were increasing drastically in France during his reign. Henry suffered a death in a jousting tournament held to celebrate the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis at the conclusion of the Eighth Italian War. The kings surgeon, Ambroise Paré, was unable to cure the infected wound inflicted by Gabriel de Montgomery and he was succeeded in turn by three of his sons, whose ineffective reigns helped to spark the French Wars of Religion between Protestants and Catholics. Henry was born in the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris and his father was captured at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 by the forces of his sworn enemy, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and held prisoner in Spain. To obtain his release, it was agreed that Henry and his brother be sent to Spain in his place. They remained in captivity for four years. Henry married Catherine de Medici, a member of the family of Florence, on 28 October 1533. The following year, he became involved with a thirty-five-year-old widow. They had always very close, she had publicly embraced him on the day he set off to Spain. Diane became Henrys mistress and most trusted confidante and, for the next years, wielded considerable influence behind the scenes. Extremely confident, mature and intelligent, she left Catherine powerless to intervene and she did, however, insist that Henry sleep with Catherine in order to produce heirs to the throne. When his elder brother Francis, the Dauphin and Duke of Brittany, died in 1536 after a game of tennis and he succeeded his father on his 28th birthday and was crowned King of France on 25 July 1547 at Reims Cathedral. Henrys reign was marked by wars with Austria and the persecution of Protestants, Henry II severely punished them, particularly the ministers, for example by burning at the stake or cutting off their tongues for uttering heresies. Even those only suspected of being Huguenots could be imprisoned and it also strictly regulated publications by prohibiting the sale, importation or printing of any unapproved book. It was during the reign of Henry II that Huguenot attempts at establishing a colony in Brazil were made, persecution of Protestants at home did not prevent Henry II from becoming allied with German Protestant princes at the Treaty of Chambord in 1552. Simultaneously, the continuation of his fathers Franco-Ottoman alliance allowed Henry II to push for French conquests towards the Rhine while a Franco-Ottoman fleet defended southern France, an early offensive into Lorraine was successful
10.
Stucco
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Stucco or render is a material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a dense solid. It is used as coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural. Stucco may be used to cover less visually appealing construction materials such as metal, concrete, cinder block, or clay brick and adobe. In English, stucco usually means a coating for the outside of a building, and plaster one for interiors, as described below, but other European languages, importantly including Italian, do not have the same distinction, stucco means plaster in Italian and serves for both. This has led to English often using stucco for interior decorative plasterwork in relief, especially in art history, the difference in nomenclature between stucco, plaster, and mortar is based more on use than composition. Animal or plant fibers were often added for additional strength, in the latter nineteenth century, Portland cement was added with increasing frequency in an attempt to improve the durability of stucco. At the same time, traditional lime plasters were being replaced by gypsum plaster, traditional stucco is made of lime, sand, and water. Modern stucco is made of Portland cement, sand, and water, lime is added to increase the permeability and workability of modern stucco. Sometimes additives such as acrylics and glass fibers are added to improve the properties of the stucco. This is usually done with what is considered a one-coat stucco system, lime stucco is a relatively hard material that can be broken or chipped by hand without too much difficulty. The lime itself is white, color comes from the aggregate or any added pigments. Lime stucco has the property of being self-healing to a degree because of the slight water solubility of lime. Portland cement stucco is very hard and brittle and can easily crack if the base on which it is applied is not stable, typically its color was gray, from the innate color of most Portland cement, but white Portland cement is also used. Todays stucco manufacturers offer a wide range of colors that can be mixed integrally in the finish coat. As a building material, stucco is a durable, attractive and it was traditionally used as both an interior and exterior finish applied in one or two thin layers directly over a solid masonry, brick or stone surface. The finish coat usually contained a color and was typically textured for appearance. The lath added support for the wet plaster and tensile strength to the brittle, cured stucco, while the increased thickness, the traditional application of stucco and lath occurs in three coats — the scratch coat, the brown coat and the finish coat
11.
Fresco
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Fresco is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly-laid, or wet lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the fresco technique has been employed since antiquity and is closely associated with Italian Renaissance painting. Buon fresco pigment mixed with water of temperature on a thin layer of wet, fresh plaster, for which the Italian word for plaster. Because of the makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required, as the pigment mixed solely with the water will sink into the intonaco. The pigment is absorbed by the wet plaster, after a number of hours, many artists sketched their compositions on this underlayer, which would never be seen, in a red pigment called sinopia, a name also used to refer to these under-paintings. Later, new techniques for transferring paper drawings to the wall were developed. The main lines of a drawing made on paper were pricked over with a point, the paper held against the wall, if the painting was to be done over an existing fresco, the surface would be roughened to provide better adhesion. This area is called the giornata, and the different day stages can usually be seen in a large fresco, buon frescoes are difficult to create because of the deadline associated with the drying plaster. Once a giornata is dried, no more buon fresco can be done, if mistakes have been made, it may also be necessary to remove the whole intonaco for that area—or to change them later, a secco. An indispensable component of this process is the carbonatation of the lime, the eyes of the people of the School of Athens are sunken-in using this technique which causes the eyes to seem deeper and more pensive. Michelangelo used this technique as part of his trademark outlining of his central figures within his frescoes, in a wall-sized fresco, there may be ten to twenty or even more giornate, or separate areas of plaster. After five centuries, the giornate, which were nearly invisible, have sometimes become visible, and in many large-scale frescoes. Additionally, the border between giornate was often covered by an a secco painting, which has fallen off. One of the first painters in the period to use this technique was the Isaac Master in the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. A person who creates fresco is called a frescoist, a secco or fresco-secco painting is done on dry plaster. The pigments thus require a medium, such as egg. Blue was a problem, and skies and blue robes were often added a secco, because neither azurite blue nor lapis lazuli. By the end of the century this had largely displaced buon fresco
12.
Allegory
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As a literary device, an allegory is a metaphor whose vehicle may be a character, place or event, representing real-world issues and occurrences. Many ancient religions are based on astrological allegories, that is, allegories of the movement of the sun, in classical literature two of the best-known allegories are the Cave in Platos Republic and the story of the stomach and its members in the speech of Menenius Agrippa. One of the examples of allegory, Platos Allegory of the Cave. In this allegory, Plato describes a group of people who have lived chained in an all of their lives. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows, using language to identify their world. He tries to tell the people in the cave of his discovery, also allegorical is Ezekiel 16 and 17, wherein the capture of that same vine by the mighty Eagle represents Israels exile to Rome. Allegory has an ability to freeze the temporality of a story, Mediaeval thinking accepted allegory as having a reality underlying any rhetorical or fictional uses. The allegory was as true as the facts of surface appearances, if, then, the Greeks or others say that they were not committed to the care of Peter and his successors, they necessarily confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ. This text also demonstrates the frequent use of allegory in religious texts during the Mediaeval Period, following the tradition, since meaningful stories are nearly always applicable to larger issues, allegories may be read into many stories which the author may not have recognised. This is allegoresis, or the act of reading a story as an allegory. S, lewis and A Kingdom Far and Clear, The Complete Swan Lake Trilogy by Mark Helprin. The story of the apple falling onto Isaac Newtons head is another famous allegory and it simplified the idea of gravity by depicting a simple way it was supposedly discovered. It also made the scientific revelation well known by condensing the theory into a short tale. According to Henry Littlefields 1964 article, L. Yet, George MacDonald emphasised in 1893 that, A fairy tale is not an allegory, I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and this further reinforces the idea of forced allegoresis, as allegory is often a matter of interpretation and only sometimes of original artistic intention. Like allegorical stories, allegorical poetry has two meanings – a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning, some unique specimens of allegory can be found in the following works, Edmund Spenser – The Faerie Queene, The several knights in the poem actually stand for several virtues. Nathaniel Hawthorne – Young Goodman Brown, The Devils Staff symbolises defiance of God, the characters names, such as Goodman and Faith, ironically serve as paradox in the conclusion of the story. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter, The scarlet letter symbolises many things, the characters, while developed with interiority, are allegorical in that they represent ways of seeing the world. George Orwell – Animal Farm, The pigs stand for political figures of the Russian Revolution, lászló Krasznahorkai - The Melancholy of Resistance and the film Werckmeister Harmonies, It uses a circus to describe an occupying dysfunctional government
13.
