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Annual Transgender festival @ Koovagam, Viluppuram, Tamilnadu, April 2013
Of the many bizarre and strange customs and festivals observed in India, the Koothandavar festival of Koovagam is one among them. The very basis of the festival, its associated rituals and the people involved make it the weirdest possible celebration on earth. A celebration of love and death, of sacrifice and life.
The small hamlet of Koovagam is present in the Vizhuppuram district of Tamil Nadu, making it virtually a ‘nothing’. However, once a year this tiny village turns into the biggest camp for transgenders from all over the country. They gather in flocks to take part in the rituals of the festival which lasts for 18 days, culminating on chitra pournami (april-may).
Story behind this
A festival which has its base rooted into the depths of the Mahabharatha war, Krishna’s cunningness and the noble nature of a very valiant young man.
War between the Pandavas and Kauravas was imminent. There was no way that a war could be averted, thus saving millions of innocent human lives. Krishna, as the protector of the universe was worried about the outcome of the war. It was true that he could intervene with his divine powers and avert catastrophe, but humans are required to decide their own fates. That’s what the vedas and shastras say. But still, he wanted the Pandavas to win the war, for he was on their side and their doings were just and moral. This would be the ultimate “Good wins over Bad” story if it went along as he desired.
Having no choice, he goes to Sahadeva who is blessed with the talent of accurately forecasting the future and reading horoscopes, Sahadeva rolled his Shozhi (shells used to help in prediction) and after several calculations looked up and said “To attain victory in the upcoming war, you need to sacrifice a man filled with all the good qualities of Valor, strength, bravery, beauty and such, to the goddess of war, Kali. He who first performs this sacrifice will gain the blessings of Kali and win the war”,
All along his way back his mind was filled with a single thought, “Is there anyone… Anyone else, other than Arjuna who can match the requirements of sacrifice? Anyone at all?” He pleaded, only to be met by a stunning silence. Krishna’s heart shattered at the thought of losing a dear friend. He felt light headed and started to sway with dizziness, when a voice cut through his haziness.
“Am I eligible to be sacrificed?” the voice asked. Looking for the source of the voice, Krishna’s eyes land on a very handsome man, dressed as a warrior and bearing resemblances to Arjuna. “Who are you, may I know?” questioned Krishna, as hope revived in his heart.
“I am Aravaan, the son of Arjuna, born to the Naaga princess Chithrangadha, through an illicit wedlock. I have come here to help bring victory to my father and his brothers. And if I can indeed help them win by sacrificing myself, then I am ready to die.” he proclaimed.
Krishna is flooded with relief. Using his divine powers, he comes to know that Aravaan is indeed a warrior par excellence, full of good qualities and excellent character. “He would make the perfect sacrifice to Kali”, Krishna thought and he beckoned Aravaan to come with him. He introduced Aravaan to the Pandavas including to Arjuna, his father (what weirdness!!!) and praised the sacrificial qualities of Aravaan. “So you will be sacrificed to the Goddess at the dawn of war, tomorrow. Purify yourself mentally and physically and prepare for the day. Long live your sacrifice”, Krishna told Aravaan and turned to leave.
“One moment my lord, I have but a few wishes to be granted before I die. Will you grant them?” Aravaan asked Krishna. “Why don’t you try me?” Krishna winked mischievously at Aravaan.” My lord”, began Aravaan,” I have had the good fortune to enjoy much in life, but before I die, I would like to enjoy the heat of a woman. I wish to die a married man, my lord.” Krishna is stunned. Which woman would marry a man who is going to the sacrificial altar the very next day? Probably none. No woman is crazy to throw her life away.”We will manage that”, he assured Aravaan, “Anything else?”.”Yes my lord, I would like to witness the entire war unfold, in my physical body and I would also like to fight on the Pandava side for a minimum of three weeks. Is that agreeable?”
It was here that the jealousy of Krishna kicked in. He knew that Aravaan was an excellent warrior and if he was allowed to fight there would be no need of any of the Pandavas or Krishna himself. “ParthaPuthra, what is ‘three weeks’ to a man like you? You can probably crush the entire enemy forces in three and a two third minutes. You will be able to fight on the Pandava side for those three and a two third minutes.” Aravaan agreed, charmed by Krishna’s flattery and speech. “If that is all, you can follow me to meet your bride, who will be your wife tonight and your widow in some days.” Krishna commanded.
Aravaan followed Krishna to the interiors of the palace. There, in the presence of the Pandavas and a few close friends, Krishna did the unbelievable. He transformed himself into Mohini, a form so beautiful that even Shiva had fallen for it, and in the presence of the elders, married Aravaan. That night Aravaan got his first wish fulfilled. Mohini seduced him with all her sexuality. All through the night, Aravaan was confused if he was with a man or woman. The smell of butter and milk reminded him of Krishna, but at the same time he couldn’t come out of Mohini’s clutches. The night passed and the day of the war dawned.
Aravaan was taken to the battle field and was made to stand at the center. There he tore off his skin from his arms and offered them to Kali. Kali, ever thirsty for blood, pounced on it and gave her blessings to Pandavas. The war began. Over the course of the 18 days, Aravaan kept Kali satisfied, stripping pieces from his body and offering it to her. On the final day when his allotted 3 and a two-third minutes of time came up, he realised that he had been tricked. He just had his head and his skeleton intact. A fat lot of use they would come to.
Conetemplating, he assumed his Vishwaroopa form and with his head as a large stone, he rolled over the enemy forces killing millions and badly hurting himself. The war was over. The Pandavas had won and the cause for it all, Aravaan, was lying, all alone on the Kurukshetra field. During his final moments on earth, when his life was ebbing away, he heard the high pitched wail of a woman. Turning towards the source of the wail, he sees Krishna, as Mohini, beating her breasts and wailing, the very picture of a widowed woman grieving her husband. With that final sight, his spirit soared heaven-wards and joined the other immortal heroes in warrior heavens, forever shining upon the brave warriors of yore. Aravaan had passed on, a happy man.
This chapter in the Mahabharatha forms the central theme of the 18 day festival at Koovagam. The small shrine at Koovagam is dedicated to none other than Aravaan himself and he is worshipped as Koothandavar. The 18 day festival celebrates the final days of Aravaan’s life, right up to his brave sacrifice on the 18th day. The highlight of the festival happens to be the marriage of Aravaan. The transgenders who gather here are the self-proclaimed brides of Aravaan. They claim themselves to be incarnations of Krishna, who was a man trapped inside a woman’s body, when he seduced Aravaan, just like the transgenders themselves. The first 15 days of the festival pass in dancing, singing and merrymaking, the transgenders putting up colourful and lively performances. All through the 18 days, a gigantic head of Aravaan is made and painted with the greatest care within the temple precincts
On the 17th day, the priest does special poojas to the idol of Aravaan and bringing upon the power of Aravaan on himself, he ties the mangalsutra (the sacred marital thread) around the neck of all the transgenders present there. They are now the wives of Aravaan, just for the night. A gala feast is organised which is followed by a night full of merrymaking, laughter and dance. The gigantic head of Aravaan is mounted on a chariot and taken around the village.
At the dawn of the 18th day, the air is ripped by sharp wails, as Aravaan is beheaded, widowing all his one-day-old wives. Following the traditions, the widows of Aravaan rip the Mangalsutraa from their necks, tear flowers out of their hair, throw away ornaments, and remove all cosmetics from their faces, wailing loudly, beating their chests, just like Krishna mourned for Aravaan long, long ago. They did a holy dip and wear a white saree (widow costume). And till that day arrives, they have to rely on the grace of Aravaan to take them through the rough times to come.
ECHO Brickell is a modern, residential condo tower spanning 57 stories and offering 171 luxury condo residences. ECHO Brickell condo residences boast SubZero and Wolf appliances, a highly-innovative Apple® Home Technology system, advance lighting system and oversized terraces with spectacular views of the Miami skyline and Biscayne Bay. Located in the heart of Brickell, ECHO Brickell offers residents opulent living with the ease of extraordinary convenience.
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Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_Brickell
www.emporis.com/buildings/1211315/echo-brickell-miami-fl-usa
I attended the "Antique Flywheel Engine & Tractor Show" sponsored by the "Florida Flywheeler's Antique Engine Club" located at 7000 Avon Park Cutoff Road, Fort Mead, FL 33841 on Friday February 21, 2020.
This Photograph shows an Associated Line Flywheel Engine at the Antique Flywheel and Tractor Show, Fort Meade, Florida.
Several other shows/exhibitions were as follows: Functioning Sawmill Demonstrations, Running 1914 400 HP Snow Making Machine Demonstration, Antique Construction Equipment Demonstrations, Model-T Put-Together Demonstration, Daily Antique Tractor Pulls, Kids Pedal Tractor Pulls on Friday & Saturday, Daily Antique Car Parade, Daily Antique Tractor Parade, Florida Flywheeler Antique Engine Club Gift Shop Opened, Huge Flea Market & the Antique Village (was opened) to Wander Through.
This Place is HUGE ! - - One of the attendants told me it is approx 480 ACRES !
Tomorrow is a very busy day for me, so I won't be posting any photos - ha, did I hear a multitude of sighs of relief? About another 8 photos and I should be finished with Day 3 of my trip to Pt Pelee (Ontario) and Tadoussac (Quebec) in May 2018.
The DeLaurier Homestead and Trail was such a delight to visit in Point Pelee. I was in seventh heaven, photographing this beautiful old house and the nearby barn. The photo colours vary mainly because I used two different cameras.
"DeLaurier House is approached along a boardwalk at the western edge of the marsh lands at Point Pelee National Park. It is a two-storey, gable-roofed structure, which incorporates two attached log houses. The dwelling is clad in board and batten siding and the shingled roof exhibits two roof pitches with one brick chimney. Windows and doors are asymmetrically arranged on the walls of the house. The designation is confined to the footprint of the building.
DeLaurier House is a Recognized Federal Heritage Building because of its historical associations, and its architectural and environmental value.
DeLaurier House is associated with the early settlement of the Point Pelee area. It illustrates the life and times of a small French-Canadian community outside Québec and the agricultural activity on Point Pelee between 1850 and 1966. The reclamation of marshland led to Point Pelee becoming one of Canada’s finest agricultural areas in the latter half of the 19th century. The house is also associated with its builder, Oliver DeLaurier, and with his descendants. The house was used as a neighbourhood tavern for local parties and for community dances. In addition, the house is the oldest remaining structure and illustrates the development of export-oriented farming at Point Pelee during the late 19th century. It is now the interpretive center for the Point Pelee National Park.
DeLaurier House is valued for its good aesthetic and functional design. The integration of the two, simple log houses shows Olivier DeLaurier’s resourcefulness despite limited income and construction experience. The interior also illustrates the building’s evolutionary nature, having been modified for use by two families in the early 1900s and later renovated to accommodate the interpretive programs of the park. Notable for its craftsmanship, the dwelling was clad in board and batten siding and finished with a shingle roof, in order to present a uniform appearance and to demonstrate the DeLaurier’s improved economic and social status in the community."
Hair Ice, associated with the fungus Exidiopsis effusa, on the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), East Sussex England
Focus Stack details, 10 image files, f5.6, iso100,
The associated video with this picture series is Our Trip to Crete on YouTube.
This part of our adventures on our Grand Tour of Europe is in episode four of the Take Flight with Scott video series on YouTube. Please join us there for even more content from this trip. Part four is our time on Crete, Greece with our teen nieces Madeline and Emily, including a trip to the ruins in Ancient Aptera, and a visit to the freshwater flowing through Glyka Nera Beach.
Also, you can follow my personal ZiffedTraveler Instagram or the TakeFlight with Scott Instagram pages for more content and news. We are on Facebook, too.
I’ve been speaking out about the toxic culture in Yosemite National Park for years. For those of us that do expose the truth; we continue to be harassed at work by our coworkers, in our residence by our neighbors and the minute we step out our doors by every low life they allow to work and live here.
Please take a moment to read the article in the link, which was released by the Associated Press on 9-22-2016.
I will not be bullied, harassed and intimidated into submission. We need change….
•The truth about Yosemite: www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Sexual-Harassment-Common-in...
Thank you for visiting my photostream.
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth | Archiref
Architect: Tadao Ando Architects & Associates
Fort Worth, Texas, US
The Mount Elliott Mining Complex is an aggregation of the remnants of copper mining and smelting operations from the early 20th century and the associated former mining township of Selwyn. The earliest copper mining at Mount Elliott was in 1906 with smelting operations commencing shortly after. Significant upgrades to the mining and smelting operations occurred under the management of W.R. Corbould during 1909 - 1910. Following these upgrades and increases in production, the Selwyn Township grew quickly and had 1500 residents by 1918. The Mount Elliott Company took over other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s, including the Mount Cuthbert and Kuridala smelters. Mount Elliott operations were taken over by Mount Isa Mines in 1943 to ensure the supply of copper during World War Two. The Mount Elliott Company was eventually liquidated in 1953.
