1.
John Dalton
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John Dalton FRS was an English chemist, physicist, and meteorologist. He is best known for his work in the development of modern atomic theory and his research into colour blindness. John Dalton was born into a Quaker family in Eaglesfield, near Cockermouth and he received his early education from his father and from Quaker John Fletcher, who ran a private school in the nearby village of Pardshaw Hall. With his family too poor to support him for long, he began to earn his living at the age of ten in the service of a wealthy local Quaker, Elihu Robinson. It is said he began teaching at a school at age 12. He joined his older brother Jonathan at age 15 in running a Quaker school in Kendal, around age 23 Dalton may have considered studying law or medicine, but his relatives did not encourage him, perhaps because being a Dissenter, he was barred from attending English universities. He acquired much scientific knowledge from informal instruction by John Gough, at age 27 he was appointed teacher of mathematics and natural philosophy at the New College in Manchester, a dissenting academy. He remained there until age 34, when the colleges worsening financial situation led him to resign his post and begin a new career as a tutor for mathematics. During his years in Kendal, Dalton contributed solutions of problems and questions on subjects to The Ladies Diary. In 1787 at age 21 he began to keep a diary in which, during the succeeding 57 years. He also rediscovered George Hadleys theory of atmospheric circulation around this time, Daltons first publication was Meteorological Observations and Essays at age 27 in 1793, which contained the seeds of several of his later discoveries. However, in spite of the originality of his treatment, little attention was paid to them by other scholars, a second work by Dalton, Elements of English Grammar, was published at age 35 in 1801. In fact, a shortage of colour perception in people had not even been formally described or officially noticed until Dalton wrote about his own. Since both he and his brother were colour blind, he recognized that this condition must be hereditary, examination of his preserved eyeball in 1995 demonstrated that Dalton actually had a less common kind of colour blindness, deuteroanopia, in which medium wavelength sensitive cones are missing. The altitude achieved was estimated using a barometer and this meant that, until the Ordnance Survey started publishing their maps for the Lake District in the 1860s, Dalton was one of the few sources of such information. Dalton was often accompanied by Jonathan Otley, who was one of the few other authorities on the heights of the Lake District mountains and he became both an assistant and a friend. These four essays were presented between 2 and 30 October 1801 and published in the Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester in 1802. It seems, therefore, that general laws respecting the absolute quantity and he thus enunciated Gay-Lussacs law, published in 1802 at age 36 by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
2.
Royal Academy of Arts
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The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded through an act of King George III on 10 December 1768 with a mission to promote the arts of design in Britain through education and exhibition. Supporters wanted to foster a national school of art and to encourage appreciation, fashionable taste in 18th-century Britain was based on continental and traditional art forms, providing contemporary British artists little opportunity to sell their works. From 1746 the Foundling Hospital, through the efforts of William Hogarth, the success of this venture led to the formation of the Society of Artists of Great Britain and the Free Society of Artists. Both these groups were primarily exhibiting societies, their success was marred by internal factions among the artists. The combined vision of education and exhibition to establish a school of art set the Royal Academy apart from the other exhibiting societies. It provided the foundation upon which the Royal Academy came to dominate the art scene of the 18th and 19th centuries, supplanting the earlier art societies. Sir William Chambers, a prominent architect, used his connections with George III to gain royal patronage and financial support of the Academy, the painter Joshua Reynolds was made its first president. Francis Milner Newton was elected the first secretary, a post he held for two decades until his resignation in 1788, the instrument of foundation, signed by George III on 10 December 1768, named 34 founder members and allowed for a total membership of 40. William Hoare and Johann Zoffany were added to this list later by the King and are known as nominated members, among the founder members were two women, a father and daughter, and two sets of brothers. The Royal Academy was initially housed in cramped quarters in Pall Mall, although in 1771 it was given temporary accommodation for its library and schools in Old Somerset House, then a royal palace. In 1780 it was installed in purpose-built apartments in the first completed wing of New Somerset House, located in the Strand and designed by Chambers, the Academy moved in 1837 to Trafalgar Square, where it occupied the east wing of the recently completed National Gallery. These premises soon proved too small to house both institutions, in 1868,100 years after the Academys foundation, it moved to Burlington House, Piccadilly, where it remains. Burlington House is owned by the British Government, and used rent-free by the Royal Academy, the first Royal Academy exhibition of contemporary art, open to all artists, opened on 25 April 1769 and ran until 27 May 1769. 136 works of art were shown and this exhibition, now known as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, has been staged annually without interruption to the present day. In 1870 the Academy expanded its programme to include a temporary annual loan exhibition of Old Masters. The range and frequency of these exhibitions have grown enormously since that time. Britains first public lectures on art were staged by the Royal Academy, led by Reynolds, the first president, a program included lectures by Dr. William Hunter, John Flaxman, James Barry, Sir John Soane, and J. M. W. Turner
3.
