1.
Windsor, Ontario
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Windsor is a city in Ontario and the southernmost city in Canada. It is located on the shore of the Detroit River, directly across the river from Detroit. Windsor is a contributor to Canadas automotive industry and has a storied history. Prior to European exploration and settlement, the Windsor area was inhabited by the First Nations, a French agricultural settlement was established at the site of Windsor in 1749. It is the oldest continually inhabited European-founded settlement in Canada west of Montreal, the area was first named la Petite Côte. Later it was called La Côte de Misère because of the sandy soils near LaSalle, Windsors French-Canadian heritage is reflected in French street names such as Ouellette, Pelissier, François, Pierre, Langlois, Marentette, and Lauzon. The current street system of Windsor reflects the Canadien method of land division. Today, the street name often indicates the name of the family that at one time farmed the land where the street is now located. The street system of outlying areas is consistent with the British system for granting land concessions, there is a significant French-speaking minority in Windsor and the surrounding area, particularly in the Lakeshore, Tecumseh and LaSalle areas. In 1794, after the American Revolution, the settlement of Sandwich was founded and it was later renamed Windsor, after the town in Berkshire, England. The Sandwich neighbourhood on Windsors west side is home to some of the oldest buildings in the city, including Mackenzie Hall, today, this building functions as a community centre. The oldest building in the city is the Duff-Baby House built in 1792 and it is owned by Ontario Heritage Trust and houses government offices. The François Baby House in downtown Windsor was built in 1812 and houses Windsors Community Museum, Windsor was the site of a battle during the Upper Canada Rebellion in 1838, and also served as a theatre for the Patriot War, later that year. Windsor was established as a village in 1854, then became a town in 1858, the Windsor Police Service was established on July 1,1867. A fire consumed much of Windsors downtown core on October 12,1871, Sandwich, Ford City and Walkerville were separate legal entities in their own right until 1935. They are now historic neighbourhoods of Windsor, Ford City was officially incorporated as a village in 1912, it became a town in 1915, and a city in 1929. Walkerville was incorporated as a town in 1890, Sandwich was established in 1817 as a town with no municipal status. It was incorporated as a town in 1858 and these three towns were annexed by Windsor in 1935
2.
Ontario
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Ontario, one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada, is located in east-central Canada. It is Canadas most populous province by a margin, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all Canadians. Ontario is fourth-largest in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and it is home to the nations capital city, Ottawa, and the nations most populous city, Toronto. There is only about 1 km of land made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border. Ontario is sometimes divided into two regions, Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario. The great majority of Ontarios population and arable land is located in the south, in contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and is heavily forested. The province is named after Lake Ontario, a thought to be derived from Ontarí, io, a Huron word meaning great lake, or possibly skanadario. Ontario has about 250,000 freshwater lakes, the province consists of three main geographical regions, The thinly populated Canadian Shield in the northwestern and central portions, which comprises over half the land area of Ontario. Although this area mostly does not support agriculture, it is rich in minerals and in part covered by the Central and Midwestern Canadian Shield forests, studded with lakes, Northern Ontario is subdivided into two sub-regions, Northwestern Ontario and Northeastern Ontario. The virtually unpopulated Hudson Bay Lowlands in the north and northeast, mainly swampy. Southern Ontario which is further sub-divided into four regions, Central Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Golden Horseshoe, the highest point is Ishpatina Ridge at 693 metres above sea level located in Temagami, Northeastern Ontario. In the south, elevations of over 500 m are surpassed near Collingwood, above the Blue Mountains in the Dundalk Highlands, the Carolinian forest zone covers most of the southwestern region of the province. A well-known geographic feature is Niagara Falls, part of the Niagara Escarpment, the Saint Lawrence Seaway allows navigation to and from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Thunder Bay in Northwestern Ontario. Northern Ontario occupies roughly 87 percent of the area of the province. Point Pelee is a peninsula of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario that is the southernmost extent of Canadas mainland, Pelee Island and Middle Island in Lake Erie extend slightly farther. All are south of 42°N – slightly farther south than the border of California. The climate of Ontario varies by season and location, the effects of these major air masses on temperature and precipitation depend mainly on latitude, proximity to major bodies of water and to a small extent, terrain relief. In general, most of Ontarios climate is classified as humid continental, Ontario has three main climatic regions
3.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
4.