The Mount Elliott Smelter:
The existence of copper in the Leichhardt River area of north western Queensland had been known since Ernest Henry discovered the Great Australia Mine in 1867 at Cloncurry. In 1899 James Elliott discovered copper on the conical hill that became Mount Elliott, but having no capital to develop the mine, he sold an interest to James Morphett, a pastoralist of Fort Constantine station near Cloncurry. Morphett, being drought stricken, in turn sold out to John Moffat of Irvinebank, the most successful mining promoter in Queensland at the time.
Plentiful capital and cheap transport were prerequisites for developing the Cloncurry field, which had stagnated for forty years. Without capital it was impossible to explore and prove ore-bodies; without proof of large reserves of wealth it was futile to build a railway; and without a railway it was hazardous to invest capital in finding large reserves of ore. The mining investor or the railway builder had to break the impasse.
In 1906 - 1907 copper averaged £87 a ton on the London market, the highest price for thirty years, and the Cloncurry field grew. The railway was extended west of Richmond in 1905 - 1906 by the Government and mines were floated on the Melbourne Stock Exchange. At Mount Elliott a prospecting shaft had been sunk and on the 1st of August 1906 a Cornish boiler and winding plant were installed on the site.
Mount Elliott Limited was floated in Melbourne on the 13th of July 1906. In 1907 it was taken over by British and French interests and restructured. Combining with its competitor, Hampden Cloncurry Copper Mines Limited, Mount Elliott formed a special company to finance and construct the railway from Cloncurry to Malbon, Kuridala (then Friezeland) and Mount Elliott (later Selwyn). This new company then entered into an agreement with the Queensland Railways Department in July 1908.
The railway, which was known as the 'Syndicate Railway', aroused opposition in 1908 from the trade unions and Labor movement generally, who contended that railways should be State-owned. However, the Hampden-Mount Elliott Railway Bill was passed by the Queensland Parliament and assented to on the 21st of April 1908; construction finished in December 1910. The railway terminated at the Mount Elliott smelter.
By 1907 the main underlie shaft had been sunk and construction of the smelters was underway using a second-hand water-jacket blast furnace and converters. At this time, W.H. Corbould was appointed general manager of Mount Elliott Limited.
The second-hand blast furnace and converters were commissioned or 'blown in' in May 1909, but were problematic causing hold-ups. Corbould referred to the equipment in use as being the 'worst collection of worn-out junk he had ever come across'. Corbould soon convinced his directors to scrap the plant and let him design new works.
Corbould was a metallurgist and geologist as well as mine/smelter manager. He foresaw a need to obtain control and thereby ensure a reliable supply of ore from a cross-section of mines in the region. He also saw a need to implement an effective strategy to manage the economies of smelting low-grade ore. Smelting operations in the region were made difficult by the technical and economic problems posed by the deterioration in the grade of ore. Corbould resolved the issue by a process of blending ores with different chemical properties, increasing the throughput capacity of the smelter and by championing the unification of smelting operations in the region. In 1912, Corbould acquired Hampden Consols Mine at Kuridala for Mount Elliott Limited, followed with the purchases of other small mines in the district.
Walkers Limited of Maryborough was commissioned to manufacture a new 200 ton water jacket furnace for the smelters. An air compressor and blower for the smelters were constructed in the powerhouse and an electric motor and dynamo provided power for the crane and lighting for the smelter and mine.
The new smelter was blown in September 1910, a month after the first train arrived, and it ran well, producing 2040 tons of blister copper by the end of the year. The new smelting plant made it possible to cope with low-grade sulphide ores at Mount Elliott. The use of 1000 tons of low-grade sulphide ores bought from the Hampden Consols Mine in 1911 made it clear that if a supply of higher sulphur ore could be obtained and blended, performance, and economy would improve. Accordingly, the company bought a number of smaller mines in the district in 1912.
Corbould mined with cut and fill stoping but a young Mines Inspector condemned the system, ordered it dismantled and replaced with square set timbering. In 1911, after gradual movement in stopes on the No. 3 level, the smelter was closed for two months. Nevertheless, 5447 tons of blister copper was produced in 1911, rising to 6690 tons in 1912 - the company's best year. Many of the surviving structures at the site were built at this time.
Troubles for Mount Elliott started in 1913. In February, a fire at the Consols Mine closed it for months. In June, a thirteen week strike closed the whole operation, severely depleting the workforce. The year 1913 was also bad for industrial accidents in the area, possibly due to inexperienced people replacing the strikers. Nevertheless, the company paid generous dividends that year.
At the end of 1914 smelting ceased for more than a year due to shortage of ore. Although 3200 tons of blister copper was produced in 1913, production fell to 1840 tons in 1914 and the workforce dwindled to only 40 men. For the second half of 1915 and early 1916 the smelter treated ore railed south from Mount Cuthbert. At the end of July 1916 the smelting plant at Selwyn was dismantled except for the flue chambers and stacks. A new furnace with a capacity of 500 tons per day was built, a large amount of second-hand equipment was obtained and the converters were increased in size.
After the enlarged furnace was commissioned in June 1917, continuing industrial unrest retarded production which amounted to only 1000 tons of copper that year. The point of contention was the efficiency of the new smelter which processed twice as much ore while employing fewer men. The company decided to close down the smelter in October and reduce the size of the furnace, the largest in Australia, from 6.5m to 5.5m. In the meantime the price of copper had almost doubled from 1916 due to wartime consumption of munitions.
The new furnace commenced on the 16th of January 1918 and 77,482 tons of ore were smelted yielding 3580 tons of blister copper which were sent to the Bowen refinery before export to Britain. Local coal and coke supply was a problem and materials were being sourced from the distant Bowen Colliery. The smelter had a good run for almost a year except for a strike in July and another in December, which caused Corbould to close down the plant until New Year. In 1919, following relaxation of wartime controls by the British Metal Corporation, the copper price plunged from about £110 per ton at the start of the year to £75 per ton in April, dashing the company's optimism regarding treatment of low grade ores. The smelter finally closed after two months operation and most employees were laid off.
For much of the period 1919 to 1922, Corbould was in England trying to raise capital to reorganise the company's operations but he failed and resigned from the company in 1922. The Mount Elliott Company took over the assets of the other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s - Mount Cuthbert in 1925 and Kuridala in 1926. Mount Isa Mines bought the Mount Elliott plant and machinery, including the three smelters, in 1943 for £2,300, enabling them to start copper production in the middle of the Second World War. The Mount Elliott Company was finally liquidated in 1953.
In 1950 A.E. Powell took up the Mount Elliott Reward Claim at Selwyn and worked close to the old smelter buildings. An open cut mine commenced at Starra, south of Mount Elliott and Selwyn, in 1988 and is Australia's third largest copper producer producing copper-gold concentrates from flotation and gold bullion from carbon-in-leach processing.
Profitable copper-gold ore bodies were recently proved at depth beneath the Mount Elliott smelter and old underground workings by Cyprus Gold Australia Pty Ltd. These deposits were subsequently acquired by Arimco Mining Pty Ltd for underground development which commenced in July 1993. A decline tunnel portal, ore and overburden dumps now occupy a large area of the Maggie Creek valley south-west of the smelter which was formerly the site of early miner's camps.
The Old Selwyn Township:
In 1907, the first hotel, run by H. Williams, was opened at the site. The township was surveyed later, around 1910, by the Mines Department. The town was to be situated north of the mine and smelter operations adjacent the railway, about 1.5km distant. It took its name from the nearby Selwyn Ranges which were named, during Burke's expedition, after the Victorian Government Geologist, A.R. Selwyn. The town has also been known by the name of Mount Elliott, after the nearby mines and smelter.
Many of the residents either worked at the Mount Elliott Mine and Smelter or worked in the service industries which grew around the mining and smelting operations. Little documentation exists about the everyday life of the town's residents. Surrounding sheep and cattle stations, however, meant that meat was available cheaply and vegetables grown in the area were delivered to the township by horse and cart. Imported commodities were, however, expensive.
By 1910 the town had four hotels. There was also an aerated water manufacturer, three stores, four fruiterers, a butcher, baker, saddler, garage, police, hospital, banks, post office (officially from 1906 to 1928, then unofficially until 1975) and a railway station. There was even an orchestra of ten players in 1912. The population of Selwyn rose from 1000 in 1911 to 1500 in 1918, before gradually declining.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
and 'A Vanishing Breed' called “Bede”
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The Chinese Lunar Calendar is set up in a ‘12-year cycle’ and each year is associated with an animal. According to the legend, Lord Buddha summoned the animals to him before he departed the earth. Only 12 came to bid him farewell and so he named each year after each animal as a reward.
According to the Chinese Zodiac, the Year of 2013 is the Year of the Snake, which begins on February 10, 2013 and ends on January 30, 2014. Ancient Chinese wisdom says, a Snake in the house is a good omen because it means that your family will not starve.
2013 is the Year of Water Snake. People born in the Year of the Snake are reputed to be thoughtful and wise and to approach problems rationally and logically, seldom instinctively.
Through this upload I would like to wish my Chinese Friends from all over the world ....
Happiness, health, prosperity, longevity and may all your wishes come true. Happy New “SNAKE” Year....!!!
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NOW. . . lets come to my Part of the World;
as a Snake and Animal lover I am Thrilled to be a part of this Snake Year. Since 2013 is the year of “Water Snake” that brings back memories which is associated with the water snakes of Bangladesh. Let’s go back 20 years, at that time I was totally devoted to wild life photography and particularly of Snakes.
Whenever I went out for a field trip or a photography trip out of the city, I frequently used to catch one particular species of snake which is called “Dhoora Saap” (local name) or Asiatic Water Snake / Checkered Keel Back (Xenochrophis piscator). Probably this is the most distributed ‘Colubridae’ in Bangladesh. It’s a non-venomous water snake from the plains, abundant in waterways, such as flooded rice fields, ponds, lakes, marshes and rivers.
This species was so common that even in the capital city, they were very...very easy to find.
So, what is their Status in 2013 ?
In short, simply Alarming ! Their numbers has dramatically declined.
In Rural areas, I have to look hard to find one, even during and after the Monsoon Rains when they are supposed to be plentiful. In the city lakes and waterways... probably less than 10% of the previous population surviving.
The photograph above is NOT at all about the most common Snake of Bangladesh or how their number has declined during the last two Decades. It’s about the “PEOPLE” who are directly associated with the most Feared and Misunderstood species called “Snakes”.
I always believe ... “ if I want to Save the Elephants, first I need to Save the People whose lives are directly involved with the Elephants”.
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let's meet. . . “Jyotsna” ( meaning Moonlight) . . . !!!
She represents “A Vanishing Breed” called “Bede” the Snake Charmers from Bangladesh.
They are also known as River Gypsies as they live in Boats. Bede’s themselves are convinced that their community has Arabic roots and that the name “Bede” was derived from the Arabic word “Bedouin”.
Currently Bangladesh has an estimated 500,000 snake charmers. Most snake charmers are Nomads, the word nomad comes from a Greek word that means one who wanders for pasture. Rivers are the Life for Bedes. For hundreds of years, they have wandered along rivers and intricate waterways by charming Snakes, selling Herbal Medicines, trinkets, performing Magic and Healing People.
In the 1980s and even the early 90s snake charmers used to be a common sight in the city streets and their colony of Boats can be found in the rural areas of Bangladesh. People used to call them and they played with their snakes while householders, especially the children looked on with a mixture of fear and expectations.
Today, the Snake charmers are struggling for their very survival. They are facing increasing difficulties throughout the country because their profession is in decline. Earlier, they earned around 500 taka ($6.25 ) now maybe 50 -100 taka ($0.63-1.25) - a day.
“People in the cities today no longer seem so interested to watch us entice the snakes or to buy herbal medicines from us. They lead a busy life and don't have the time or the inclination to watch performing Cobras" - said Hashim an elderly snake charmer, who was quoted recently in a Bangladeshi newspaper.
In rural areas, snake charmers can still attract some small crowds, but that is mostly during festivals which are not held on a regular basis.
There are several reasons put forward to explain the decline of the profession. In the past, people would be mesmerized by a dancing snake and the eerie sound of the flute. But today people in bigger cities and even in the villages... are pressed for time and provided with alternative forms of entertainment - regard snake charmers almost as an “Irritation”.
Another reason is the fact that snakes themselves are harder to find due to a Combination of Deforestation and Urbanization.