Portrait painting
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See Portrait for more about the general topic of portraits. Portrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict a human subject, the term portrait painting can also describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists may create their work by commission, for public and private persons, portraits are often important state and family records, as well as remembrances. Historically, portrait paintings have primarily memorialized the rich and powerful, over time, however, it became more common for middle-class patrons to commission portraits of their families and colleagues. Today, portrait paintings are commissioned by governments, corporations, groups, clubs. In addition to painting, portraits can also be made in other such as etching, lithography, photography, video. A well-executed portrait is expected to show the essence of the subject or a flattering representation. As Aristotle stated, The aim of Art is to present not the appearance of things. In most cases, this results in a serious, closed lip stare, or as Charles Dickens put it, there are only two styles of portrait painting, the serious and the smirk. Even given these limitations, a range of subtle emotions is possible from quiet menace to gentle contentment. However, with the mouth relatively neutral, much of the facial expression needs to be created through the eyes, as author and artist Gordon C. Aymar states, the eyes are the place one looks for the most complete, reliable, and the eyebrows can register, almost single-handedly, wonder, pity, fright, pain, cynicism, concentration, wistfulness, displeasure, and expectation, in infinite variations and combinations. Portrait painting can depict the full length, half length, head and shoulders, or ‘head’, as well as in profile, three-quarter view, or full face, with varying directions of light. Occasionally, artists have created portraits with multiple views, as with Anthony van Dycks Triple Portrait of Charles I, there are even a few portraits where the front of the subject is not visible at all. Another example of the view in portraiture, in this case photography, can be found here. Among the other variables, the subject can be clothed or nude, indoors or out, standing, seated, reclining. Portrait paintings can be of individuals, couples, parents and children, families and they can be created in various media including oils, watercolor, pen and ink, pencil, charcoal, pastel, and mixed media. Artists may employ a wide-ranging palette of colors, as with Pierre-Auguste Renoirs Mme, charpentier and her children,1878 or restrict themselves to mostly white or black, as with Gilbert Stuarts Portrait of George Washington
4.
Painting
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Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture, composition, narration, or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive, Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature. A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by motifs and ideas. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action, the term painting is also used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders. What enables painting is the perception and representation of intensity, every point in space has different intensity, which can be represented in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. In practice, painters can articulate shapes by juxtaposing surfaces of different intensity, thus, the basic means of painting are distinct from ideological means, such as geometrical figures, various points of view and organization, and symbols. In technical drawing, thickness of line is ideal, demarcating ideal outlines of an object within a perceptual frame different from the one used by painters. Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music, color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, and Newton, have written their own color theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent, the word red, for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic, painters deal practically with pigments, so blue for a painter can be any of the blues, phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, and so on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music is analogous to light in painting, shades to dynamics and these elements do not necessarily form a melody of themselves, rather, they can add different contexts to it. Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, collage, some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer, there is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required, rhythm is important in painting as it is in music
5.