Mythology
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Mythology refers variously to the collected myths of a group of people or to the study of such myths. Myths are the people tell to explain nature, history. Myth is a feature of every culture, mythologizing continues, as shown in contemporary mythopoeia such as urban legends and the expansive fictional mythoi created by fantasy novels and comics. A cultures collective mythology helps convey belonging, shared and religious experiences, behavioral models, the study of myth began in ancient history. Rival classes of the Greek myths by Euhemerus, Plato and Sallustius were developed by the Neoplatonists, the nineteenth-century comparative mythology reinterpreted myth as a primitive and failed counterpart of science, a disease of language, or a misinterpretation of magical ritual. Recent approaches often view myths as manifestations of psychological, cultural, or societal truths, the term mythology predates the word myth by centuries. It first appeared in the fifteenth-century, borrowed from the Middle French term mythologie, the word mythology, comes from Middle French mythologie, from Late Latin mythologia, from Greek μυθολογία mythología from μῦθος mythos and -λογία -logia. The word mythología appears in Plato, but was used as a term for fiction or story-telling of any kind, combining mỹthos. From Lydgate until the seventeenth or eighteenth-century, mythology was similarly used to mean a moral, fable, from its earliest use in reference to a collection of traditional stories or beliefs, mythology implied the falsehood of the stories being described. It came to be applied by analogy with similar bodies of traditional stories among other cultures around the world. The Greek loanword mythos and Latinate mythus both appeared in English before the first example of myth in 1830, in present use, mythology usually refers to the collected myths of a group of people, but may also mean the study of such myths. For example, Greek mythology, Roman mythology and Hittite mythology all describe the body of myths retold among those cultures, dundes defined myth as a sacred narrative that explains how the world and humanity evolved into their present form. Lincoln defined myth as ideology in narrative form, scholars in other fields use the term myth in varied ways. In a broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story, due to this pejorative sense, some scholars opted for the term mythos. Its use was similarly pejorative and now commonly refers to its Aristotelian sense as a plot point or to a collective mythology. The term is distinguished from didactic literature such as fables. Main characters in myths are usually gods, demigods or supernatural humans, however, many exceptions or combinations exist, as in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid. Myths are often endorsed by rulers and priests and are linked to religion or spirituality
14.
Grotesque
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In art, performance, and literature, however, grotesque may also refer to something that simultaneously invokes in an audience a feeling of uncomfortable bizarreness as well as sympathetic pity. More specifically, the forms on Gothic buildings, when not used as drain-spouts, should not be called gargoyles. The word first was used of paintings found on the walls of basements of Roman ruins that were called at that time Le Grotte due to their appearance. Spreading from Italian to the other European languages, the term was used largely interchangeably with arabesque and moresque for types of decorative patterns using curving foliage elements. Rémi Astruc has argued that there is an immense variety of motifs and figures. Beyond the current understanding of the grotesque as an aesthetic category, moreover, Astruc identifies the grotesque as a crucial, and potentially universal, anthropological device that societies have used to conceptualize alterity and change. Such designs were fashionable in ancient Rome, as fresco wall decoration, floor mosaics, the Roman wall decorations in fresco and delicate stucco were a revelation. The first appearance of the word appears in a contract of 1502 for the Piccolomini Library attached to the duomo of Siena. Light scrolling grotesques could be ordered by confining them within the framing of a pilaster to give them more structure, giovanni da Udine took up the theme of grotesques in decorating the Villa Madama, the most influential of the new Roman villas. In the 16th century, such artistic license and irrationality was controversial matter, more familiar material for grotesques could be drawn from Ovids Metamorphoses. This large array provided a repertoire of elements that were the basis for later artists across Europe, counter Reformation writers on the arts, notably Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, bishop of Bologna, turned upon grottesche with a righteous vengeance. Vasari, echoing Vitruvius, described the style as follows, Grotesques are a type of extremely licentious, other 16th-century writers on grottesche included Daniele Barbaro, Pirro Ligorio and Gian Paolo Lomazzo. In the meantime, through the medium of engravings the grotesque mode of surface ornament passed into the European artistic repertory of the 16th century, from Spain to Poland. Later Mannerist versions, especially in engraving, tended to lose that initial lightness and be more densely filled than the airy well-spaced style used by the Romans. Soon grottesche appeared in marquetry, in maiolica produced above all at Urbino from the late 1520s, then in book illustration, in the 17th and 18th centuries the grotesque encompasses a wide field of teratology and artistic experimentation. The monstrous, for instance, often occurs as the notion of play, the sportiveness of the grotesque category can be seen in the notion of the preternatural category of the lusus naturae, in natural history writings and in cabinets of curiosities. The last vestiges of romance, such as the marvellous also provide opportunities for the presentation of the grotesque in, for instance, the mixed form of the novel was commonly described as grotesque - see for instance Fieldings comic epic poem in prose. Grotesque ornament received an impetus from new discoveries of original Roman frescoes and stucchi at Pompeii
15.
Strapwork
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In the history of art and design, strapwork is the use of stylised representations in ornament of ribbon-like forms. These may loosely imitate leather straps, parchment or metal cut into shapes, with piercings. In early examples there may or may not be three-dimensionality, either actual in curling relief ends of the elements, as the style continued, these curling elements became more prominent, often turning into scrollwork, where the ends curl into spirals or scrolls. By the Baroque scrollwork was an element in ornament, often partly submerged by other rich ornament. The Europeanized arabesque patterns called moresque are also often combined with strapwork. Scrollwork is a variant that tended to replace strapwork, almost completely so by the Baroque and it is less geometric and more organic, more three dimensional, and with emphasis on the curling ends of the straps. The Italian artists at the Palace of Fontainebleau had already moved onto this by the 1530s, where there is no suggestion of three dimensions — curling ends and the like — the decoration may also be called bandwork or interlaced bands, the more technically correct term. Peter Fuhring derives this style from Islamic ornament, floris developed the massive Fontainebleau strapwork into a yet more nightmarish style of his own, but also, with Bos, experimented with an altogether lighter, more elegant variety. Thereafter, spread by prints, it part of the vocabulary of Northern Mannerist ornament. Wollaton Hall outside Nottingham makes especially extensive, and for some excessive, use of strapwork inside, the patterns it used influenced European ornament in the Renaissance, through the Moresque style. Girih is an Islamic decorative art form used in architecture and handicrafts from the 8th century onwards and it consists of geometric lines that form an interlaced strapwork. Girih patterns are used in varied media including tilework, brickwork, stucco, wood and mosaic faience work
16.
Putti
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A putto is a figure in a work of art depicted as a chubby male child, usually naked and sometimes winged. However, in the Baroque period of art, the putto came to represent the omnipresence of God, a putto representing a cupid is also called an amorino. The more commonly found form putti is the plural of the Italian word putto, the Italian word comes from the Latin word putus, meaning boy or child. Today, in Italian, putto means either toddler winged angel or, rarely, toddler boy. It may have derived from the same Indo-European root as the Sanskrit word putra, Avestan puθra-, Old Persian puça-, Pahlavi pus and pusar, all meaning son. Putti, in the ancient classical world of art, were winged infants that were believed to influence human lives. Putti are a motif found primarily on child sarcophagi of the 2nd century. Since then, Donatello has been called the originator of the putto because of the contribution to art he made in restoring the form of putto. He gave putto a distinct character by infusing the form with Christian meanings, putti also began to feature in works showing figures from classical mythology, which became popular in the same period. Most Renaissance putti are essentially decorative and they ornament both religious and secular works, without taking any actual part in the events depicted in narrative paintings. There are two forms of the putto as the main subject of a work of art in 16th-century Italian Renaissance art, the sleeping putto. So many artists have depicted them that a list would be pointless, but among the best-known are the sculptor Donatello, the two relaxed and curious putti who appear at the foot of Raphaels Sistine Madonna are often reproduced. They also experienced a revival in the 19th century, where they gamboled through paintings by French academic painters. The iconography of putti is deliberately unfixed, so that it is difficult to tell the difference between putti, cupids, and various forms of angels and they have no unique, immediately identifiable attributes, so that putti may have many meanings and roles in the context of art. In popular culture, putto is also used as a decorative art found on buildings, gardens, a putto smoking a cigarette served as the cover art for Van Halens album 1984. A putto is the protagonist of the 2000 third person shooter Messiah, in the British TV series Doctor Who, infants of the species Weeping Angels appear as putti. In the 1st-person shooter Team Fortress 2, the Meet the Pyro video has the BLU Team appear as putti in Pyroland, in the 2003 video game Drakengard, a group of malevolent god-like figures known as the Watchers appear as putti. The historiography of this matter is very short
17.