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On February 6th 2013, I read an article from BBC News which was about a 'snake village' called ‘Zisiqiao’ located in China.
It is a sleepy village with a deadly secret. A couple of decades ago, locals in Zisiqiao made a living from farming and fishing. But now they rear snakes - among them pythons, vipers and cobras. The snakes are reared for their meat, which is sold to restaurants, and their body parts, which are highly sought after in traditional Chinese medicine.
With the rising demand for snakes, the once poor village of Zisiqiao is now relatively wealthy, with many residents boasting revenue of tens of thousands of dollars.
"Domesticating snakes takes experience and technique," says Mr Yang, who says his Snake business is now a multi-million dollar enterprise.
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“Everything is in relation to Everything else” the sooner We realize this fact and involve ourselves to Protect and to Preserve the “Relativity” - the Better for Us.
Text and Photography by S Arman S.
8th February 2013.
© All rights reserved.
No part of this article may be reproduced in any form or by any means, without permission of the author.
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Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort (castrum) just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England, which it originally pre-dated. Archaeological excavations of the site show it was under Roman occupation from roughly 85 AD to 370 AD. Located near the modern village of Bardon Mill in Northumberland, it guarded the Stanegate, the Roman road from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. It is noted for the Vindolanda tablets, a set of wooden leaf-tablets that were, at the time of their discovery, the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain.
The first post-Roman record of the ruins at Vindolanda was made by the antiquarian William Camden, in his Britannia (1586). Occasional travellers reached the site over the next two hundred years, and the accounts they left predate much of the stone-stealing that has damaged the site. The military Thermae (bath-house) was still partly roofed when Christopher Hunter visited the site in 1702. In about 1715 an excise officer named John Warburton found an altar there, which he removed. In 1814 the first real archaeological work was begun, by the Rev. Anthony Hedley.
Hedley died in 1835, before writing up his discoveries. Little more was done for a long time, although in 1914 a workman found another altar at the site, set up by the civilians living at the fort in honour of the Divine House and Vulcan. Several names for the site are used in the early records, including "Chesters on Caudley", "Little Chesters", "The Bower" and "Chesterholm"; the altar found in 1914 confirmed that the Roman name for the site was "Vindolanda", which had been in dispute as one early source referred to it as "Vindolana".
The garrison consisted of infantry or cavalry auxilia, not components of Roman legions. From the early third century, this was the Cohors IV Gallorum equitata also known as the Fourth Cohort of Gauls. It had been presumed that this title was, by this time, purely nominal, with auxiliary troops being recruited locally but an inscription found in a recent season of excavations suggests that native Gauls were still to be found in the regiment and that they liked to distinguish themselves from British soldiers. The inscription reads:
CIVES GALLI
DE GALLIAE
CONCORDES
QUE BRITANNI
A translation of this is "The troops from Gaul dedicate this statue to the goddess Gallia with the full support of the British-born troops".
Among the troops were Basque-speaking soldiers of the Varduli.
The earliest Roman forts at Vindolanda were built of wood and turf. The remains are now buried as much as 13 ft (4 m) deep in the anoxic waterlogged soil. There are five timber forts, built (and demolished) one after the other. The first, a small fort, was probably built by the 1st Cohort of Tungrians about 85 AD. By about 95 AD this was replaced by a larger wooden fort built by the 9th Cohort of Batavians, a mixed infantry-cavalry unit of about 1,000 men. That fort was repaired in about 100 AD under the command of the Roman prefect Flavius Cerialis. When the 9th Cohort of Batavians left in 105 AD, their fort was demolished. The 1st Cohort of Tungrians returned to Vindolanda, built a larger wooden fort and remained here until Hadrian's Wall was built around 122 AD, when they moved, most likely to Vercovicium (Housesteads Roman Fort) on the wall, about two miles to the north-east of Vindolanda.
Soon after Hadrian's Wall was built, most of its men were moved north to the Antonine Wall. A stone fort was built at Vindolanda, possibly for the 2nd Cohort of Nervians. From 208 to 211 AD, there was a major rebellion against Rome in Britain, and the Emperor Septimius Severus led an army to Britain to cope with it personally. The old stone fort was demolished, and replaced by an unconventional set of army buildings on the west, and an unusual array of many round stone huts where the old fort had been. Some of these circular huts are visible by the north and the southwest walls of the final stone fort. The Roman army may have built these to accommodate families of British farmers in this unsettled period. Septimius Severus died at York in 211 AD; his sons paid off the rebels and left for Rome. The stone buildings were demolished, and a large new stone fort was built where the huts had been, for the 4th Cohort of Gauls.
A vicus, a self-governing village, developed to the west of the fort. The vicus contains several rows of buildings, each containing several one-room chambers. Most are not connected to the existing drainage system. The one that does was perhaps a butchery where, for health reasons, an efficient drain would have been important. A stone altar found in 1914 (and exhibited in the museum) proves that the settlement was officially a vicus and that it was named Vindolanda. To the south of the fort is a thermae (a large imperial bath complex), that would have been used by many of the individuals on the site. The later stone fort, and the adjoining village, remained in use until about 285 AD, when it was largely abandoned for unknown reasons.
About 300 AD, the fort was again rebuilt, but the vicus was not reoccupied, so most likely the area remained too unsafe for life outside the defended walls of the fort. In about 370, the fort was roughly repaired, perhaps by irregular soldiers. There is no evidence for the traditional view that Roman occupation ended suddenly in 410; it may have declined slowly.
In the 1930s, the house at Chesterholm where the museum is now located was purchased by archaeologist Eric Birley, who was interested in excavating the site. The excavations have been continued by his sons, Robin and Anthony, and his grandson, Andrew Birley, into the present day. They are undertaken each summer, and some of the archaeological deposits reach depths of six metres. The anoxic conditions at these depths have preserved thousands of artefacts, such as 850 ink tablets and over 160 boxwood combs, that normally disintegrate in the ground, thus providing an opportunity to gain a fuller understanding of Roman life – military and otherwise – on the northern frontier. The study of these ink tablets shows a literacy among both the high born who there, as with the party invitation from one officer's wife to another and with soldiers and their families who send care packages with notes on the contents of the packages. A study of spindle whorls from the north-western quadrant has indicated the presence of spinners of low- and high- status in the fort in the 3rd and 4th century AD. Along with ongoing excavations (in season) and excavated remains, a full-size replica of a section of Hadrian's Wall in both stone and turf can be seen on the site. As of yet there is no reconstruction of the Vallum.
Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vindolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands and date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that, based on their difference from gladiator gloves, warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum. According to Birley, they are not part of a matching pair:
The larger of the two gloves is cut from a single piece of leather and was folded into a pouch configuration, the extending leather at each side were slotted into one another forming a complete oval shape creating an inner hole into which a hand could still easily be inserted. The glove was packed with natural material acting as a shock absorber.
Recent excavations have been accompanied by new archaeological methodologies. 3-D imaging has been used to investigate the use of an ox cranium in target practice.
In 2021, a carved sandstone artifact was discovered a few inches below the floor of the fort. It depicts a nude warrior or deity before a horse or similar animal. Early interpretations point to the figure being of a Roman deity, perhaps of Mars or Mercury.
In 2023 February, a 2,000 year-old disembodied 6.3 inches long wooden phallus toy was revealed, according to the research published in the journal Antiquity.
In addition to the older initial findings of ink tablets, shoes and combs, several more artifacts and discoveries of note have been covered by the media. In 2017, the British newspaper The Guardian focused on a discovery of cavalry barracks that were uncovered during the excavation season that held a large number of artifacts including swords, ink tablets, textiles, arrowheads, and other military paraphernalia. Relative dating of the barracks had determined that they were built around 105 AD. The Guardian also publicized the discovery of a cache of 25 ink tablets found earlier in the 2017 season. The tablets were discovered in a trench in one of the earliest layers of the fort, dating to the 1st century AD. This discovery was considered to be the second-largest discovery of ink tablets in the world, with the first being a cache that was also discovered at Vindolanda in 1992.
In the 2014 excavation season, BBC ran a story about the discovery of one of the few surviving examples of a wooden toilet seat to be found in the Roman Empire. In the same year, they also recorded the discovery of the only (very old, very worn) gold coin ever to be found on the site with a mint date of 64 or 65 AD, lying in a site layer dating to the 4th century AD.
In 2010, the BBC announced the discovery of the remains of a child between the ages of 8 and 10 years, which was uncovered in a shallow pit in a barrack room in a position suggesting that its arms may have been bound. Further archaeological analysis indicated that it could be female. She is believed to have died about 1,800 years ago.
Another find publicised on the BBC website in 2006 was a bronze and silver fibula modelled with the figure of Mars, with the name Quintus Sollonius punched into its surface.
In 2020, archaeologists discovered a 5th-century chalice covered in religious iconography within a collapsed church structure. The images include crosses, angels, a smiling priestly figure holding a crook, fish, a whale, ships, the Greek letters chi-rho. In addition, the chalice bears scripts written in Latin, Greek, and possibly Ogham.
The Vindolanda site museum, also known as Chesterholm Museum, conserves and displays finds from the site. The museum is set in gardens, which include full-sized reconstructions of a Roman temple, a Roman shop, a Roman house and Northumbrian croft, all with audio presentations. Exhibits include Roman boots, shoes, armour, jewellery and coins, infrared photographs of the writing tablets and, from 2011, a small selection of the tablets themselves, on loan from the British Museum. 2011 saw the reopening of the museum at Vindolanda, and also the Roman Army Museum at Magnae Carvetiorum (Carvoran), refurbished with a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Roman Britain was the territory that became the Roman province of Britannia after the Roman conquest of Britain, consisting of a large part of the island of Great Britain. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410.
Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 and 54 BC as part of his Gallic Wars. According to Caesar, the Britons had been overrun or culturally assimilated by the Belgae during the British Iron Age and had been aiding Caesar's enemies. The Belgae were the only Celtic tribe to cross the sea into Britain, for to all other Celtic tribes this land was unknown. He received tribute, installed the friendly king Mandubracius over the Trinovantes, and returned to Gaul. Planned invasions under Augustus were called off in 34, 27, and 25 BC. In 40 AD, Caligula assembled 200,000 men at the Channel on the continent, only to have them gather seashells (musculi) according to Suetonius, perhaps as a symbolic gesture to proclaim Caligula's victory over the sea. Three years later, Claudius directed four legions to invade Britain and restore the exiled king Verica over the Atrebates. The Romans defeated the Catuvellauni, and then organized their conquests as the province of Britain. By 47 AD, the Romans held the lands southeast of the Fosse Way. Control over Wales was delayed by reverses and the effects of Boudica's uprising, but the Romans expanded steadily northward.
The conquest of Britain continued under command of Gnaeus Julius Agricola (77–84), who expanded the Roman Empire as far as Caledonia. In mid-84 AD, Agricola faced the armies of the Caledonians, led by Calgacus, at the Battle of Mons Graupius. Battle casualties were estimated by Tacitus to be upwards of 10,000 on the Caledonian side and about 360 on the Roman side. The bloodbath at Mons Graupius concluded the forty-year conquest of Britain, a period that possibly saw between 100,000 and 250,000 Britons killed. In the context of pre-industrial warfare and of a total population of Britain of c. 2 million, these are very high figures.
Under the 2nd-century emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, two walls were built to defend the Roman province from the Caledonians, whose realms in the Scottish Highlands were never controlled. Around 197 AD, the Severan Reforms divided Britain into two provinces: Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior. During the Diocletian Reforms, at the end of the 3rd century, Britannia was divided into four provinces under the direction of a vicarius, who administered the Diocese of the Britains. A fifth province, Valentia, is attested in the later 4th century. For much of the later period of the Roman occupation, Britannia was subject to barbarian invasions and often came under the control of imperial usurpers and imperial pretenders. The final Roman withdrawal from Britain occurred around 410; the native kingdoms are considered to have formed Sub-Roman Britain after that.
Following the conquest of the Britons, a distinctive Romano-British culture emerged as the Romans introduced improved agriculture, urban planning, industrial production, and architecture. The Roman goddess Britannia became the female personification of Britain. After the initial invasions, Roman historians generally only mention Britain in passing. Thus, most present knowledge derives from archaeological investigations and occasional epigraphic evidence lauding the Britannic achievements of an emperor. Roman citizens settled in Britain from many parts of the Empire.
History
Britain was known to the Classical world. The Greeks, the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians traded for Cornish tin in the 4th century BC. The Greeks referred to the Cassiterides, or "tin islands", and placed them near the west coast of Europe. The Carthaginian sailor Himilco is said to have visited the island in the 6th or 5th century BC and the Greek explorer Pytheas in the 4th. It was regarded as a place of mystery, with some writers refusing to believe it existed.