Dudley
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Dudley is a large town in the West Midlands of England,6 miles south-east of Wolverhampton and 10.5 miles north-west of Birmingham. The town is the centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley. The Metropolitan Borough, which includes the towns of Stourbridge and Halesowen, had a population of 312,900, Dudley is sometimes called the capital of the Black Country. Tourist attractions include Dudley Zoo, Dudley Castle, the Black Country Living Museum, working iron and mining for coal was in practice as early as the 13th century. The first mention of Dudleys status as a borough dates from the mid-13th century, an inquisition after his death further established the value and importance of the borough, with mentions to the towns growing coal industry. Following Dudleys death, the returned to the Sutton family. In 1605, conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot fled to Holbeche House in nearby Wall Heath and it is also from around this time that the oldest excavated condoms, found in the remains of Dudley Castle, were believed to have originated. Dudley had become an incredibly impoverished place during the 16th and 17th centuries, abraham Darby was descended from Dud Dudleys sister, Jane, and was the first person to produce iron commercially using coke instead of charcoal at his works in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire in 1709. Abraham Darby was born near Wrens Nest Hill near the town of Dudley, Dud Dudleys discovery, together with improvements to the local road network and the construction of the Dudley Canal, made Dudley into an important industrial and commercial centre. Dudleys population grew dramatically during the 18th and 19th centuries because of the increase in industry, with the main industries including coal, other industries included iron, steel, engineering, metallurgy, glass cutting, textiles and leatherworking. Following the Reform Act of 1832, Dudley returned one Member of Parliament, the town was re-incorporated as a Municipal Borough in 1865, later becoming a County Borough in 1889. Dudley Castle, which had fallen into ruin following a fire in 1750, was converted into a zoo in 1937 by the Earl of Dudley, a reported 250,000 people attempted to visit the site upon the first day of opening. In World War II, Dudley was bombed on several occasions, on 12 August 1941, four people were killed when another landmine was dropped in nearby Birch Crescent. These were the fatal air raids on Dudley. Most of this land had been held by the Lords of Dudley, in 1974, further reorganization led to the creation of the present-day metropolitan borough, which included the nearby towns of Stourbridge and Halesowen. The declining industry in Dudley has given rise to high unemployment, Dudley is the administrative centre of the Dudley Metropolitan Borough, and is governed by the Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council. The metropolitan borough, which includes the towns of Stourbridge, Halesowen. For many years the town formed part of an exclave of the county of Worcestershire, despite the more recent changes in county boundaries, the town and borough still remain part of the Anglican Diocese of Worcester
6.
Worcestershire
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Worcestershire is a county in the West Midlands of England. Between 1974 and 1998, it was merged with the county of Herefordshire as Hereford. The cathedral city of Worcester is the largest settlement and county town, other towns in the county include Redditch, Bromsgrove, Stourport-on-Severn, Droitwich, Evesham, Kidderminster, and Malvern. The north-east of Worcestershire includes part of the industrial West Midlands, the county is divided into six administrive districts, Worcester, Redditch, Wychavon, Malvern Hills, Wyre Forest, and Bromsgrove. The county borders Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, West Midlands, Warwickshire, to the west, the county is bordered by the Malvern Hills and the spa town of Malvern. The south of the county is bordered by Gloucestershire and the edge of the Cotswolds. Two major rivers flow through the county, the Severn and the Avon, Worcestershire was the heartland of the early English kingdom of the Hwicce. It was absorbed by the Kingdom of Mercia during the 7th century and it was a separate ealdormanship briefly in the 10th century before forming part of the Earldom of Mercia in the 11th century. In the years leading up to the Norman conquest, the Church, supported by the cathedral, Evesham Abbey, Pershore Abbey, Malvern Priory, and other religious houses, increasingly dominated the county. The last known Anglo-Saxon sheriff of the county was Cyneweard of Laughern, on 4 August 1265, Simon de Montfort was killed in the Battle of Evesham in Worcestershire. In 1642, the Battle of Powick Bridge was the first major skirmish of the English Civil War, during the Middle Ages, much of the countys economy was based on the wool trade. Many areas of its forests, such as Feckenham Forest, Horewell Forest. Droitwich Spa, situated on large deposits of salt, was a centre of production from Roman times. These old industries have declined, to be replaced by other. The county is home to the worlds oldest continually published newspaper. Malvern was one of the centres of the 19th century rise in English spa towns due to Malvern water being believed to be very pure, containing nothing at all. The 2011 census found the population of Worcestershire to be 566,169, while this change is in line with the nationwide trend of White British peoples share of the population shrinking, Worcestershire is still much more ethnically homogeneous than the national average. In 2011 England as a whole was 79. 8% White British, the most notable were Dudley, Evenlode, and the area around Shipston-on-Stour
7.