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
18.
Michelangelo
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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Considered to be the greatest living artist during his lifetime, he has since described as one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of Michelangelos works of painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence and he sculpted two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, before the age of thirty. As an architect, Michelangelo pioneered the Mannerist style at the Laurentian Library, at the age of 74, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peters Basilica. Michelangelo transformed the plan so that the end was finished to his design, as was the dome, with some modification. Michelangelo was unique as the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive, in his lifetime he was often called Il Divino. One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, the attempts by subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelos impassioned and highly personal style resulted in Mannerism, the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance. Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, at the time of Michelangelos birth, his father was the Judicial administrator of the small town of Caprese and local administrator of Chiusi. Michelangelos mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena, the Buonarrotis claimed to descend from the Countess Mathilde of Canossa, this claim remains unproven, but Michelangelo himself believed it. Several months after Michelangelos birth, the returned to Florence. There Michelangelo gained his love for marble, as Giorgio Vasari quotes him, If there is good in me. Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, as a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino. The young artist, however, showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches, the city of Florence was at that time the greatest centre of the arts and learning in Italy. Art was sponsored by the Signoria, by the merchant guilds and by patrons such as the Medici. The Renaissance, a renewal of Classical scholarship and the arts, had its first flowering in Florence, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti had laboured for fifty years to create the bronze doors of the Baptistry, which Michelangelo was to describe as The Gates of Paradise. The exterior niches of the Church of Orsanmichele contained a gallery of works by the most acclaimed sculptors of Florence – Donatello, Ghiberti, Andrea del Verrocchio, and Nanni di Banco. The interiors of the churches were covered with frescos, begun by Giotto. During Michelangelos childhood, a team of painters had been called from Florence to the Vatican, among them was Domenico Ghirlandaio, a master in fresco painting, perspective, figure drawing, and portraiture who had the largest workshop in Florence at that period
19.
Raphael
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Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Raphael was enormously productive, running a large workshop and, despite his death at 37. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, the best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings and he was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. Raphael was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region and his poem to Federico shows him as keen to show awareness of the most advanced North Italian painters, and Early Netherlandish artists as well. In the very court of Urbino he was probably more integrated into the central circle of the ruling family than most court painters. Under them, the court continued as a centre for literary culture, growing up in the circle of this small court gave Raphael the excellent manners and social skills stressed by Vasari. Castiglione moved to Urbino in 1504, when Raphael was no longer based there but frequently visited, Raphael mixed easily in the highest circles throughout his life, one of the factors that tended to give a misleading impression of effortlessness to his career. He did not receive a humanistic education however, it is unclear how easily he read Latin. His mother Màgia died in 1491 when Raphael was eight, followed on August 1,1494 by his father, Raphael was thus orphaned at eleven, his formal guardian became his only paternal uncle Bartolomeo, a priest, who subsequently engaged in litigation with his stepmother. He probably continued to live with his stepmother when not staying as an apprentice with a master and he had already shown talent, according to Vasari, who says that Raphael had been a great help to his father. A self-portrait drawing from his teenage years shows his precocity and his fathers workshop continued and, probably together with his stepmother, Raphael evidently played a part in managing it from a very early age. In Urbino, he came into contact with the works of Paolo Uccello, previously the court painter, and Luca Signorelli, according to Vasari, his father placed him in the workshop of the Umbrian master Pietro Perugino as an apprentice despite the tears of his mother. The evidence of an apprenticeship comes only from Vasari and another source, an alternative theory is that he received at least some training from Timoteo Viti, who acted as court painter in Urbino from 1495. An excess of resin in the varnish often causes cracking of areas of paint in the works of both masters, the Perugino workshop was active in both Perugia and Florence, perhaps maintaining two permanent branches. Raphael is described as a master, that is to say fully trained and his first documented work was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town halfway between Perugia and Urbino. Evangelista da Pian di Meleto, who had worked for his father, was named in the commission
20.
Parmigianino
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Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native city of Parma. He produced outstanding drawings, and was one of the first Italian painters to experiment with printmaking himself and this in conjunction with their lack of large main subjects has resulted in their being less well known than other works by similar artists. He painted a number of important portraits, leading a trend in Italy towards the three-quarters or full-length figure, Parmigianino was the eighth child of Filippo Mazzola and one Donatella Abbati. His father died of the two years after Parmigianinos birth, and the children were raised by their uncles, Michele and Pier Ilario. In 1515, his uncle received a commission from Nicolò Zangrandi for the decoration of a chapel in San Giovanni Evangelista, by the age of eighteen, he had already completed the Bardi Altarpiece. In 1521, Parmigianino was sent to Viadana to escape the wars between the French, Imperial, and papal armies. In Viadana, he painted two panels in tempera, depicting Saint Francis for the church of the Frati de Zoccoli, and he also worked in San Giovanni and met Correggio, who was at work on the fresco decorations of the cupola. In 1524, he traveled to Rome with five paintings, including the Circumcision of Jesus and his Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror, seeking patronage of the Medici pope. Vasari records that in Rome, Parmigianino was celebrated as a Raphael reborn, within a year, the Sack of Rome caused Parmigianino, and many other artists, to flee. He resided in Bologna for nearly three years, at around 1528, he painted the Madonna and Child with Saints, then later in 1528, he painted Madonna con la Rosa and Madonna with Saint Zachariah. By 1530 Parmigianino had returned to Parma, in 1531, Parmigianino received a commission for two altarpieces, depicting Saint Joseph and Saint John the Baptist, from the unfinished church of Santa Maria della Steccata. The brotherhood overseeing the church advanced him salary and promised him the supplies and materials, however, by 1535, in December, he nominated Don Nicola Cassola, a Parman cleric at the Roman Curia, to act as his legal representative. Parmigianino authorized him to collect the 50 gold scudi from Bonifazio Gozzadini for the Madonna with St. John the Baptist, in 1534, it was decided that the Madonna dal collo lungo would hang in the chapel of the family of Elena Baiardi. Parmigianino had probably expected to succeed Correggio in the favour of the church, however, in April 1538, the administrative offices commissioned initially Giorgio Gandini del Grano, then Girolamo Bedoli, to decorate the apse and choir of the Parma Cathedral. It is believed that at time, he became a devotee of alchemy. Vasari hypothesizes that this was due to his fascination with magic, scholars now agree that Parmigianinos scientific interests may have been due to his obsession with trying to find a new medium for his etchings. As a result of his researches, he completed little work in the church. He was imprisoned for two months for breach of contract after the Confraternita decided unanimously to ban him from continuing in their church and he was replaced between 1539 and 1540 by Giulio Romano, who also promptly withdrew from the contract
21.
Ancient Rome
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In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate the Mediterranean region and then Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and it is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language and society. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond, its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia, the Roman Empire emerged with the end of the Republic and the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman-Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia and it would become the longest conflict in human history, and have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of history from the pre-medieval Dark Ages of Europe. King Numitor was deposed from his throne by his brother, Amulius, while Numitors daughter, Rhea Silvia, because Rhea Silvia was raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine. The new king, Amulius, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, a she-wolf saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor. Romulus became the source of the citys name, in order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. This caused a problem for Rome, which had a large workforce but was bereft of women, Romulus traveled to the neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables they all refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins, after a long time in rough seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, one woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships, the Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid
22.