The first direct Roman contact was when Julius Caesar undertook two expeditions in 55 and 54 BC, as part of his conquest of Gaul, believing the Britons were helping the Gallic resistance. The first expedition was more a reconnaissance than a full invasion and gained a foothold on the coast of Kent but was unable to advance further because of storm damage to the ships and a lack of cavalry. Despite the military failure, it was a political success, with the Roman Senate declaring a 20-day public holiday in Rome to honour the unprecedented achievement of obtaining hostages from Britain and defeating Belgic tribes on returning to the continent.
The second invasion involved a substantially larger force and Caesar coerced or invited many of the native Celtic tribes to pay tribute and give hostages in return for peace. A friendly local king, Mandubracius, was installed, and his rival, Cassivellaunus, was brought to terms. Hostages were taken, but historians disagree over whether any tribute was paid after Caesar returned to Gaul.
Caesar conquered no territory and left no troops behind, but he established clients and brought Britain into Rome's sphere of influence. Augustus planned invasions in 34, 27 and 25 BC, but circumstances were never favourable, and the relationship between Britain and Rome settled into one of diplomacy and trade. Strabo, writing late in Augustus's reign, claimed that taxes on trade brought in more annual revenue than any conquest could. Archaeology shows that there was an increase in imported luxury goods in southeastern Britain. Strabo also mentions British kings who sent embassies to Augustus, and Augustus's own Res Gestae refers to two British kings he received as refugees. When some of Tiberius's ships were carried to Britain in a storm during his campaigns in Germany in 16 AD, they came back with tales of monsters.
Rome appears to have encouraged a balance of power in southern Britain, supporting two powerful kingdoms: the Catuvellauni, ruled by the descendants of Tasciovanus, and the Atrebates, ruled by the descendants of Commius. This policy was followed until 39 or 40 AD, when Caligula received an exiled member of the Catuvellaunian dynasty and planned an invasion of Britain that collapsed in farcical circumstances before it left Gaul. When Claudius successfully invaded in 43 AD, it was in aid of another fugitive British ruler, Verica of the Atrebates.
Roman invasion
The invasion force in 43 AD was led by Aulus Plautius,[26] but it is unclear how many legions were sent. The Legio II Augusta, commanded by future emperor Vespasian, was the only one directly attested to have taken part. The Legio IX Hispana, the XIV Gemina (later styled Martia Victrix) and the XX (later styled Valeria Victrix) are known to have served during the Boudican Revolt of 60/61, and were probably there since the initial invasion. This is not certain because the Roman army was flexible, with units being moved around whenever necessary. The IX Hispana may have been permanently stationed, with records showing it at Eboracum (York) in 71 and on a building inscription there dated 108, before being destroyed in the east of the Empire, possibly during the Bar Kokhba revolt.
The invasion was delayed by a troop mutiny until an imperial freedman persuaded them to overcome their fear of crossing the Ocean and campaigning beyond the limits of the known world. They sailed in three divisions, and probably landed at Richborough in Kent; at least part of the force may have landed near Fishbourne, West Sussex.
The Catuvellauni and their allies were defeated in two battles: the first, assuming a Richborough landing, on the river Medway, the second on the river Thames. One of their leaders, Togodumnus, was killed, but his brother Caratacus survived to continue resistance elsewhere. Plautius halted at the Thames and sent for Claudius, who arrived with reinforcements, including artillery and elephants, for the final march to the Catuvellaunian capital, Camulodunum (Colchester). Vespasian subdued the southwest, Cogidubnus was set up as a friendly king of several territories, and treaties were made with tribes outside direct Roman control.
Establishment of Roman rule
After capturing the south of the island, the Romans turned their attention to what is now Wales. The Silures, Ordovices and Deceangli remained implacably opposed to the invaders and for the first few decades were the focus of Roman military attention, despite occasional minor revolts among Roman allies like the Brigantes and the Iceni. The Silures were led by Caratacus, and he carried out an effective guerrilla campaign against Governor Publius Ostorius Scapula. Finally, in 51, Ostorius lured Caratacus into a set-piece battle and defeated him. The British leader sought refuge among the Brigantes, but their queen, Cartimandua, proved her loyalty by surrendering him to the Romans. He was brought as a captive to Rome, where a dignified speech he made during Claudius's triumph persuaded the emperor to spare his life. The Silures were still not pacified, and Cartimandua's ex-husband Venutius replaced Caratacus as the most prominent leader of British resistance.
On Nero's accession, Roman Britain extended as far north as Lindum. Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, the conqueror of Mauretania (modern day Algeria and Morocco), then became governor of Britain, and in 60 and 61 he moved against Mona (Anglesey) to settle accounts with Druidism once and for all. Paulinus led his army across the Menai Strait and massacred the Druids and burnt their sacred groves.
While Paulinus was campaigning in Mona, the southeast of Britain rose in revolt under the leadership of Boudica. She was the widow of the recently deceased king of the Iceni, Prasutagus. The Roman historian Tacitus reports that Prasutagus had left a will leaving half his kingdom to Nero in the hope that the remainder would be left untouched. He was wrong. When his will was enforced, Rome[clarification needed] responded by violently seizing the tribe's lands in full. Boudica protested. In consequence, Rome[clarification needed] punished her and her daughters by flogging and rape. In response, the Iceni, joined by the Trinovantes, destroyed the Roman colony at Camulodunum (Colchester) and routed the part of the IXth Legion that was sent to relieve it. Paulinus rode to London (then called Londinium), the rebels' next target, but concluded it could not be defended. Abandoned, it was destroyed, as was Verulamium (St. Albans). Between seventy and eighty thousand people are said to have been killed in the three cities. But Paulinus regrouped with two of the three legions still available to him, chose a battlefield, and, despite being outnumbered by more than twenty to one, defeated the rebels in the Battle of Watling Street. Boudica died not long afterwards, by self-administered poison or by illness. During this time, the Emperor Nero considered withdrawing Roman forces from Britain altogether.
There was further turmoil in 69, the "Year of the Four Emperors". As civil war raged in Rome, weak governors were unable to control the legions in Britain, and Venutius of the Brigantes seized his chance. The Romans had previously defended Cartimandua against him, but this time were unable to do so. Cartimandua was evacuated, and Venutius was left in control of the north of the country. After Vespasian secured the empire, his first two appointments as governor, Quintus Petillius Cerialis and Sextus Julius Frontinus, took on the task of subduing the Brigantes and Silures respectively.[38] Frontinus extended Roman rule to all of South Wales, and initiated exploitation of the mineral resources, such as the gold mines at Dolaucothi.
In the following years, the Romans conquered more of the island, increasing the size of Roman Britain. Governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola, father-in-law to the historian Tacitus, conquered the Ordovices in 78. With the XX Valeria Victrix legion, Agricola defeated the Caledonians in 84 at the Battle of Mons Graupius, in north-east Scotland. This was the high-water mark of Roman territory in Britain: shortly after his victory, Agricola was recalled from Britain back to Rome, and the Romans initially retired to a more defensible line along the Forth–Clyde isthmus, freeing soldiers badly needed along other frontiers.
For much of the history of Roman Britain, a large number of soldiers were garrisoned on the island. This required that the emperor station a trusted senior man as governor of the province. As a result, many future emperors served as governors or legates in this province, including Vespasian, Pertinax, and Gordian I.
Roman military organisation in the north
In 84 AD
In 84 AD
In 155 AD
In 155 AD
Hadrian's Wall, and Antonine Wall
There is no historical source describing the decades that followed Agricola's recall. Even the name of his replacement is unknown. Archaeology has shown that some Roman forts south of the Forth–Clyde isthmus were rebuilt and enlarged; others appear to have been abandoned. By 87 the frontier had been consolidated on the Stanegate. Roman coins and pottery have been found circulating at native settlement sites in the Scottish Lowlands in the years before 100, indicating growing Romanisation. Some of the most important sources for this era are the writing tablets from the fort at Vindolanda in Northumberland, mostly dating to 90–110. These tablets provide evidence for the operation of a Roman fort at the edge of the Roman Empire, where officers' wives maintained polite society while merchants, hauliers and military personnel kept the fort operational and supplied.
Around 105 there appears to have been a serious setback at the hands of the tribes of the Picts: several Roman forts were destroyed by fire, with human remains and damaged armour at Trimontium (at modern Newstead, in SE Scotland) indicating hostilities at least at that site.[citation needed] There is also circumstantial evidence that auxiliary reinforcements were sent from Germany, and an unnamed British war of the period is mentioned on the gravestone of a tribune of Cyrene. Trajan's Dacian Wars may have led to troop reductions in the area or even total withdrawal followed by slighting of the forts by the Picts rather than an unrecorded military defeat. The Romans were also in the habit of destroying their own forts during an orderly withdrawal, in order to deny resources to an enemy. In either case, the frontier probably moved south to the line of the Stanegate at the Solway–Tyne isthmus around this time.
A new crisis occurred at the beginning of Hadrian's reign): a rising in the north which was suppressed by Quintus Pompeius Falco. When Hadrian reached Britannia on his famous tour of the Roman provinces around 120, he directed an extensive defensive wall, known to posterity as Hadrian's Wall, to be built close to the line of the Stanegate frontier. Hadrian appointed Aulus Platorius Nepos as governor to undertake this work who brought the Legio VI Victrix legion with him from Germania Inferior. This replaced the famous Legio IX Hispana, whose disappearance has been much discussed. Archaeology indicates considerable political instability in Scotland during the first half of the 2nd century, and the shifting frontier at this time should be seen in this context.
In the reign of Antoninus Pius (138–161) the Hadrianic border was briefly extended north to the Forth–Clyde isthmus, where the Antonine Wall was built around 142 following the military reoccupation of the Scottish lowlands by a new governor, Quintus Lollius Urbicus.
The first Antonine occupation of Scotland ended as a result of a further crisis in 155–157, when the Brigantes revolted. With limited options to despatch reinforcements, the Romans moved their troops south, and this rising was suppressed by Governor Gnaeus Julius Verus. Within a year the Antonine Wall was recaptured, but by 163 or 164 it was abandoned. The second occupation was probably connected with Antoninus's undertakings to protect the Votadini or his pride in enlarging the empire, since the retreat to the Hadrianic frontier occurred not long after his death when a more objective strategic assessment of the benefits of the Antonine Wall could be made. The Romans did not entirely withdraw from Scotland at this time: the large fort at Newstead was maintained along with seven smaller outposts until at least 180.
During the twenty-year period following the reversion of the frontier to Hadrian's Wall in 163/4, Rome was concerned with continental issues, primarily problems in the Danubian provinces. Increasing numbers of hoards of buried coins in Britain at this time indicate that peace was not entirely achieved. Sufficient Roman silver has been found in Scotland to suggest more than ordinary trade, and it is likely that the Romans were reinforcing treaty agreements by paying tribute to their implacable enemies, the Picts.
In 175, a large force of Sarmatian cavalry, consisting of 5,500 men, arrived in Britannia, probably to reinforce troops fighting unrecorded uprisings. In 180, Hadrian's Wall was breached by the Picts and the commanding officer or governor was killed there in what Cassius Dio described as the most serious war of the reign of Commodus. Ulpius Marcellus was sent as replacement governor and by 184 he had won a new peace, only to be faced with a mutiny from his own troops. Unhappy with Marcellus's strictness, they tried to elect a legate named Priscus as usurper governor; he refused, but Marcellus was lucky to leave the province alive. The Roman army in Britannia continued its insubordination: they sent a delegation of 1,500 to Rome to demand the execution of Tigidius Perennis, a Praetorian prefect who they felt had earlier wronged them by posting lowly equites to legate ranks in Britannia. Commodus met the party outside Rome and agreed to have Perennis killed, but this only made them feel more secure in their mutiny.
The future emperor Pertinax (lived 126–193) was sent to Britannia to quell the mutiny and was initially successful in regaining control, but a riot broke out among the troops. Pertinax was attacked and left for dead, and asked to be recalled to Rome, where he briefly succeeded Commodus as emperor in 192.
3rd century
The death of Commodus put into motion a series of events which eventually led to civil war. Following the short reign of Pertinax, several rivals for the emperorship emerged, including Septimius Severus and Clodius Albinus. The latter was the new governor of Britannia, and had seemingly won the natives over after their earlier rebellions; he also controlled three legions, making him a potentially significant claimant. His sometime rival Severus promised him the title of Caesar in return for Albinus's support against Pescennius Niger in the east. Once Niger was neutralised, Severus turned on his ally in Britannia; it is likely that Albinus saw he would be the next target and was already preparing for war.