Birmingham
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Birmingham is a major city and metropolitan borough of West Midlands, England lying on the River Rea, a small river that runs through Birmingham. It is the largest and most populous British city outside London, the city is in the West Midlands Built-up Area, the third most populous urban area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2,440,986 at the 2011 census. Birminghams metropolitan area is the second most populous in the UK with a population of 3.8 million and this also makes Birmingham the 8th most populous metropolitan area in Europe. By 1791 it was being hailed as the first manufacturing town in the world, perhaps the most important invention in British history, the industrial steam engine, was invented in Birmingham. From the summer of 1940 to the spring of 1943, Birmingham was bombed heavily by the German Luftwaffe in what is known as the Birmingham Blitz. The damage done to the infrastructure, in addition to a deliberate policy of demolition and new building by planners, led to extensive demolition. Today Birminghams economy is dominated by the service sector and its metropolitan economy is the second largest in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $121. 1bn, and its six universities make it the largest centre of higher education in the country outside London. Birmingham is the fourth-most visited city in the UK by foreign visitors, Birminghams sporting heritage can be felt worldwide, with the concept of the Football League and lawn tennis both originating from the city. Its most successful football club Aston Villa has won seven league titles, people from Birmingham are called Brummies, a term derived from the citys nickname of Brum. This originates from the citys name, Brummagem, which may in turn have been derived from one of the citys earlier names. There is a distinctive Brummie accent and dialect, Birminghams early history is that of a remote and marginal area. The main centres of population, power and wealth in the pre-industrial English Midlands lay in the fertile and accessible river valleys of the Trent, the Severn and the Avon. The area of modern Birmingham lay in between, on the upland Birmingham Plateau and within the wooded and sparsely populated Forest of Arden. Birmingham as a settlement dates from the Anglo-Saxon era, within a century of the charter Birmingham had grown into a prosperous urban centre of merchants and craftsmen. By 1327 it was the third-largest town in Warwickshire, a position it would retain for the next 200 years, by 1700 Birminghams population had increased fifteenfold and the town was the fifth-largest in England and Wales. The importance of the manufacture of goods to Birminghams economy was recognised as early as 1538. Equally significant was the emerging role as a centre for the iron merchants who organised finance, supplied raw materials. The 18th century saw this tradition of free-thinking and collaboration blossom into the phenomenon now known as the Midlands Enlightenment
8.