Old master print
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An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition. Fifteenth-century prints are rare that they are classed as old master prints even if they are of crude or merely workmanlike artistic quality. A date of about 1830 is usually taken as marking the end of the period whose prints are covered by this term, the main techniques used, in order of their introduction, are woodcut, engraving, etching, mezzotint and aquatint, although there are others. Different techniques are combined in a single print. With rare exceptions printed on textiles, such as silk, or on vellum, many great European artists, such as Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, and Francisco Goya, were dedicated printmakers. In their own day, their international reputations largely came from their prints, influences between artists were also mainly transmitted beyond a single city by prints, for the same reason. Prints therefore are frequently brought up in detailed analyses of individual paintings in art history, today, thanks to colour photo reproductions, and public galleries, their paintings are much better known, whilst their prints are only rarely exhibited, for conservation reasons. But some museum print rooms allow visitors to see their collection, the oldest technique is woodcut, or woodblock printing, which was invented as a method for printing on cloth in China, and perhaps separately in Egypt in the Byzantine period. This had reached Europe via the Byzantine or Islamic worlds before 1300, religious images and playing cards are documented as being produced on paper, probably printed, by a German in Bologna in 1395. However, the most impressive printed European images to survive from before 1400 are printed on cloth, for use as hangings on walls or furniture, including altars, some were used as a pattern to embroider over. Some religious images were used as bandages, to speed healing, the earliest print images are mostly of a high artistic standard, and were clearly designed by artists with a background in painting. Whether these artists cut the blocks themselves, or only inked the design on the block for another to carve, is not known, the great majority of surviving 15th-century prints are religious, although these were probably the ones more likely to survive. Their makers were sometimes called Jesus maker or saint-maker in documents, as with manuscript books, monastic institutions sometimes produced, and often sold, prints. No artists can be identified with specific woodcuts until towards the end of the century, the little evidence we have suggests that woodcut prints became relatively common and cheap during the fifteenth century, and were affordable by skilled workers in towns. For example, what may be the earliest surviving Italian print, the school caught fire, and the crowd who gathered to watch saw the print carried up into the air by the fire, before falling down into the crowd. This was regarded as an escape and the print was carried to Forlì Cathedral. Like the majority of prints before approximately 1460, only a single impression of this print has survived, Woodcut blocks are printed with light pressure, and are capable of printing several thousand impressions, and even at this period some prints may well have been produced in that quantity. Many prints were hand-coloured, mostly in watercolour, in fact the hand-colouring of prints continued for many centuries, Italy, Germany, France and the Netherlands were the main areas of production, England does not seem to have produced any prints until about 1480
23.
Etching
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Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types of material, as a method of printmaking, it is, along with engraving, the most important technique for old master prints, and remains in wide use today. In a number of variants such as microfabrication etching and photochemical milling it is a crucial technique in much modern technology. In traditional pure etching, a plate is covered with a waxy ground which is resistant to acid. The artist then scratches off the ground with an etching needle where he or she wants a line to appear in the finished piece. The échoppe, a tool with an oval section, is also used for swelling lines. The plate is dipped in a bath of acid, technically called the mordant or etchant. The acid bites into the metal where it is exposed, leaving behind lines sunk into the plate, the remaining ground is then cleaned off the plate. The plate is inked all over, and then the ink wiped off the surface, the plate is then put through a high-pressure printing press together with a sheet of paper. The paper picks up the ink from the lines, making a print. The process can be repeated many times, typically several hundred impressions could be printed before the shows much sign of wear. The work on the plate can also be added to by repeating the whole process, Etching has often been combined with other intaglio techniques such as engraving or aquatint. The process as applied to printmaking is believed to have been invented by Daniel Hopfer of Augsburg, Hopfer was a craftsman who decorated armour in this way, and applied the method to printmaking, using iron plates. Apart from his prints, there are two examples of his work on armour, a shield from 1536 now in the Real Armeria of Madrid. The switch to copper plates was made in Italy. On the other hand, the handling of the ground and acid need skill and experience, prior to 1100 AD, the New World Hohokam independently utilized the technique of acid etching in marine shell designs. Jacques Callot from Nancy in Lorraine made important technical advances in etching technique and he developed the échoppe, a type of etching-needle with a slanting oval section at the end, which enabled etchers to create a swelling line, as engravers were able to do. Callot also appears to have responsible for an improved, harder, recipe for the etching ground
24.
Mannerist style
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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
25.
Fontainebleau
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Fontainebleau is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located 55.5 kilometres south-southeast of the centre of Paris, Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau. The commune has the largest land area in the Île-de-France region, Fontainebleau, together with the neighbouring commune of Avon and three other smaller communes, form an urban area of 39,713 inhabitants. This urban area is a satellite of Paris, inhabitants of Fontainebleau are called Bellifontains. Fontainebleau has been recorded in different Latinised forms, such as, Fons Bleaudi, Fons Bliaudi, Fons Blaadi in the 12th and 13th centuries and it became Fons Bellaqueus in the 17th century, which gave rise to the name of the inhabitants as Bellifontains. The name originates as a composite of two words, Fontaine– meaning spring, or fountainhead, followed by a person’s Germanic name Blizwald. This hamlet was endowed with a hunting lodge and a chapel by Louis VII in the middle of the twelfth century. A century later, Louis IX, also called Saint Louis, who held Fontainebleau in high esteem and referred to it as his wilderness, had a country house, philip the Fair was born there in 1268 and died there in 1314. In all, thirty-four sovereigns, from Louis VI, the Fat, to Napoleon III, the connection between the town of Fontainebleau and the French monarchy was reinforced with the transformation of the royal country house into a true royal palace, the Palace of Fontainebleau. On 18 October 1685, Louis XIV signed the Edict of Fontainebleau there, the result was that a large number of Protestants were forced to convert to the Catholic faith, killed, or forced into exile, mainly in the Low Countries, Prussia and in England. The 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau, an agreement between France and Spain concerning the Louisiana territory in North America, was concluded here. Also, preliminary negotiations, held before the 1763 Treaty of Paris was signed, during the French Revolution, Fontainebleau was temporarily renamed Fontaine-la-Montagne, meaning Fountain by the Mountain. On 20 June 1812, Pope Pius VII arrived at the château of Fontainebleau, after a transfer from Savona, accompanied by his personal physician. In poor health, the Pope was the prisoner of Napoleon, from June 1812 until 23 January 1814, the Pope never left his apartments. According to contemporary sources, the occasion was very moving, the 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau stripped Napoleon of his powers and sent him into exile on Elba. Until the 19th century, Fontainebleau was a village and a suburb of Avon, later, it developed as an independent residential city. For the 1924 Summer Olympics, the town played host to the portion of the modern pentathlon event. This event took place near a golf course, Fontainebleau also hosted the general staff of the Allied Forces in Central Europe and the land forces command, the air forces command was located nearby at Camp Guynemer
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Jean Cousin the Elder
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Jean Cousin was a French painter, sculptor, etcher, engraver, and geometrician. He is known as Jean Cousin the Elder to distinguish him from his son Jean Cousin the Younger, Cousin was born at Soucy, near Sens, and began his career in his native town with the study of glass-painting under Jean Hympe and Grassot. At the same time, he studied mathematics and published a book on the subject. He also wrote on geometry in his student days, in 1530 Cousin finished the windows for Sens Cathedral, the subject chosen being the Legend of St. Eutropius. He also painted the windows of many of the noble châteaux in, in Paris Cousin continued his career as a glass-painter, and created his best-known work, the windows of the Sainte-Chapelle in Vincennes. He subsequently devoted himself to painting in oil, and has claimed as the first Frenchman to use that new medium. Pictures attributed to him, all of much merit, are found in several of the large European collections, but, excepting The Last Judgment, none is known to be authentic. For a long time this work lay neglected in the sacristy of the church of the Minims, Vincennes, until it was rescued by a priest and it is said to be the first French picture to be engraved. He was also an illustrator of books, making designs for woodcuts. The Bible, published in 1596 by Le Clerc, and the Metamorphoses and Epistles of Ovid contain his most noted work as an illustrator, Cousin etched and engraved many plates after the manner of Parmigianino, to whom the invention of etching has been ascribed. He also created sculptures, including, it is thought, the mausoleum of Admiral Philippe de Chabot, in addition to his early writings on mathematics, he published, in 1560, a treatise on perspective, and, in 1571, a work on portrait-painting. During his life Cousin enjoyed the favour of and worked for four kings of France, Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX, paul, among his woodcuts, the Entrée de Henry II et Catherine de Médicis à Rouen. He died at Sens, but the date of his death is uncertain and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles, ed. Cites, FIRMIN-DIDOT, Etude sur Jean Cousin, PATTISON, The Worlds Painters since Leonardo The Last Judgement, with citation in French
27.