Albinus crossed to Gaul in 195, where the provinces were also sympathetic to him, and set up at Lugdunum. Severus arrived in February 196, and the ensuing battle was decisive. Albinus came close to victory, but Severus's reinforcements won the day, and the British governor committed suicide. Severus soon purged Albinus's sympathisers and perhaps confiscated large tracts of land in Britain as punishment. Albinus had demonstrated the major problem posed by Roman Britain. In order to maintain security, the province required the presence of three legions, but command of these forces provided an ideal power base for ambitious rivals. Deploying those legions elsewhere would strip the island of its garrison, leaving the province defenceless against uprisings by the native Celtic tribes and against invasion by the Picts and Scots.
The traditional view is that northern Britain descended into anarchy during Albinus's absence. Cassius Dio records that the new Governor, Virius Lupus, was obliged to buy peace from a fractious northern tribe known as the Maeatae. The succession of militarily distinguished governors who were subsequently appointed suggests that enemies of Rome were posing a difficult challenge, and Lucius Alfenus Senecio's report to Rome in 207 describes barbarians "rebelling, over-running the land, taking loot and creating destruction". In order to rebel, of course, one must be a subject – the Maeatae clearly did not consider themselves such. Senecio requested either reinforcements or an Imperial expedition, and Severus chose the latter, despite being 62 years old. Archaeological evidence shows that Senecio had been rebuilding the defences of Hadrian's Wall and the forts beyond it, and Severus's arrival in Britain prompted the enemy tribes to sue for peace immediately. The emperor had not come all that way to leave without a victory, and it is likely that he wished to provide his teenage sons Caracalla and Geta with first-hand experience of controlling a hostile barbarian land.
Northern campaigns, 208–211
An invasion of Caledonia led by Severus and probably numbering around 20,000 troops moved north in 208 or 209, crossing the Wall and passing through eastern Scotland on a route similar to that used by Agricola. Harried by punishing guerrilla raids by the northern tribes and slowed by an unforgiving terrain, Severus was unable to meet the Caledonians on a battlefield. The emperor's forces pushed north as far as the River Tay, but little appears to have been achieved by the invasion, as peace treaties were signed with the Caledonians. By 210 Severus had returned to York, and the frontier had once again become Hadrian's Wall. He assumed the title Britannicus but the title meant little with regard to the unconquered north, which clearly remained outside the authority of the Empire. Almost immediately, another northern tribe, the Maeatae, went to war. Caracalla left with a punitive expedition, but by the following year his ailing father had died and he and his brother left the province to press their claim to the throne.
As one of his last acts, Severus tried to solve the problem of powerful and rebellious governors in Britain by dividing the province into Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior. This kept the potential for rebellion in check for almost a century. Historical sources provide little information on the following decades, a period known as the Long Peace. Even so, the number of buried hoards found from this period rises, suggesting continuing unrest. A string of forts were built along the coast of southern Britain to control piracy; and over the following hundred years they increased in number, becoming the Saxon Shore Forts.
During the middle of the 3rd century, the Roman Empire was convulsed by barbarian invasions, rebellions and new imperial pretenders. Britannia apparently avoided these troubles, but increasing inflation had its economic effect. In 259 a so-called Gallic Empire was established when Postumus rebelled against Gallienus. Britannia was part of this until 274 when Aurelian reunited the empire.
Around the year 280, a half-British officer named Bonosus was in command of the Roman's Rhenish fleet when the Germans managed to burn it at anchor. To avoid punishment, he proclaimed himself emperor at Colonia Agrippina (Cologne) but was crushed by Marcus Aurelius Probus. Soon afterwards, an unnamed governor of one of the British provinces also attempted an uprising. Probus put it down by sending irregular troops of Vandals and Burgundians across the Channel.
The Carausian Revolt led to a short-lived Britannic Empire from 286 to 296. Carausius was a Menapian naval commander of the Britannic fleet; he revolted upon learning of a death sentence ordered by the emperor Maximian on charges of having abetted Frankish and Saxon pirates and having embezzled recovered treasure. He consolidated control over all the provinces of Britain and some of northern Gaul while Maximian dealt with other uprisings. An invasion in 288 failed to unseat him and an uneasy peace ensued, with Carausius issuing coins and inviting official recognition. In 293, the junior emperor Constantius Chlorus launched a second offensive, besieging the rebel port of Gesoriacum (Boulogne-sur-Mer) by land and sea. After it fell, Constantius attacked Carausius's other Gallic holdings and Frankish allies and Carausius was usurped by his treasurer, Allectus. Julius Asclepiodotus landed an invasion fleet near Southampton and defeated Allectus in a land battle.
Diocletian's reforms
As part of Diocletian's reforms, the provinces of Roman Britain were organized as a diocese governed by a vicarius under a praetorian prefect who, from 318 to 331, was Junius Bassus who was based at Augusta Treverorum (Trier).
The vicarius was based at Londinium as the principal city of the diocese. Londinium and Eboracum continued as provincial capitals and the territory was divided up into smaller provinces for administrative efficiency.
Civilian and military authority of a province was no longer exercised by one official and the governor was stripped of military command which was handed over to the Dux Britanniarum by 314. The governor of a province assumed more financial duties (the procurators of the Treasury ministry were slowly phased out in the first three decades of the 4th century). The Dux was commander of the troops of the Northern Region, primarily along Hadrian's Wall and his responsibilities included protection of the frontier. He had significant autonomy due in part to the distance from his superiors.
The tasks of the vicarius were to control and coordinate the activities of governors; monitor but not interfere with the daily functioning of the Treasury and Crown Estates, which had their own administrative infrastructure; and act as the regional quartermaster-general of the armed forces. In short, as the sole civilian official with superior authority, he had general oversight of the administration, as well as direct control, while not absolute, over governors who were part of the prefecture; the other two fiscal departments were not.
The early-4th-century Verona List, the late-4th-century work of Sextus Rufus, and the early-5th-century List of Offices and work of Polemius Silvius all list four provinces by some variation of the names Britannia I, Britannia II, Maxima Caesariensis, and Flavia Caesariensis; all of these seem to have initially been directed by a governor (praeses) of equestrian rank. The 5th-century sources list a fifth province named Valentia and give its governor and Maxima's a consular rank. Ammianus mentions Valentia as well, describing its creation by Count Theodosius in 369 after the quelling of the Great Conspiracy. Ammianus considered it a re-creation of a formerly lost province, leading some to think there had been an earlier fifth province under another name (may be the enigmatic "Vespasiana"), and leading others to place Valentia beyond Hadrian's Wall, in the territory abandoned south of the Antonine Wall.
Reconstructions of the provinces and provincial capitals during this period partially rely on ecclesiastical records. On the assumption that the early bishoprics mimicked the imperial hierarchy, scholars use the list of bishops for the 314 Council of Arles. The list is patently corrupt: the British delegation is given as including a Bishop "Eborius" of Eboracum and two bishops "from Londinium" (one de civitate Londinensi and the other de civitate colonia Londinensium). The error is variously emended: Bishop Ussher proposed Colonia, Selden Col. or Colon. Camalodun., and Spelman Colonia Cameloduni (all various names of Colchester); Gale and Bingham offered colonia Lindi and Henry Colonia Lindum (both Lincoln); and Bishop Stillingfleet and Francis Thackeray read it as a scribal error of Civ. Col. Londin. for an original Civ. Col. Leg. II (Caerleon). On the basis of the Verona List, the priest and deacon who accompanied the bishops in some manuscripts are ascribed to the fourth province.
In the 12th century, Gerald of Wales described the supposedly metropolitan sees of the early British church established by the legendary SS Fagan and "Duvian". He placed Britannia Prima in Wales and western England with its capital at "Urbs Legionum" (Caerleon); Britannia Secunda in Kent and southern England with its capital at "Dorobernia" (Canterbury); Flavia in Mercia and central England with its capital at "Lundonia" (London); "Maximia" in northern England with its capital at Eboracum (York); and Valentia in "Albania which is now Scotland" with its capital at St Andrews. Modern scholars generally dispute the last: some place Valentia at or beyond Hadrian's Wall but St Andrews is beyond even the Antonine Wall and Gerald seems to have simply been supporting the antiquity of its church for political reasons.
A common modern reconstruction places the consular province of Maxima at Londinium, on the basis of its status as the seat of the diocesan vicarius; places Prima in the west according to Gerald's traditional account but moves its capital to Corinium of the Dobunni (Cirencester) on the basis of an artifact recovered there referring to Lucius Septimius, a provincial rector; places Flavia north of Maxima, with its capital placed at Lindum Colonia (Lincoln) to match one emendation of the bishops list from Arles;[d] and places Secunda in the north with its capital at Eboracum (York). Valentia is placed variously in northern Wales around Deva (Chester); beside Hadrian's Wall around Luguvalium (Carlisle); and between the walls along Dere Street.
4th century
Emperor Constantius returned to Britain in 306, despite his poor health, with an army aiming to invade northern Britain, the provincial defences having been rebuilt in the preceding years. Little is known of his campaigns with scant archaeological evidence, but fragmentary historical sources suggest he reached the far north of Britain and won a major battle in early summer before returning south. His son Constantine (later Constantine the Great) spent a year in northern Britain at his father's side, campaigning against the Picts beyond Hadrian's Wall in the summer and autumn. Constantius died in York in July 306 with his son at his side. Constantine then successfully used Britain as the starting point of his march to the imperial throne, unlike the earlier usurper, Albinus.
In the middle of the century, the province was loyal for a few years to the usurper Magnentius, who succeeded Constans following the latter's death. After the defeat and death of Magnentius in the Battle of Mons Seleucus in 353, Constantius II dispatched his chief imperial notary Paulus Catena to Britain to hunt down Magnentius's supporters. The investigation deteriorated into a witch-hunt, which forced the vicarius Flavius Martinus to intervene. When Paulus retaliated by accusing Martinus of treason, the vicarius attacked Paulus with a sword, with the aim of assassinating him, but in the end he committed suicide.
As the 4th century progressed, there were increasing attacks from the Saxons in the east and the Scoti (Irish) in the west. A series of forts had been built, starting around 280, to defend the coasts, but these preparations were not enough when, in 367, a general assault of Saxons, Picts, Scoti and Attacotti, combined with apparent dissension in the garrison on Hadrian's Wall, left Roman Britain prostrate. The invaders overwhelmed the entire western and northern regions of Britannia and the cities were sacked. This crisis, sometimes called the Barbarian Conspiracy or the Great Conspiracy, was settled by Count Theodosius from 368 with a string of military and civil reforms. Theodosius crossed from Bononia (Boulogne-sur-Mer) and marched on Londinium where he began to deal with the invaders and made his base.[ An amnesty was promised to deserters which enabled Theodosius to regarrison abandoned forts. By the end of the year Hadrian's Wall was retaken and order returned. Considerable reorganization was undertaken in Britain, including the creation of a new province named Valentia, probably to better address the state of the far north. A new Dux Britanniarum was appointed, Dulcitius, with Civilis to head a new civilian administration.
Another imperial usurper, Magnus Maximus, raised the standard of revolt at Segontium (Caernarfon) in north Wales in 383, and crossed the English Channel. Maximus held much of the western empire, and fought a successful campaign against the Picts and Scots around 384. His continental exploits required troops from Britain, and it appears that forts at Chester and elsewhere were abandoned in this period, triggering raids and settlement in north Wales by the Irish. His rule was ended in 388, but not all the British troops may have returned: the Empire's military resources were stretched to the limit along the Rhine and Danube. Around 396 there were more barbarian incursions into Britain. Stilicho led a punitive expedition. It seems peace was restored by 399, and it is likely that no further garrisoning was ordered; by 401 more troops were withdrawn, to assist in the war against Alaric I.
End of Roman rule
The traditional view of historians, informed by the work of Michael Rostovtzeff, was of a widespread economic decline at the beginning of the 5th century. Consistent archaeological evidence has told another story, and the accepted view is undergoing re-evaluation. Some features are agreed: more opulent but fewer urban houses, an end to new public building and some abandonment of existing ones, with the exception of defensive structures, and the widespread formation of "dark earth" deposits indicating increased horticulture within urban precincts. Turning over the basilica at Silchester to industrial uses in the late 3rd century, doubtless officially condoned, marks an early stage in the de-urbanisation of Roman Britain.
The abandonment of some sites is now believed to be later than had been thought. Many buildings changed use but were not destroyed. There was a growing number of barbarian attacks, but these targeted vulnerable rural settlements rather than towns. Some villas such as Chedworth, Great Casterton in Rutland and Hucclecote in Gloucestershire had new mosaic floors laid around this time, suggesting that economic problems may have been limited and patchy. Many suffered some decay before being abandoned in the 5th century; the story of Saint Patrick indicates that villas were still occupied until at least 430. Exceptionally, new buildings were still going up in this period in Verulamium and Cirencester. Some urban centres, for example Canterbury, Cirencester, Wroxeter, Winchester and Gloucester, remained active during the 5th and 6th centuries, surrounded by large farming estates.