Contemporary art
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Contemporary art is the art of today, produced by artists who are living in the twenty-first century. Contemporary art provides an opportunity to reflect on contemporary society and the relevant to ourselves. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that challenge traditional boundaries and defy easy definition. In vernacular English, modern and contemporary are synonyms, resulting in some conflation of the modern art. Some define contemporary art as art produced within our lifetime, recognizing that lifetimes, however, there is a recognition that this generic definition is subject to specialized limitations. The classification of art as a special type of art, rather than a general adjectival phrase. In London, the Contemporary Art Society was founded in 1910 by the critic Roger Fry and others, as a private society for buying works of art to place in public museums. A number of other institutions using the term were founded in the 1930s, such as in 1938 the Contemporary Art Society of Adelaide, Australia, particular points that have been seen as marking a change in art styles include the end of World War II and the 1960s. There has perhaps been a lack of natural break points since the 1960s, and definitions of what contemporary art in the 2010s vary. Art from the past 20 years is likely to be included, and definitions often include art going back to about 1970, the art of the late 20th and early 21st century. Many use the formulation Modern and Contemporary Art, which avoids this problem, smaller commercial galleries, magazines and other sources may use stricter definitions, perhaps restricting the contemporary to work from 2000 onwards. One of the many people have in approaching contemporary artwork is its diversity - diversity of material, form, subject matter. It is distinguished by the lack of a uniform organizing principle, ideology, or -ism that we so often see in other. Broadly speaking, we see Modernism as looking at modernist principals - the focus of the work is self-referential, likewise, Impressionism looks at our perception of a moment through light and color as opposed to attempts at stark realism. Contemporary art, on the hand, does not have one. Its view, instead, is refracted, prismatic, and multi-faceted, reflecting the diversity of the world today, in all of its complexities, contemporary art reflects life as we know it. It can be, therefore, contradictory, confusing, and open-ended, there are, however, a number of common themes that have appeared in contemporary works. Post-modern, post-structuralist, feminist, and Marxist theory have played important roles in the development of theories of art
5.
Sculpture
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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
6.
Elisabeth Frink
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Dame Elisabeth Jean Frink CH DBE RA was an English sculptor and printmaker. Her Times obituary noted the three themes in her work as the nature of Man, the horseness of horses. Born in Thurlow, Suffolk, Frink studied at the Guildford School of Art, under Willi Soukop and she was part of a postwar group of British sculptors, dubbed the Geometry of Fear school, that included Reg Butler, Bernard Meadows, Kenneth Armitage and Eduardo Paolozzi. Frink’s subject matter included men, birds, dogs, horses and religious motifs, bird, one of a number of bird sculptures, and her first successful pieces with its alert, menacing stance, characterizes her early work. Although she made drawings and prints, she is best known for her bronze outdoor sculpture. This is created by her adding plaster to an armature, which she then worked back into with a chisel and this process contradicts the very essence of modeling form established in the modeling tradition and defined by Rodins handling of clay. In the 1960s Frink’s continuing fascination with the form was evident in a series of falling figures. While living in France from 1967 to 1970, she began a series of threatening, monumental male heads, on returning to England, she focused on the male nude, barrel-chested, with mask-like features, attenuated limbs and a pitted surface, for example Running Man. Frink’s sculpture, and her lithographs and etchings created as book illustrations, drew on archetypes expressing masculine strength, struggle, the 1980s held capstones for Frinks career. In 1982, a new publishing firm proposed to produce a Catalogue Raisonné of all of her works to date, and the Royal Academy planned a retrospective of her lifes work. The date of the retrospective, originally to be held in 1986, was moved forward a year due to space demands at the gallery, causing Frink some headaches due to her busy commissioned work schedule. Frink kept up this pace of sculpting and exhibiting until early 1991. However, short weeks later Frink was again creating sculptures and preparing for solo exhibitions, in September, she underwent a second surgery. Again, Frink did not let this hold her back, proceeding with a trip for exhibitions to New Orleans, Louisiana. The exhibitions were a success, but Frinks health was clearly deteriorating, despite this, she was working on a colossal statue, Risen Christ, for Liverpool Cathedral. This sculpture would prove to be her last, just one week after its installation, Frink died from cancer on 18 April 1993, aged 62, in Blandford Forum and her husband had predeceased her by only a few months. Warhorse and Walking Madonna may be seen in the garden at Chatsworth House, other work is at the Jerwood Sculpture Park at Ragley Hall. Uniquely in England, Desert Quartet, Frinks penultimate sculpture, was given Grade II* listing in 2007, less than 30 years from its creation by the Department for Culture, Media and it may be seen opposite Liverpool Gardens in Worthing