Sculptors
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Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
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Jean Goujon
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Jean Goujon was a French Renaissance sculptor and architect. His early life is known, he was probably born in Normandy. In 1544-1547 he was occupied with works at the Château d’Ecouen for the connétable de Montmorency. He became sculptor to the king in 1547 and in the years was occupied at the Château of Anet. He was then imprisoned at Ecouen in 1555 His most famous works are the decorations made in collaboration with Lescot for the western extension of the Louvre. A fine representative of Mannerism in France, Goujons figures are elongated, sensual and fluid, his work reveals knowledge of Greek sculpture. He is also responsible for engravings for Jean Martins 1547 translation of Vitruvius and for work on the Château of Ecouen, in 1562, Goujon left France for religious reasons. The purity and gracefulness of his style were disseminated throughout France by engravings by artists of the School of Fontainebleau and had an influence in the decorative arts and his reputation was slightly eclipsed at the end of the century by more mannered tendencies, but was appreciated by French Classicism. Goujon was a Protestant, he escaped the French Wars of Religion by exiling himself in Italy in 1562 and he probably died in Bologna, where he is last documented in 1563 as a member of a group of Huguenot refugees. His most famous include, Fountain of the Innocents - Goujon sculpted the six nymphs that decorate this public fountain designed by Pierre Lescot. To Goujon is usually attributed the engravings of the French version of Francesco Colonnas Songe de Poliphile, the famous Diana with a Stag Louvre, designed for Diane de Poitiers for the Château dAnet, was long believed to be by Goujon or his workshop. It is now more likely to have been the work of Germain Pilon
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Germain Pilon
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Germain Pilon was a French Renaissance sculptor. He was born in Paris and trained with his father, André Pilon, Documents show that he and his father executed several religious statues and tomb effigies in collaboration. Since Connat & Colombier established that Germain was born c,1525, several early works have been reattributed to him, including the marble grouping Diana with a Stag. Later he worked with Pierre Bontemps, Pilon became expert with marble, bronze, wood and terra cotta. From about 1555 he was providing models for Parisian goldsmiths and he was also skilled at drawing. His works - with their realism and theatrical emotion - show the influence of the School of Fontainebleau, Michelangelo, much of Pilons work was on funerary monuments, especially the Valois Chapel at the Saint Denis Basilica designed by Francesco Primaticcio. He was the sculptor of queen Catherine de Medici. Pilons most famous include, Eight subsidiary statues for the Tomb of Francis I. The kings heart was placed in a bronze urn held by the Three Graces, virgin of Pity Louvre Tomb of Valentine Balbiani Louvre Descent from the Cross Louvre Three Fates. Catherine de Medicis building projects French art Babelon, Jean, Paris, Les Beaux-Arts, Edition detudes et de documents. Art and Architecture in France, 1500–1700, 5th edition, new Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press. Quelques Documents commentés sur André et Germain Pilon, Bibliothèque dHumanisme et Renaissance,24, pp. 812–815, in The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner. Germain Pilon in American public collections, on the French Sculpture Census website
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Jean Clouet
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Jean Clouet was a miniaturist and painter who worked in France during the High Renaissance. He was the father of François Clouet, the authentic presence of this artist at the French court is first mentioned in 1516, the second year of the reign of Francis I. By a deed of gift made by the king to the son of his fathers estate, which had escheated to the crown, we learn that he was not actually a Frenchman. He is supposed to have been a native of the Low Countries and he lived several years in Tours, and there it was he met his wife, who was the daughter of a jeweller. He is recorded as living in Tours in 1522, and there is a reference to his wifes residence in the town in 1523. In that year Clouet was awarded the position of Groom of the Chamber by the King, with a stipend at first of 180 livres and later of 240. He and his wife were living in Paris in 1529, probably in the neighborhood of the parish of Ste Innocente. He stood godfather at a christening on 8 July 1540, but was no longer living in December 1541. His brother, known as Clouet de Navarre, was in the service of Marguerite dAngoulême, sister of Francis I, and is referred to in a letter written by Marguerite about 1529. Jean Clouet had two children, François and Catherine, who married Abel Foulon, and left one son, Jean Clouet was undoubtedly a very skillful portrait painter, although no work in existence has been proved to be his. He painted a portrait of the mathematician Oronce Finé in 1530, when Fine was thirty-six years old, pierpont Morgan, and representing Charles I de Cossé, Maréchal de Brissac, identical in its characteristics with the seven already known. The collection of drawings preserved in France, and attributed to this artist and his school, definite evidence, however, is still lacking to establish the attribution of the best of these drawings and of certain oil paintings to Jean Clouet. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Clouet. P.725 Oxford Dictionary edited by Robert Maillard, Universal Dictionary of painting, vol.2 Smeets Offset BV Weert, October 1975, p 3000
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Palace of Fontainebleau
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The Palace of Fontainebleau or Château de Fontainebleau is located 55 kilometres southeast of the centre of Paris, and is one of the largest French royal châteaux. The medieval castle and later château was the residence of French monarchs from Louis VII through Napoleon III, Napoleon I abdicated his throne there before being exiled to Elba. Today, it is a museum and a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is located in the commune of Fontainebleau. The earliest record of a castle at Fontainebleau dates to 1137. It became a residence and hunting lodge of the Kings of France because of the abundant game. It took its name one of the springs, the fountain de Bliaud, located now in the English garden. He commissioned the architect Gilles le Breton to build a palace in the new Renaissance style and it included monumental Porte Dorée, as its southern entrance. As well as a monumental Renaissance stairway, the portique de Serlio, beginning in about 1528, Francis constructed the Gallery Francis I, which allowed him to pass directly from his apartments to the chapel of the Trinitaires. He brought the architect Sebastiano Serlio from Italy, and the Florentine painter Giovanni Battista di Jacopo, known as Rosso Fiorentino, another Italian painter, Francesco Primaticcio from Bologna, joined later in the decoration of the palace. Together their style of decoration became known as the first School of Fontainebleau and this was the first great decorated gallery built in France. Broadly speaking, at Fontainebleau the Renaissance was introduced to France, in about 1540, Francis began another major addition to the chateau. Using land on the east side of the chateau purchased from the order of the Trinitaires, he began to build a new square of buildings around a large courtyard. It was enclosed on the north by the wing of the Ministers, on the east by the wing of Ferrare, the chateau was surrounded by a new park in the style of the Italian Renaissance garden, with pavilions and the first grotto in France. Primaticcio created more monumental murals for the gallery of Ulysses, following the death of Francis I, King Henry II decided to continue and expand the chateau. The King and his wife chose the architects Philibert Delorme and Jean Bullant to do the work and they extended the east wing of the lower court, and decorated it with the first famous horseshoe-shaped staircase. In the oval court, they transformed the loggia planned by Francois into a Salle des Fétes or grand ballroom with a coffered ceiling. Facing the courtyard of the fountain and the pond, they designed a new building. At Henris orders, the Nymphe de Fontainebleau was installed at the entrance of Château dAnet
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Alchemical symbol
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Alchemical symbols, originally devised as part of alchemy, were used to denote some elements and some compounds until the 18th century. Note that while notation like this was standardized, style. According to Paracelsus, the three primes or tria prima – of which material substances are immediately composed – are, Mercury Salt Sulfur Western alchemy makes use of the Hellenic elements. The symbols used for these are, Air Earth Fire Water Seven metals are associated with the seven classical planets, although the metals occasionally have a glyph of their own, the planets symbol is used most often, and the symbolic and mythological septenary is consistent with Western astrology. The planetary symbolism is limited to the seven wandering stars visible to the eye. Antimony ♁ Arsenic Bismuth Boron = Magnesium ⊛ Phosphorus Platinum ☽☉ Potassium Stone Sulfur Zinc Sal ammoniac * Aqua Fortis A. F. Aqua Regia A. R, amalgama Cinnabar Vitriol
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Copper