Urban life had generally grown less intense by the fourth quarter of the 4th century, and coins minted between 378 and 388 are very rare, indicating a likely combination of economic decline, diminishing numbers of troops, problems with the payment of soldiers and officials or with unstable conditions during the usurpation of Magnus Maximus 383–87. Coinage circulation increased during the 390s, but never attained the levels of earlier decades. Copper coins are very rare after 402, though minted silver and gold coins from hoards indicate they were still present in the province even if they were not being spent. By 407 there were very few new Roman coins going into circulation, and by 430 it is likely that coinage as a medium of exchange had been abandoned. Mass-produced wheel thrown pottery ended at approximately the same time; the rich continued to use metal and glass vessels, while the poor made do with humble "grey ware" or resorted to leather or wooden containers.
Sub-Roman Britain
Towards the end of the 4th century Roman rule in Britain came under increasing pressure from barbarian attacks. Apparently, there were not enough troops to mount an effective defence. After elevating two disappointing usurpers, the army chose a soldier, Constantine III, to become emperor in 407. He crossed to Gaul but was defeated by Honorius; it is unclear how many troops remained or ever returned, or whether a commander-in-chief in Britain was ever reappointed. A Saxon incursion in 408 was apparently repelled by the Britons, and in 409 Zosimus records that the natives expelled the Roman civilian administration. Zosimus may be referring to the Bacaudic rebellion of the Breton inhabitants of Armorica since he describes how, in the aftermath of the revolt, all of Armorica and the rest of Gaul followed the example of the Brettaniai. A letter from Emperor Honorius in 410 has traditionally been seen as rejecting a British appeal for help, but it may have been addressed to Bruttium or Bologna. With the imperial layers of the military and civil government gone, administration and justice fell to municipal authorities, and local warlords gradually emerged all over Britain, still utilizing Romano-British ideals and conventions. Historian Stuart Laycock has investigated this process and emphasised elements of continuity from the British tribes in the pre-Roman and Roman periods, through to the native post-Roman kingdoms.
In British tradition, pagan Saxons were invited by Vortigern to assist in fighting the Picts, Scoti, and Déisi. (Germanic migration into Roman Britannia may have begun much earlier. There is recorded evidence, for example, of Germanic auxiliaries supporting the legions in Britain in the 1st and 2nd centuries.) The new arrivals rebelled, plunging the country into a series of wars that eventually led to the Saxon occupation of Lowland Britain by 600. Around this time, many Britons fled to Brittany (hence its name), Galicia and probably Ireland. A significant date in sub-Roman Britain is the Groans of the Britons, an unanswered appeal to Aetius, leading general of the western Empire, for assistance against Saxon invasion in 446. Another is the Battle of Deorham in 577, after which the significant cities of Bath, Cirencester and Gloucester fell and the Saxons reached the western sea.
Historians generally reject the historicity of King Arthur, who is supposed to have resisted the Anglo-Saxon conquest according to later medieval legends.
Trade
During the Roman period Britain's continental trade was principally directed across the Southern North Sea and Eastern Channel, focusing on the narrow Strait of Dover, with more limited links via the Atlantic seaways. The most important British ports were London and Richborough, whilst the continental ports most heavily engaged in trade with Britain were Boulogne and the sites of Domburg and Colijnsplaat at the mouth of the river Scheldt. During the Late Roman period it is likely that the shore forts played some role in continental trade alongside their defensive functions.
Exports to Britain included: coin; pottery, particularly red-gloss terra sigillata (samian ware) from southern, central and eastern Gaul, as well as various other wares from Gaul and the Rhine provinces; olive oil from southern Spain in amphorae; wine from Gaul in amphorae and barrels; salted fish products from the western Mediterranean and Brittany in barrels and amphorae; preserved olives from southern Spain in amphorae; lava quern-stones from Mayen on the middle Rhine; glass; and some agricultural products. Britain's exports are harder to detect archaeologically, but will have included metals, such as silver and gold and some lead, iron and copper. Other exports probably included agricultural products, oysters and salt, whilst large quantities of coin would have been re-exported back to the continent as well.
These products moved as a result of private trade and also through payments and contracts established by the Roman state to support its military forces and officials on the island, as well as through state taxation and extraction of resources. Up until the mid-3rd century, the Roman state's payments appear to have been unbalanced, with far more products sent to Britain, to support its large military force (which had reached c. 53,000 by the mid-2nd century), than were extracted from the island.
It has been argued that Roman Britain's continental trade peaked in the late 1st century AD and thereafter declined as a result of an increasing reliance on local products by the population of Britain, caused by economic development on the island and by the Roman state's desire to save money by shifting away from expensive long-distance imports. Evidence has been outlined that suggests that the principal decline in Roman Britain's continental trade may have occurred in the late 2nd century AD, from c. 165 AD onwards. This has been linked to the economic impact of contemporary Empire-wide crises: the Antonine Plague and the Marcomannic Wars.
From the mid-3rd century onwards, Britain no longer received such a wide range and extensive quantity of foreign imports as it did during the earlier part of the Roman period; vast quantities of coin from continental mints reached the island, whilst there is historical evidence for the export of large amounts of British grain to the continent during the mid-4th century. During the latter part of the Roman period British agricultural products, paid for by both the Roman state and by private consumers, clearly played an important role in supporting the military garrisons and urban centres of the northwestern continental Empire. This came about as a result of the rapid decline in the size of the British garrison from the mid-3rd century onwards (thus freeing up more goods for export), and because of 'Germanic' incursions across the Rhine, which appear to have reduced rural settlement and agricultural output in northern Gaul.
Economy
Mineral extraction sites such as the Dolaucothi gold mine were probably first worked by the Roman army from c. 75, and at some later stage passed to civilian operators. The mine developed as a series of opencast workings, mainly by the use of hydraulic mining methods. They are described by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History in great detail. Essentially, water supplied by aqueducts was used to prospect for ore veins by stripping away soil to reveal the bedrock. If veins were present, they were attacked using fire-setting and the ore removed for comminution. The dust was washed in a small stream of water and the heavy gold dust and gold nuggets collected in riffles. The diagram at right shows how Dolaucothi developed from c. 75 through to the 1st century. When opencast work was no longer feasible, tunnels were driven to follow the veins. The evidence from the site shows advanced technology probably under the control of army engineers.
The Wealden ironworking zone, the lead and silver mines of the Mendip Hills and the tin mines of Cornwall seem to have been private enterprises leased from the government for a fee. Mining had long been practised in Britain (see Grimes Graves), but the Romans introduced new technical knowledge and large-scale industrial production to revolutionise the industry. It included hydraulic mining to prospect for ore by removing overburden as well as work alluvial deposits. The water needed for such large-scale operations was supplied by one or more aqueducts, those surviving at Dolaucothi being especially impressive. Many prospecting areas were in dangerous, upland country, and, although mineral exploitation was presumably one of the main reasons for the Roman invasion, it had to wait until these areas were subdued.
By the 3rd and 4th centuries, small towns could often be found near villas. In these towns, villa owners and small-scale farmers could obtain specialist tools. Lowland Britain in the 4th century was agriculturally prosperous enough to export grain to the continent. This prosperity lay behind the blossoming of villa building and decoration that occurred between AD 300 and 350.
Britain's cities also consumed Roman-style pottery and other goods, and were centres through which goods could be distributed elsewhere. At Wroxeter in Shropshire, stock smashed into a gutter during a 2nd-century fire reveals that Gaulish samian ware was being sold alongside mixing bowls from the Mancetter-Hartshill industry of the West Midlands. Roman designs were most popular, but rural craftsmen still produced items derived from the Iron Age La Tène artistic traditions. Britain was home to much gold, which attracted Roman invaders. By the 3rd century, Britain's economy was diverse and well established, with commerce extending into the non-Romanised north.
Government
Further information: Governors of Roman Britain, Roman client kingdoms in Britain, and Roman auxiliaries in Britain
Under the Roman Empire, administration of peaceful provinces was ultimately the remit of the Senate, but those, like Britain, that required permanent garrisons, were placed under the Emperor's control. In practice imperial provinces were run by resident governors who were members of the Senate and had held the consulship. These men were carefully selected, often having strong records of military success and administrative ability. In Britain, a governor's role was primarily military, but numerous other tasks were also his responsibility, such as maintaining diplomatic relations with local client kings, building roads, ensuring the public courier system functioned, supervising the civitates and acting as a judge in important legal cases. When not campaigning, he would travel the province hearing complaints and recruiting new troops.
To assist him in legal matters he had an adviser, the legatus juridicus, and those in Britain appear to have been distinguished lawyers perhaps because of the challenge of incorporating tribes into the imperial system and devising a workable method of taxing them. Financial administration was dealt with by a procurator with junior posts for each tax-raising power. Each legion in Britain had a commander who answered to the governor and, in time of war, probably directly ruled troublesome districts. Each of these commands carried a tour of duty of two to three years in different provinces. Below these posts was a network of administrative managers covering intelligence gathering, sending reports to Rome, organising military supplies and dealing with prisoners. A staff of seconded soldiers provided clerical services.
Colchester was probably the earliest capital of Roman Britain, but it was soon eclipsed by London with its strong mercantile connections. The different forms of municipal organisation in Britannia were known as civitas (which were subdivided, amongst other forms, into colonies such as York, Colchester, Gloucester and Lincoln and municipalities such as Verulamium), and were each governed by a senate of local landowners, whether Brythonic or Roman, who elected magistrates concerning judicial and civic affairs. The various civitates sent representatives to a yearly provincial council in order to profess loyalty to the Roman state, to send direct petitions to the Emperor in times of extraordinary need, and to worship the imperial cult.
Demographics
Roman Britain had an estimated population between 2.8 million and 3 million people at the end of the second century. At the end of the fourth century, it had an estimated population of 3.6 million people, of whom 125,000 consisted of the Roman army and their families and dependents.[80] The urban population of Roman Britain was about 240,000 people at the end of the fourth century. The capital city of Londinium is estimated to have had a population of about 60,000 people. Londinium was an ethnically diverse city with inhabitants from the Roman Empire, including natives of Britannia, continental Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. There was also cultural diversity in other Roman-British towns, which were sustained by considerable migration, from Britannia and other Roman territories, including continental Europe, Roman Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. In a study conducted in 2012, around 45 percent of sites investigated dating from the Roman period had at least one individual of North African origin.
Town and country
During their occupation of Britain the Romans founded a number of important settlements, many of which survive. The towns suffered attrition in the later 4th century, when public building ceased and some were abandoned to private uses. Place names survived the deurbanised Sub-Roman and early Anglo-Saxon periods, and historiography has been at pains to signal the expected survivals, but archaeology shows that a bare handful of Roman towns were continuously occupied. According to S.T. Loseby, the very idea of a town as a centre of power and administration was reintroduced to England by the Roman Christianising mission to Canterbury, and its urban revival was delayed to the 10th century.
Roman towns can be broadly grouped in two categories. Civitates, "public towns" were formally laid out on a grid plan, and their role in imperial administration occasioned the construction of public buildings. The much more numerous category of vici, "small towns" grew on informal plans, often round a camp or at a ford or crossroads; some were not small, others were scarcely urban, some not even defended by a wall, the characteristic feature of a place of any importance.
Cities and towns which have Roman origins, or were extensively developed by them are listed with their Latin names in brackets; civitates are marked C
Alcester (Alauna)
Alchester
Aldborough, North Yorkshire (Isurium Brigantum) C
Bath (Aquae Sulis) C
Brough (Petuaria) C
Buxton (Aquae Arnemetiae)
Caerleon (Isca Augusta) C
Caernarfon (Segontium) C
Caerwent (Venta Silurum) C
Caister-on-Sea C
Canterbury (Durovernum Cantiacorum) C
Carlisle (Luguvalium) C
Carmarthen (Moridunum) C
Chelmsford (Caesaromagus)
Chester (Deva Victrix) C
Chester-le-Street (Concangis)
Chichester (Noviomagus Reginorum) C
Cirencester (Corinium) C
Colchester (Camulodunum) C
Corbridge (Coria) C
Dorchester (Durnovaria) C
Dover (Portus Dubris)
Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum) C
Gloucester (Glevum) C
Great Chesterford (the name of this vicus is unknown)
Ilchester (Lindinis) C
Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum) C
Lincoln (Lindum Colonia) C
London (Londinium) C
Manchester (Mamucium) C
Newcastle upon Tyne (Pons Aelius)
Northwich (Condate)
St Albans (Verulamium) C
Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum) C
Towcester (Lactodurum)
Whitchurch (Mediolanum) C
Winchester (Venta Belgarum) C
Wroxeter (Viroconium Cornoviorum) C
York (Eboracum) C
Religion
The druids, the Celtic priestly caste who were believed to originate in Britain, were outlawed by Claudius, and in 61 they vainly defended their sacred groves from destruction by the Romans on the island of Mona (Anglesey). Under Roman rule the Britons continued to worship native Celtic deities, such as Ancasta, but often conflated with their Roman equivalents, like Mars Rigonemetos at Nettleham.