Francis Eginton
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Francis Eginton, was an English glass painter. He painted windows for cathedrals, churches, chapels and stately homes, etc. around the country, leaving 50 large works altogether and his masterpiece is The Conversion of St. Paul, for the east window of St Pauls Church, Birmingham. He also developed a method for reproducing paintings mechanically, Eginton was the grandson of the rector of Eckington, Worcestershire, and was trained as an enameller at Bilston. As a young man he was employed by Matthew Boulton at the Soho Manufactory, in 1764 Eginton was employed as a decorator of japanned wares, but also did much work in modelling. Eginton perfected the method and applied it to the production of coloured copies of paintings, more plates than one were required for each picture, and after leaving the printing-press Eginton finished them by hand. They were copied from the works of Philip James de Loutherbourg, Angelica Kauffman and other artists, the largest were 40 inches by 50. The matter was settled by a series of pamphlets written by Boultons grandson, M. P. W. Boulton, in 1863-5. The picture branch of Boultons business was discontinued as unprofitable, the loss on this, the partnership between Eginton and Boulton was dissolved. Lord Dartmouth proposed to grant Eginton a government pension of £20 a year for his work on the copying process, but Boulton raised objections. For the next year or two Eginton appears to have continued to work at Soho, and to have begun in 1781 to stain, in 1784 he left Soho and set up in business for himself at Prospect Hill House, which stood just opposite Soho. Before Eginton the art of glass-painting had fallen into complete disuse and he revived it and turned out a long series of works in stained glass from his Birmingham factory. His first work of consequence was the arms of the knights of the Garter for two Gothic windows in the stalls in St. and many windows, for which he was paid £12,000. Much of his work was for export, and some of his best work ended up in Amsterdam, egintons works were, in fact, transparencies on glass. He was obliged to render opaque a large portion of his glass, egintons showroom was visited by all distinguished visitors to Birmingham. Lord Nelson, accompanied by Sir William and Lady Hamilton called there on 29 August 1802, Eginton died on 26 March 1805, and was buried in Old Handsworth churchyard. His daughter married Henry Wyatt, the painter, his son, William Raphael Eginton, succeeded to his fathers business and his brother, John Eginton, was a noted stipple engraver. His nephew, also called Francis Eginton, was also a notable engraver and this article incorporates text from the article Eginton, Francis in A biographical history of the fine arts by Shearjashub Spooner, an 1873 publication now in the public domain
9.
Benjamin West
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Benjamin West PRA was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence and the Seven Years War. He was the president of the Royal Academy in London. He was offered a knighthood by the British Crown, but declined it and he said that Art is the representation of human beauty, ideally perfect in design, graceful and noble in attitude. West was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, in a house that is now in the borough of Swarthmore on the campus of Swarthmore College, as the child of an innkeeper. The family later moved to Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, where his father was the proprietor of the Square Tavern, Benjamin West was an autodidact, while excelling at the arts, he had little education and, even when president of the Royal Academy, could scarcely spell. From 1746 to 1759, West worked in Pennsylvania, mostly painting portraits, while West was in Lancaster in 1756, his patron, a gunsmith named William Henry, encouraged him to paint a Death of Socrates based on an engraving in Charles Rollins Ancient History. His resulting composition, which differs from the source, has been called the most ambitious. During this time West met John Wollaston, a painter who had immigrated from London. West was a friend of Benjamin Franklin, whose portrait he painted. Franklin was the godfather of Wests second son, Benjamin, in common with many artists architects and lovers of the fine arts at that time he conducted a Grand Tour. West expanded his repertoire by copying works of Italian painters such as Titian, in Rome he met a number of international neo-classical artists including German-born Anton Rafael Mengs, Scottish Gavin Hamilton, and Austrian Angelica Kauffman. In August 1763, West arrived in England, on what he intended as a visit on his way back to America. In fact, he never returned to America and he stayed for a month at Bath with William Allen, who was also in the country, and visited his half-brother Thomas West at Reading at the urging of his father. In London he was introduced to Richard Wilson and his student Joshua Reynolds and he moved into a house in Bedford Street, Covent Garden. In 1765 he married Elizabeth Shewell, an American to whom he engaged in Philadelphia. All three prelates commissioned work from him, in 1766 West proposed a scheme to decorate St Pauls Cathedral with paintings. It was rejected by the Bishop of London, but his idea of painting an altarpiece for St Stephen Walbrook was accepted, at around this time he also received acclaim for his classical subjects, such as Orestes and Pylades and The Continence of Scipio. Benjamin West was known in England as the American Raphael and his Raphaelesque painting of Archangel Michael Binding the Devil is in the collection of Trinity College, Cambridge
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Phillips, Thomas". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