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Copper is a chemical element with symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of copper has a reddish-orange color. Copper is one of the few metals that occur in nature in directly usable metallic form as opposed to needing extraction from an ore and this led to very early human use, from c.8000 BC. Copper used in buildings, usually for roofing, oxidizes to form a green verdigris, Copper is sometimes used in decorative art, both in its elemental metal form and in compounds as pigments. Copper compounds are used as agents, fungicides, and wood preservatives. Copper is essential to all living organisms as a trace dietary mineral because it is a key constituent of the enzyme complex cytochrome c oxidase. In molluscs and crustaceans, copper is a constituent of the blood pigment hemocyanin, replaced by the hemoglobin in fish. In humans, copper is found mainly in the liver, muscle, the adult body contains between 1.4 and 2.1 mg of copper per kilogram of body weight. The filled d-shells in these elements contribute little to interatomic interactions, unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in copper are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak. This observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of copper, at the macroscopic scale, introduction of extended defects to the crystal lattice, such as grain boundaries, hinders flow of the material under applied stress, thereby increasing its hardness. For this reason, copper is supplied in a fine-grained polycrystalline form. The softness of copper partly explains its high conductivity and high thermal conductivity. The maximum permissible current density of copper in open air is approximately 3. 1×106 A/m2 of cross-sectional area, Copper is one of a few metallic elements with a natural color other than gray or silver. Pure copper is orange-red and acquires a reddish tarnish when exposed to air, as with other metals, if copper is put in contact with another metal, galvanic corrosion will occur. A green layer of verdigris can often be seen on old structures, such as the roofing of many older buildings. Copper tarnishes when exposed to sulfur compounds, with which it reacts to form various copper sulfides. There are 29 isotopes of copper, 63Cu and 65Cu are stable, with 63Cu comprising approximately 69% of naturally occurring copper, both have a spin of 3⁄2
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Pewter
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Pewter is a malleable metal alloy, traditionally 85–99% tin, with the remainder consisting of copper, antimony, bismuth and sometimes, less commonly today, lead. Copper and antimony act as hardeners while lead is common in the grades of pewter. It has a low melting point, around 170–230 °C, depending on the mixture of metals. The word pewter is probably a variation of the word spelter, Pewter was first used around the beginning of the Bronze Age in the Near East. The earliest piece of pewter found is from an Egyptian tomb from 1450 BC, the constituents of pewter were first controlled in the 12th century by town guilds in France. By the 15th century, the Worshipful Company of Pewterers controlled pewter constituents in England and this company originally had two grades of pewter, but in the 16th century a third grade was added. The first type, known as metal, was used for tableware. It consisted of tin with as much copper as it could absorb, the second type, known as trifling metal or trifle, was used for holloware and is made up of fine metal with approximately 4% lead. The last type of pewter, known as lay or ley metal, was used for items that were not in contact with food or drink and it consisted of tin with 15% lead. These three alloys were used, with variation, until the 20th century. Older pewters with higher lead content are heavier, tarnish faster, pewters containing lead are no longer used in items that will come in contact with the human body due to health concerns stemming from the lead content. Modern pewters are available that are free of lead, although many pewters containing lead are still being produced for other purposes. A typical European casting alloy contains 94% tin, 1% copper, a European pewter sheet would contain 92% tin, 2% copper, and 6% antimony. Asian pewter, produced mostly in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, contains a percentage of tin, usually 97. 5% tin, 1% copper. This makes the alloy slightly softer, Pewter items are often found in churches. Pewter was the chief tableware until the making of porcelain, mass production of pottery, porcelain and glass products has seen pewter universally replaced in day-to-day life. Pewter artifacts continue to be produced, mainly as decorative or specialty items, Pewter was also used around East Asia. Although some items still exist, Ancient Roman pewter is rare, in the early 19th century, changes in fashion caused a decline in the use of pewter flatware
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Nicolas Beatrizet
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Nicolas Béatrizet was 16th century French engraver, working in Rome. Béatrizet was born at Luneville in or before 1520, from his style it has been conjectured that he was a scholar of Ghisi, and of Agostino Veneziano de Musis. From 1540 to 1560 he engraved under the direction of Michelangelo and he died at Rome after 1560. He wrote that to me they seem to want any requisite, that a fine engraving ought to possess, namely, drawing, character, effect and he usually signed his plates with the letters N. B. L. F. Their number is considerable, but most of them are included in the following list, Bust of Pius III, Henry II, King of France, N. B. F. Lot. f. Another Portrait of Henry II, dated 1556, antoine Salamanca, engraver, publisher and dealer in prints. Don Juan of Austria, an oval, on a monument, the Genealogy of the first twelve Emperors and Empresses, with their Portraits, from medals, two sheets. *The Kings of Poland, in medallions, inscribed Reges Polonia. Cain killing Abel, inscribed Fratricida Abelis, A. S. ex.1540, joseph explaining the Dream, after Raphael, marked N. B. F. and his name, one of his best plates. The Nativity of the Virgin, after Baccio Bandinelli, inscribed Nicolaus Beatricius restituit et formis suis exc, the Annunciation, with the names of Michelangelo and Beatrici. The Adoration of the Magi, after Parmigiano, N. B. L. F, the Holy Family, with St. John, Jerom. Christ on the Mount of Olives, after Titian, marked N. B. F, the Crucifixion, with the Virgin, Magdalene, and St. John, with the Sun and Moon on each side, Mucianus Brixianus, inv. The Mater Dolorosa, after Michelangelo, N. B, the taking down from the Cross, after Circignani, marked B. Christ delivering the Souls from Purgatory, with the names of Raphael, the Ascension, after Raphael, with his cipher. The Conversion of St. Paul, Michelangelo, pinx. &c. marked N. B, St. Michael overcoming the Evil Spirit, after Raphael, marked N. B. L. The Virgin seated on a Throne, distributing Rosaries, inscribed Nicolaus Beatricius, the Cross worshipped all over the world, arched plate, marked N. B. F. and inscribed Crux illustris, &c. St. Jerome kneeling before a Crucifix, after Titian, marked N. B. L. F. St. Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary, relieving the distressed, after Mutiano. The Sacrifice of Iphigenia, on the altar is inscribed Iphigenia, it is marked N. B. L. F. Ganymede, after Michelangelo, inscribed Ganimedes juvenis, the Fall of Phaeton, after Michelangelo, retouched by Beatrici. Tityus devoured by a Vulture, after the same, Ant, silenus carried by Children, after the same, N. Beatrice, fec
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Francesco Scibec da Carpi
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Francesco Scibec, called Scibec da Carpi, was a 16th-century Italian furniture maker from Carpi near Modena. He worked for the French royal court amongst a group of artists now called the first school of Fontainebleau, Francesco arrived at the building of Fontainebleau for Francis I of France at the same time as his compatriot, Rosso Fiorentino in 1530. There he completed the panelling of the Gallerie François Ier and he also worked at the Château dAnet for Diane de Poitiers. In 1549 he was contracted to decorate boats for a pageant on the Seine for the entry of Henry II of France to Paris, Francesco also made furniture and panelling for private and ecclesiastical clients. In July 1552 he accepted as apprentice Bartholomew, the son of another Italian painter colleague at Fontainebleau, Francesco Pellegrini. In the two years from 1557 to 1559 he made furniture for the Louvre, for the Château and the Chapel in the woods of Vincennes, for Fontainebleau, he made a special picture frame for a map of Italy and other carved frames for the portraits of two ladies. In March 1537, he married Marguerite Samson, daughter of a French painter, Pierre Samson
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Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
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Juste de Juste
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Juste de Juste has been widely accepted as the author of seventeen etchings of naked or écorché male figures signed with a complicated monogram. He also worked as a stuccoist of the School of Fontainebleau under Rosso Fiorentino, Juste de Juste was born in Tours, and trained by his uncle Jean Juste, his father having died in 1519. He worked with Jean on the mausoleum of Louis XII of France at St-Denis, the year 1531 marked the beginning of the First School of Fontainebleau, where Juste de Juste spent most of the period 1531-37, before rejoining the family workshop. Juste de Juste left a set of small single etched figures. All the figures are elongated and muscular and many of their faces have anguished grimaces, over much of their bodies the musculature is so exposed they seem flayed, the etching technique is personal and direct, but probably not that of a practised printmaker. Like many Fontainbleau prints, the finish of the etching is poor, with many unintended marks and variations in the strength of lines. In the case of both there is some evidence that there were other members which have not survived. Only the larger set have the monogram, now agreed to read ETSVI, an alternative interpretation has been that they refer to an obscure engraver, Jean Viset, about whom little is known except that he worked at Fontainebleau in 1536. All the prints are rare - again like most School of Fontainebleau prints, the larger set is often mentioned in the context of works by Henri Matisse culminating in his The Dance in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. He was apparently living in Tours, where the family workshop continued