The degree to which earlier native beliefs survived is difficult to gauge precisely. Certain European ritual traits such as the significance of the number 3, the importance of the head and of water sources such as springs remain in the archaeological record, but the differences in the votive offerings made at the baths at Bath, Somerset, before and after the Roman conquest suggest that continuity was only partial. Worship of the Roman emperor is widely recorded, especially at military sites. The founding of a Roman temple to Claudius at Camulodunum was one of the impositions that led to the revolt of Boudica. By the 3rd century, Pagans Hill Roman Temple in Somerset was able to exist peaceably and it did so into the 5th century.
Pagan religious practices were supported by priests, represented in Britain by votive deposits of priestly regalia such as chain crowns from West Stow and Willingham Fen.
Eastern cults such as Mithraism also grew in popularity towards the end of the occupation. The London Mithraeum is one example of the popularity of mystery religions among the soldiery. Temples to Mithras also exist in military contexts at Vindobala on Hadrian's Wall (the Rudchester Mithraeum) and at Segontium in Roman Wales (the Caernarfon Mithraeum).
Christianity
It is not clear when or how Christianity came to Britain. A 2nd-century "word square" has been discovered in Mamucium, the Roman settlement of Manchester. It consists of an anagram of PATER NOSTER carved on a piece of amphora. There has been discussion by academics whether the "word square" is a Christian artefact, but if it is, it is one of the earliest examples of early Christianity in Britain. The earliest confirmed written evidence for Christianity in Britain is a statement by Tertullian, c. 200 AD, in which he described "all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ". Archaeological evidence for Christian communities begins to appear in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Small timber churches are suggested at Lincoln and Silchester and baptismal fonts have been found at Icklingham and the Saxon Shore Fort at Richborough. The Icklingham font is made of lead, and visible in the British Museum. A Roman Christian graveyard exists at the same site in Icklingham. A possible Roman 4th-century church and associated burial ground was also discovered at Butt Road on the south-west outskirts of Colchester during the construction of the new police station there, overlying an earlier pagan cemetery. The Water Newton Treasure is a hoard of Christian silver church plate from the early 4th century and the Roman villas at Lullingstone and Hinton St Mary contained Christian wall paintings and mosaics respectively. A large 4th-century cemetery at Poundbury with its east–west oriented burials and lack of grave goods has been interpreted as an early Christian burial ground, although such burial rites were also becoming increasingly common in pagan contexts during the period.
The Church in Britain seems to have developed the cust
The history of exhibition on the site of the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds dates to August 1876, with the staging of the first Queensland Intercolonial Exhibition. None of the buildings extant in 1876 have survived, but the grounds have increased substantially from an original 12 acres, and contain a variety of structures and facilities associated with the annual August Exhibition, which date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the present. The site has been the venue for Queensland's principal agricultural, pastoral and industrial exhibitions for over 125 years. It remains the home of the annual Royal Queensland Show and is Queensland's premier showground. Since 1876 only two annual exhibitions on this site have been cancelled: the 1919 Exhibition due to the influenza epidemic, and in 1942 when the grounds were occupied by military personnel.
Prior to the establishment of the Exhibition Grounds in 1876, the site was part of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society's grounds. In July 1863 this Society, established in 1862 to promote the introduction, acclimatization, propagation and distribution in Queensland of economically useful plants and animals, was granted 33 acres of land bounded by Bowen Bridge Road, O'Connell Terrace, Brookes Street and Gregory Terrace. At the northwestern corner of the site, fronting Bowen Bridge Road and O'Connell Terrace, the Society established a public exhibition garden [Bowen Park]. The remainder of the site was used for experimentation purposes, growing and propagating plants and seeds sent from other parts of Queensland, other colonies, and around the world, and raising various introduced animals. The Society played an important role in the beginnings of commercial agriculture in Queensland, introducing or trialling crops and plants such as mango trees, ginger plants, sugar cane, olive trees and choko vines.
Queensland's 1876 Intercolonial Exhibition was not the first competitive demonstration of agricultural and industrial progress in the colony. In 1854 squatters from the Darling Downs and Moreton Bay districts of New South Wales established the Northern Districts' Agricultural and Pastoral Association, modelled on the Scottish Highland Agricultural Societies. They planned to hold exhibitions [mainly of pastoral produce] at Brisbane, Ipswich, Warwick, Drayton and Gayndah, in rotation, and some shows were held before the Association became immersed in more political activities. Nurseryman AJ Hockings was instrumental in holding horticultural shows in Brisbane from 1855. In the 1860s other regional agricultural and pastoral associations were formed, among the earliest being the Darling Downs Agricultural Society [based at Toowoomba] in 1860, the Drayton and Toowoomba Agricultural and Horticultural Society in 1864, the East Moreton Farmers Association [based at Ipswich] in 1866 and the Eastern Downs Horticultural and Agricultural Association [based at Warwick] in 1867. These Associations conducted annual exhibitions of agricultural, horticultural, and pastoral produce and farm machinery. Prizes were awarded for best exhibits. The object was to encourage the exchange of knowledge and to foster better farm practice. Associations such as these proliferated in Queensland during the second half of the 19th century, and each held an annual 'show'.
In 1874 moves were initiated by Queensland's Chief Inspector of Stock, Patrick Robertson Gordon, to form a national agricultural society, to plan Brisbane's first intercolonial exhibition. He was supported by Gresley Lukin, editor of the Brisbane Courier and the Queenslander, and agricultural agent John Fenwick. In May 1875 an inaugural meeting, presided over by the Governor, Sir William Wellington Cairns, was held to form the National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland. A constitution drafted by the headmaster of the Brisbane Grammar School, Thomas Harlin, was adopted in July, and the first meeting of the National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland was held at the Brisbane Town Hall on 13 August 1875. Arthur Hunter Palmer, later premier of Queensland, was elected to the chair and other founding members included Joshua Peter Bell, George Harris, George Gromes, Thomas Harlin, Charles Stewart Mein and William Hemmant. At this meeting use of part of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society's grounds was discussed, and subsequently a lease of about 12 acres from the Society was arranged.
The alliance with the Acclimatisation Society was considered to be a sensible arrangement. There were common interests, the site was well supplied with water and convenient to the city, and it was thought at the time that many women and townspeople, who might have hesitated in visiting a purely utilitarian exhibition of produce, animals and farm machinery, may have been induced by the additional attraction of the Acclimatisation Society Gardens.
The Intercolonial Exhibition was intended to promote and showcase the agricultural, pastoral and industrial resources of the whole of Queensland. Whether it could be sustained beyond a single exhibition remained to be seen. The National Association did not wish to supplant regional agricultural societies and associations, but wished to encourage their organisation, and foster a spirit of friendly rivalry amongst them by holding a grand central exhibition for the competition of winners at minor shows [BC 25 October 1875]. To avoid clashing with local shows, and in order to hold the exhibition during fine weather, before the shearing season, and when good feed would be found along the roads, it was decided to stage the Exhibition in August 1876.
The first exhibition building was a large timber hall with side aisles and a central clerestory. It was erected in 1876 along Gregory Terrace near the corner of Bowen Bridge Road, at a cost of £1254, and was a modification of a design prepared by Queensland Colonial Architect FDG Stanley. Sydney exhibitor Jules Joubert added a rectangular wing to the northern side to increase the extent of his exhibition. Cattle, sheep and horse stalls of hardwood framing with corrugated iron roofing were erected in the grounds, and a small showring was established north of the Exhibition Building.
The first Queensland Intercolonial Exhibition was declared open by Governor Cairns on Tuesday 22 August 1876, and ran until 28 August. It proved immensely popular, with a total of £1045 taken at the gate. Thereafter, the Exhibition became an annual event.
In the period 1876-1888, the National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland expended an estimated £7000 on the grounds. The main exhibition building was doubled in size for the 1877 exhibition, and another annexe was provided for horticultural exhibits.
In 1879, the National Association was awarded a lease of 23 acres of the 32 acre Acclimatisation Society grounds for a period of 50 years, for use as an exhibition ground. In 1881 the railway to Sandgate was constructed through the National Association and Acclimatisation Society grounds. [The line was later re-routed via Central Station, Brunswick Street and Bowen Hills, but the Exhibition Line still opens each year during the August show.] By 1882, the Exhibition Grounds comprised all the land south, southeast and east of the railway line and bounded by Bowen Bridge Road, Gregory Terrace, Brookes Street and O'Connell Terrace. A 1000 seat capacity grandstand, designed by Stanley, was erected in 1885 [not the first grandstand on the site]. In 1887 a timber residence designed by GHM Addison was constructed at the corner of O'Connell Terrace and Brookes Street for the Secretary of the National Association.
In 1887 the first exhibition building was destroyed by fire. The public called for it to be replaced with a masonry building, but the National Association was reluctant to commit to the necessary expenditure without more secure land tenure, against which they could borrow money for permanent exhibition buildings. In 1888 a temporary timber exhibition building was constructed for approximately £500, while the National Association called for competitive designs for a permanent exhibition building. Under the provisions of the National Association and Acclimatisation Society Act 1890, the land leased from the Queensland Acclimatisation Society for an exhibition ground was resumed and granted to the National Association as Trustees, who were also empowered under this act to borrow money from the Queensland Government to erect the new exhibition building.
The design competition was won by GHM Addison, the Brisbane partner of the Melbourne-based firm Oakden Addison and Kemp. In 1890 Addison amended his original design to a T-shape, incorporating a southern wing with a concert hall which could be rented out to offset repayments on the government loan. The new building was erected closer to the corner of Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace than the original building. The foundation stone was laid on 25 April 1891 and the builder, John Quinn, was required to have a section of the building completed for the August 1891 exhibition, with the whole of the building to be completed within 12 months.
A plan of the Exhibition Grounds published in The Queenslander on 15 August 1891 shows the new exhibition building, several smaller pavilions, a show ring in the position of the present main show ring, the 1885 grandstand [where the Ernest Baynes Stand is now located], animal shelters along the boundaries, and the secretary's residence near Brookes Street.
The new exhibition building was completed in 1892 and a public holiday was declared for 10 August 1982 to mark the official opening of the Exhibition. Despite the economic depression, 32,000 people attended on the holiday and more than 66,000 over the four-day course of the Exhibition. However, the National Association did not escape the effects of the 1890s depression, struggling to repay the government loan on the exhibition building. In 1897 the colonial government resumed the building and liquidated the Association's debts. The Exhibition Concert Hall continued to serve as a concert venue but the remainder of the Exhibition Building was refurbished for the Queensland Museum, which moved to the building from William Street in 1899. At this time the museum grounds were resumed from the National Association's land as a separate reserve. The National Association struggled to maintain the viability of the remaining Exhibition Grounds until 1902-03, when the Queensland government took control of the Association's assets, leasing the Exhibition Grounds back to the Association at an annual rental.
In the early 1900s the Queensland economy revived, and the National Association's financial position firmed. Substantial improvements and re-arrangements of the Exhibition Grounds were made in 1906 in time for the August show. A fine new grandstand, designed by Brisbane architect Claude William Chambers, was erected at a cost of £6248. [In 1923, this stand was re-named the John MacDonald Stand in honour of a long-serving National Association councillor]. The side show booths which had been located on the hill to the north of the main ring, were moved to the valley on the northwest side of the railway, their place being taken by machinery exhibits. The hill has since been known as Machinery Hill, and the valley as Sideshow Alley.
In 1909, the year of the Jubilee Exhibition [celebrating 50 years since the separation of Queensland from New South Wales], the Exhibition Grounds were extended with the acquisition of Petty's Paddock, an adjacent 6 acres bounded by Gregory Terrace and Alexandria, Science and Water streets, purchased for £4500. About 1910 a two-storeyed timber building with pressed metal ceilings and a prominent roof flêche, was erected along the northern side of Gregory Terrace near the main entrance. A section of this building was utilized as a Post Office by August 1933.
During the First World War [1914-18], a military recruiting and training camp, completed with rifle range, was established at the Exhibition Grounds, but this did not prevent the annual Exhibition from proceeding.