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Luca Penni
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Luca Penni was an Italian painter of the 16th century best known for his work in France as part of the First School of Fontainebleau. He and his painter brothers Gianfrancesco and Bartolommeo were born into a family of weavers and he seems to have trained under Raphael in Florence and Rome. In the late 1520s, Penni worked with his brother-in-law Perino del Vaga in Genoa, Luca Penni, Rosso Fiorentino and Francesco Primaticcio were summoned by Francis I of France to France. They gave his Palace of Fontainebleau a daring, delicate and sophisticated Italian Renaissance style. In about 1546 Luca may have left France in the company of Léon Davent, as a number of Davents prints dated 1546 or 1547 are based on designs by Penni, Davent made many etchings of designs by Penni, through the 1540s and early 1550s. Pennis work has its roots in the legacy of Raphael and the esthaetic of Fontainebleau, while his compositions often found their origins in Raphaels work, the lines are pure and simple. This was a legacy of the years he spent in Fontainebleau executing projects alongside Rosso, the evolution of his style paradoxically made him the inventor of French classicism derived from Italian mannerism. Battle of the Tupinamba, pen and black ink, brown and beige wash, retints in white gouache on beige paper,29 x 46.5 cm, Musée du Louvre. Queen before a king holding a skull, oil on wood, later transferred to canvas huile,102 x 74 cm, augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl, c. 1550, huile sur bois,85 x 103 cm, Musée du Louvre, lamentation of Christ, oil on wood,59 x 140 cm, Palais des beaux-arts de Lille. The Conversion of Saint Paul, pen and brown ink, brown wash, traces of stylus, retints in white gouache, beige washed paper, Paris, Musée du Louvre, département des Arts graphiques, inv. The Judgement of Paris, pen and brown ink, brown wash, retints in white gouache, traces of stylus, beige paper, Paris, Musée du Louvre, département des Arts graphiques. Battle in the palace of Priam, pen and brown ink, retints in white gouache, traces of stylus, brown paper, Paris, Musée du Louvre, département des Arts graphiques. The Trojan Horse being brought into Troy, pen and brown ink, beige wash, retints in white gouache, traces of stylus, beige paper, Paris, Musée du Louvre, département des Arts graphiques. Pietà, pen and brown ink, beige wash, on beige paper, Paris. Alcinous receiving Ulysses, pen and brown ink, brown wash, retints in white gouache, preparatory tracing in black chalk, beige paper, Paris, École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Mas. Banqueting scene, pen and brown ink, beige wash, beige washed paper, Paris, Musée du Louvre, département des Arts graphiques, inv. Venus embracing Cupid, oil on wood, later transferred to canvas, H.1,22, L.0,96 m, Bourges, Musée du Berry, inv
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French Wars of Religion
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Approximately 3,000,000 people perished as a result of violence, famine and disease in what is accounted as the second deadliest European religious war. Unlike all other wars at the time, the French wars retained their religious character without being confounded by dynastic considerations. At the conclusion of the conflict in 1598, Huguenots were granted rights and freedoms by the Edict of Nantes. The wars weakened the authority of the monarchy, already fragile under the rule of Francis II and then Charles IX, apart from previously mentioned names, the wars have been variously described as the Eight Wars of Religion, or simply the Wars of Religion. However, the Massacre of Vassy in 1562 is agreed to begin the French Wars of Religion, during this time, complex diplomatic negotiations and agreements of peace were followed by renewed conflict and power struggles. Humanism, until the late 1520s, served as a ground for the French Protestant Reformation. The spirit of the Renaissance interested Francis I and he encouraged the study of the classics by establishing royal professorships in Paris, equipping more people with the knowledge necessary to understand the classics. Francis I had no qualms with the religious order. Through the Concordat of Bologna, Pope Leo X increased the power of the king over the church, nomination of clergy depended upon the kings choice, in France, unlike in Germany, the nobles supported the policies and the status quo of their time. The establishment of the college and the spread of the printing press served the purposes of the Reformation. The printing press made mass production of inexpensive and fueled the spread of knowledge in all disciplines. Interest in the classics soared and literature was available to a wider audience. The accessibility coupled with romanticism for the knowledge from the past that built empires, precise language and eloquence were valued among scholars and true understanding of the classics meant studying them from the originals. Theological and religious thoughts were disseminated at an unprecedented pace, ideas about the Reformation were widespread in France by 1519. John Froben, a humanist printer, published a collection of Luther’s works, in one correspondence, he reported that 600 copies of such works were being shipped to France and Spain and were sold in Paris. The humanist perspective on understanding Scriptures had theological and ecclesiastical implications, studying Scriptures in the original flourished in the Renaissance period. This contrasted the heavy reliance of the church on the Vulgate - the Latin translation of the Bible. The Meaux Circle was formed by a group of humanists including Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples and Guillaume Briçonnet, bishop of Meaux, in the effort to reform preaching, the Meaux circle was joined by Vatable, a Hebraist and Guillaume Budé the classicist and librarian to the king
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Henry IV of France
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Henry IV, also known by the epithet Good King Henry, was King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first French monarch of the House of Bourbon, baptised as a Catholic but raised in the Protestant faith by his mother Jeanne dAlbret, Queen of Navarre, he inherited the throne of Navarre in 1572 on the death of his mother. As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the French Wars of Religion, barely escaping assassination in the St. Bartholomews Day massacre, and later led Protestant forces against the royal army. Henry, as Head of the House of Bourbon, was a direct descendant of Louis IX of France. Upon the death of his brother-in-law and distant cousin Henry III of France in 1589 and he initially kept the Protestant faith and had to fight against the Catholic League, which denied that he could wear Frances crown as a Protestant. To obtain mastery over his kingdom, after four years of stalemate, as a pragmatic politician, he displayed an unusual religious tolerance for the era. Notably, he promulgated the Edict of Nantes, which guaranteed religious liberties to Protestants and he was assassinated in 1610 by François Ravaillac, a fanatical Catholic, and was succeeded by his son Louis XIII. Considered a usurper by some Catholics and a traitor by some Protestants, an unpopular king immediately after his accession, Henrys popularity greatly improved after his death, in light of repeated victories over his enemies and his conversion to Catholicism. The Good King Henry was remembered for his geniality and his concern about the welfare of his subjects. He was celebrated in the popular song Vive le roi Henri, Henry was born in Pau, the capital of the joint Kingdom of Navarre with the sovereign principality of Béarn. His parents were Queen Joan III of Navarre and her consort, Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, although baptised as a Roman Catholic, Henry was raised as a Protestant by his mother, who had declared Calvinism the religion of Navarre. As a teenager, Henry joined the Huguenot forces in the French Wars of Religion, on 9 June 1572, upon his mothers death, he became King of Navarre. At Queen Joans death, it was arranged for Henry to marry Margaret of Valois, daughter of Henry II, the wedding took place in Paris on 18 August 1572 on the parvis of Notre Dame Cathedral. On 24 August, the Saint Bartholomews Day Massacre began in Paris, several thousand Protestants who had come to Paris for Henrys wedding were killed, as well as thousands more throughout the country in the days that followed. Henry narrowly escaped death thanks to the help of his wife and he was made to live at the court of France, but he escaped in early 1576. On 5 February of that year, he formally abjured Catholicism at Tours and he named his 16-year-old sister, Catherine de Bourbon, regent of Béarn. Catherine held the regency for nearly thirty years, Henry became heir presumptive to the French throne in 1584 upon the death of Francis, Duke of Anjou, brother and heir to the Catholic Henry III, who had succeeded Charles IX in 1574. Because Henry of Navarre was the senior agnatic descendant of King Louis IX, King Henry III had no choice
42.
Ambroise Dubois
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Ambroise Dubois was a Flemish-born French painter. Dubois was born in Antwerp and became a painter of the second School of Fontainebleau and his influences were Niccolò dellAbbate and Francesco Primaticcio. Dubois painted primarily portraits and mythological scenes, dubreuil was painter to Marie de Médicis in 1606, decorating the Queens Cabinet with episodes from Tancred and Clorinda
43.
Torquato Tasso
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He suffered from mental illness and died a few days before he was due to be crowned as the king of poets by the Pope. Until the beginning of the 20th century, Tasso remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe. Born in Sorrento, Torquato was the son of Bernardo Tasso, a nobleman of Bergamo and an epic and lyric poet of considerable fame in his day, and his wife Porzia de Rossi, a noblewoman from Naples. His father had for years been secretary in the service of Ferrante Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno. When the prince of Salerno came into collision with the Spanish government of Naples, being subsequently outlawed and deprived of his hereditary fiefs and he was proclaimed a rebel to the state, together with his son Torquato, and his patrimony was sequestered. These things happened during the boys childhood, in 1552 Torquato was living with his mother and his only sister Cornelia at Naples, pursuing his education under the Jesuits, who had recently opened a school there. The precocity of intellect and the fervour of the boy attracted general admiration. At the age of eight he was already famous, soon after this date he was allowed to join his father, who then resided in great poverty and without occupation in exile in Rome. News reached them in 1556 that Porzia Tasso had died suddenly and mysteriously at Naples and her husband was firmly convinced that she had been poisoned by her brother with the object of getting control over her property. As it subsequently happened, Porzias estate never descended to her son, Tassos father was a poet by predilection and a professional courtier. Therefore, when an opening at the court of Urbino was offered in 1557, the young Torquato, a handsome and brilliant lad, became the companion in sports and studies of Francesco Maria della Rovere, heir to the duke of Urbino. At Urbino a society of cultivated men pursued the aesthetic and literary studies which were then in vogue. Bernardo Tasso read cantos of his poem LAmadigi to the duchess and her ladies, or discussed the merits of Homer and Virgil, Trissino and Ariosto, with the dukes librarians and secretaries. Torquato grew up in an atmosphere of refined luxury and somewhat pedantic criticism, at Venice, where his father went to superintend the printing of his own epic, Amadigi, these influences continued. He found himself the pet and prodigy of a literary circle. But Bernardo had suffered in his own career so seriously from dependence on the Muses and the nobility, Torquato was sent to study law at Padua. Instead of applying himself to law, the young man bestowed all his attention upon philosophy, before the end of 1562, he had produced a twelve-canto epic poem called Rinaldo, which was meant to combine the regularity of the Virgilian with the attractions of the romantic epic. Nevertheless, its author was recognized as the most promising young poet of his time, the flattered father allowed the work to be printed, and, after a short period of study at Bologna, he consented to his sons entering the service of Cardinal Luigi dEste
44.
Peter Paul Rubens
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Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish/Netherlandish draughtsman and painter. He is widely considered as the most notable artist of Flemish Baroque art school, the catalogue of his works by Michael Jaffé lists 1,403 pieces, excluding numerous copies made in his workshop. His commissioned works were mostly history paintings, which included religious and mythological subjects and he painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house and he also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the royal entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not overly detailed and he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. For altarpieces he painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. Rubens was born in the city of Siegen to Jan Rubens and he was named in honour of Saint-Peter and Paul, because he was born on their solemnety. His father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule of the Spanish Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Jan Rubens became the adviser of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange. Following Jan Rubens imprisonment for the affair, Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577, the family returned to Cologne the next year. In 1589, two years after his fathers death, Rubens moved with his mother Maria Pypelincks to Antwerp, religion figured prominently in much of his work and Rubens later became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting. In Antwerp, Rubens received a Renaissance humanist education, studying Latin, by fourteen he began his artistic apprenticeship with Tobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the leading painters of the time, the late Mannerist artists Adam van Noort. Much of his earliest training involved copying earlier works, such as woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger. Rubens completed his education in 1598, at time he entered the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master. In 1600 Rubens travelled to Italy and he stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The colouring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an effect on Rubenss painting. With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601, there, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters
45.
Michelangelo Merisi
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Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1592 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, in scarcely a year or so’s sojourn in Naples, he rapidly established himself once more as the most prominent painter, exploiting high-ranking connections. It was not long before these connections gave him an opening to travel on in 1607 to Malta, governed by the Order of Knights Hospitallers, Caravaggio probably hoped that the Knights would provide a channel whereby he could obtain a pardon from the Papacy. Once more his talents made an instant impression, along with the support of noble patrons and his hopes dashed, he contrived to escape and flee once, which before the end of 1608 led to his cancellation from the rolls of the Order. He made for Syracuse in Sicily, where he was received as a guest by a friend from his Roman days, the painter’s face was disfigured and rumours started to circulate of his death. Various commentators have formulated opinions about his state from works supposedly executed at this period. In fact, Caravaggio’s end is shrouded in mystery, mystery that is rendered only denser by conflicting hypotheses, some speak of a natural death from a persistent fever, others of an assassination by emissaries of the Knights of Malta. The loss of the paintings put the deal and his future in doubt, there is evidence that dogged by a serious fever, he was tended by a local religious confraternity near Porto Ercole, then in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, but succumbed. His death was certified by them as taking place on 18 July 1610, if the story to this point is exact, it is likely he was buried in a paupers’ common grave. As to the place, though this continues to be contested. Famous while he lived, Caravaggio was forgotten almost immediately after his death, despite this, his influence on the new Baroque style that eventually emerged from the ruins of Mannerism was profound. The 20th-century art historian André Berne-Joffroy claimed, What begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite simply, modern painting. Caravaggio was born in Milan where his father, Fermo, was an administrator and architect-decorator to the Marchese of Caravaggio. His mother, Lucia Aratori, came from a family of the same district. In 1576 the family moved to Caravaggio to escape a plague which ravaged Milan, Caravaggios mother died in 1584, the same year he began his four-year apprenticeship to the Milanese painter Simone Peterzano, described in the contract of apprenticeship as a pupil of Titian. Following his initial training under Simone Peterzano, in 1592 Caravaggio left Milan for Rome, in flight after certain quarrels, in Rome, where there was a demand for paintings to fill the many huge new churches and palazzos being built at the time. It was also a period when the Church was searching for an alternative to Mannerism in religious art that was tasked to counter the threat of Protestantism. Caravaggios innovation was a radical naturalism that combined close observation with a dramatic, even theatrical
46.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