In the 1910s Brisbane architects Richard Gailey snr and Richard Gailey jnr established a relationship with the National Association which was to last through the 1920s and 1930s. In May 1914 they called tenders for the construction of a sheep, pig and poultry pavilion, and fencing along Gregory Terrace, and in 1917 for timber dog and horse pavilions.
In 1917, Toowoomba's Austral Hall [designed by architect William Hodgen and erected in 1904] was purchased for £1500 and re-erected at the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds. It was the largest building of its type in Queensland. Reflecting the growing popularity of the motor car, the pavilion was occupied by representatives of the local automobile trade. It was the first Brisbane Exhibition pavilion to be dedicated solely to motor vehicle displays, automobile exhibits previously being located on Machinery Hill. In 1919 Austral Hall was renamed the John Reid Pavilion following the death that year of Brisbane merchant John Reid, a long-time supporter of the National Association.
Affleck House was completed by August 1918 for the showtime use of Stock Breeders' Association delegates. It was named after National Association councillor WL Affleck, who raised the finance for the construction.
During the influenza epidemic which swept Australia in 1919, following the return of service personnel from overseas at the end of the First World War, army huts were erected at the exhibition grounds as isolation wards for the nearby Brisbane General Hospital, and dining rooms were set up to feed and house the expected influx of seriously ill patients. Due to the threat of crowd contagion, and to save disturbing patients in the isolation wards, the Exhibition was cancelled that year.
In 1920 the Prince of Wales [later Edward VIII] visited the Exhibition, following which the Association moved to incorporate the word 'Royal' into its name as the Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland, which over the years has been reduced, unofficially, to the Royal National Association [RNA]. In recent years the RNA has registered as its trademark the word 'Ekka' [a long-standing colloquial shortening of the work 'Exhibition'].
During the interwar years many improvements were made to the exhibition grounds, with various buildings erected or extended during this period. A timber show hall was erected c1921 between Gregory Terrace and Water Street, and a brick exhibition building, designed by architects Atkinson & Conrad, was constructed in 1923 for Lever Bros of Sydney.
In 1922-23 the Ernest Baynes Stand was erected on the site of the 1885 grandstand. Designed by architect Richard Gailey Jnr and constructed by John Hutchinson, the building had two tiers with a seating capacity of 5000 and a total capacity of 7000. It was constructed with a steel frame faced with brick, the larger steel sections being imported from Britain and the smaller sections made in Australia. The foundation stone of the new grandstand was laid by Governor, Sir Matthew Nathan, in November 1922, and the stand was completed in time for the August 1923 Exhibition, at a cost of £26,884. The sub-floor contained a dining room which could accommodate 600 persons at a sitting, and a row of ten shops facing the lane at the rear of the structure.
A second show ring, intended principally for exhibiting dairy cattle, was established to the north of the railway line which transects the Exhibition Grounds, and was ready for the show of 1924. Its construction reflected the growing importance of the dairy industry to Queensland where, with Government encouragement, it became the State's second largest primary industry and sustained rural Queensland during the depression of the 1930s.
By 1925 the RNA Council Stand, located adjacent to the Ernest Baynes Stand overlooking the show ring, had been constructed. The Stand was originally two storeys. At some early period the northern end of the building was extended to incorporate an entrance to the seating in front of the stand. By 1938 a third storey had been added to the building, and later a two-storeyed extension facing Executive Street was constructed.
In 1927 legislation was enacted to grant the National Association perpetual lease of the grounds, at that time comprising just under 20 acres. There followed a burst of ground improvements, mostly designed by architect Richard Gailey jnr, including a dog pavilion, meat exhibition pavilion, more turnstiles, and a new lavatory block in 1927; and new horse and cattle stalls, and turnstiles at the corner of Costin Street and Gregory Terrace, in 1928. Also erected in 1928 were show pavilions for General Motors Pty Ltd, Brisbane Cars & Tractors Ltd, the Vacuum Oil Co. [concrete structure], and the Kodak Company Ltd, and a demonstration fibrous cement cottage designed by architect EP Trewern for James Hardie & Co.
At this period the RNA sought to make the grounds a first-class venue for cricket, football and other sports, but had limited success in attracting the big matches. The year 1928 was a high point for the Association's sporting ambitions, with the showground the venue for the first England versus Australia cricket test in Queensland, and the first in the 1928-29 series. Legendary Australian cricketer Donald Bradman made his Test debut at the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds in 1928. More successful than cricket or football was Exhibition Speedway, established in 1926.
A new Lady Forster Creche was opened in Costin Street, near the main entrance to the Exhibition Grounds, in time for the 1928 show. [Previously the creche was located on the main showgrounds north of Gregory Terrace.] The centre was operated by the Creche and Kindergarten Association and provided baby care while parents were enjoying the rounds of the show. In 1939 the Creche was removed to a new location near the Anglican dining hall, north of Gregory Terrace.
In 1929 the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which since 1923 had been conducting a bank at the Exhibition Grounds during the annual show, constructed a purpose-designed bank building in the grounds, just to the south of the Council Stand. Although it was not uncommon for banks to establish agencies at showgrounds around Australia, this building is believed to be the only 'exhibition' bank building specifically constructed for the Commonwealth Bank. The northeast end of the building was extended in 1947.
Despite the severe economic depression of the early 1930s, the Exhibition continued to attract its strong annual August attendance. More land was acquired, including a further 2 acres 23 perches excised from Bowen Park in 1932, bringing the total Exhibition Grounds to about 40 acres. Improvements to the grounds at this period included more cattle stalls along O'Connell Terrace [architect Richard Gailey jnr] and a new show pavilion for Foggitt Jones Pty Ltd [architects Addison & MacDonald] in 1932; and a new dairy produce hall [architect Richard Gailey jnr] for the RNA in 1933.
As the economy recovered during the second half of the 1930s a number of substantial improvements were made to the RNA's exhibition facilities. In 1936 Gailey called tenders for a Wool Hall, additions to the pig and horse pavilions, new Stock & Station Agents' Offices and Dining Hall, and a new yearling sale ring. New concrete roads and additional seating accommodation were provided. The old Industrial Pavilion was demolished in 1938 and its replacement, designed by Richard Gailey jnr and covering an area of 3.5 acres, was completed along Gregory Terrace in June 1939 at a cost of £40,000. A new electricity hall at the corner of Gregory Terrace and Costin Street was also completed for the 1939 show - reputedly the first show pavilion in Australia dedicated entirely to electricity exhibits. [The Hall of Science, as it was later known, was demolished in 1986 to make way for a new Exhibition Building].
During the Second World War, the Exhibition Grounds were occupied from late 1939 to 1944 by military authorities as a venue for training, accommodation and embarkation of troops. [Showgrounds and racecourses with their ovals and existing toilet facilities were favoured places to temporarily accommodate service personnel.] Troops at the exhibition grounds slept in pig and cattle pens; the bars beneath the John MacDonald Stand became wet canteens; and troop trains departed from the railway platforms normally used by show patrons. In 1940 and again in 1941, the military vacated the grounds temporarily for the August Exhibition. Following the entry of Japan into the war in December 1941, American troops were stationed at the showgrounds and the Exhibition of 1942 was cancelled, but was renewed in a limited fashion in 1943 and 1944. Following the war the RNA purchased a number of buildings from the military, for use on the site.
The 1950s saw further improvements and works to the grounds with the construction of a Beef Cattle Pavilion in 1950, the work being carried out by MR Hornibrook Builders at a cost of £206,000, and the addition of seating around the main oval near Machinery Hill. Also constructed in the 1950s was a new Dairy Industry Hall, adjacent to the John Reid Pavilion, on the site of the 1933 dairy hall. By the late 1950s, the grounds comprised approximately 50 acres.
A number of new buildings were erected in the 1960s. In 1962 the RNA moved its offices from the Queensland Primary Producers Association building in Adelaide Street to the Exhibition Grounds, and in 1970 a purpose-built RNA Administration Building costing $111,584 was opened. In 1963, on land acquired along Constance Street, a double pavilion known as the Agricultural Hall and Douglas Wadley Pavilion was constructed. The Agricultural Hall housed district and junior farmer exhibits. The Douglas Wadley Pavilion, extended in 1968 and again in 1977, housed dogs, and is used regularly for exhibitions in addition to the annual August show. In 1968 the Ring Control and Broadcast building was enlarged. By 1970, the grounds comprised approximately 55 acres.
The first animal nursery was established by RNA councillor Frank Robertson at the 1964 show. It has proved one of the must popular and enduring of the show traditions, and has been copied by show societies throughout Australia. At the 1972 Exhibition a purpose-built facility for the animal nursery was opened, named in honour of Mr Robertson.
In the late 1960s the face of Sideshow Alley, traditionally home to the weird and wonderful, began to change. The tents and booths largely disappeared, to be replaced with high technology rides, tests of skill, and popular music entertainment.
Controversy was generated in 1971 when the Queensland Government declared a state of emergency from 13 July to 2 August, during the South African Springbok Rubgy team tour, when demonstrations against apartheid were held in Brisbane and throughout Australia. The main show ring at the Exhibition Ground was commandeered to host the matches, as a safe distance could be maintained between spectators and would-be protesters. A two metre high chain wire fence was erected to separate spectators from players.
A new two-storeyed brick building for use by the police during the annual show was completed for the 1971 Exhibition. It was located inside the main entrance from Gregory Terrace, and replaced an earlier timber building. A new Members Stand was constructed in the 1970s.
Improvements and new buildings in the 1980s included: the refurbishment of the John MacDonald Stand in 1985; the construction of a new Exhibition Building in 1986 on the site of the Hall of Science building, at a cost of $2.5 million [with State Government assistance]; removal of the top seating tier of the Ernest Baynes Stand in 1986, following the Bradford Stadium collapse in London that year; and the opening on 28 November 1988 of the Walter Burnett Building, designed by architects Hulme and Webster, adjacent to the Frank Nicklin Pavilion which accommodates fine arts exhibitions. The auditorium of the Walter Burnett Building seats 1000 people and is equipped with a stage and dance floor. Besides its importance to the annual Exhibition, the building is in constant use for all sorts of activities, including expositions, balls and conferences. It was also the venue for the first public airing of the Fitzgerald Inquiry Report on corruption in Queensland, on 3 July 1989.
In 2008, Bowen Hills – including the area of the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds – was declared an Urban Development Area under the Urban Land Development Act 2007 (replaced by the Economic Development Act 2012, with the term Priority Development Area superseding the term Urban Development Area).
The RNA launched a project to redevelop the showgrounds and in 2009, property and infrastructure company, Lend Lease, was selected as the RNA’s redevelopment partner. In 2010 the RNA and Lend Lease unveiled plans for the ‘Brisbane Showgrounds Regeneration Project’, a redevelopment of 5.5ha of the 22ha site; comprising an upgrade to the showgrounds’ facilities and the inclusion of new office, retail and residential spaces. This involved the demolition and clearing of various buildings and areas – mostly concentrated in the southeastern portion of the site (bounded by Alexandria Street, St Pauls Terrace, Costin Street, Constance Street and Gregory Terrace). Buildings and areas demolished or removed by 2015 included: the Frank Nicklin Pavilion, Walter Burnett Building and Auditorium, Agricultural Hall and Douglas Wadley Pavilion, Frank Roberston Pavilion, Building No.4, Main Parade Food Stall and Show Time Snack Bar, Agricultural Street Bar, Machinery Street Fish Place, Agricultural Open Area, Industrial Open Area, Police Exhibit, and chairlift. The plans for the project were approved in 2010 and construction began in April 2011. The project is expected to take 15 years to complete, at a projected cost of $2.9 billion.
The association with regional Queensland and the rural tradition has been and will remain central to the character of the Brisbane Exhibition and the grounds in which it is held, but the RNA has incorporated new ideas and technology to meet the expectations of today's show patrons. In recent years new attractions at the Exhibition Grounds have included communications technology displays.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
Several of Rajasthan's best known cities are associated with the predominant color of their buildings. Udaipur is The White City; Jaisalmer is The Golden City; Jaipur is The Pink City; and Jodhpur is The Blue City. And while it's well known why Jaisalmer's buildings are golden or Jaipur's buildings are pink (I would argue terra cotta), we are left to speculate as to how many of Jodhpur's oldest buildings ended up this beautiful shade of blue.
There are three primary theories which are all presented as established fact depending on who you talk to. My favorite is the Brahmin theory. I like it because it's a cultural explanation rather than a pragmatic one. It posits that Brahmins, the highest members of the Hindu caste system, painted their houses blue to differentiate them from those of others in lower castes. This particular shade of blue was chosen because it is associated with the Hindu god, Shiva. Eventually, the theory goes, the practice was adopted by others.
Another theory argues that this shade of blue keeps houses cooler in the brutal heat of a Rajasthani summer. It makes sense that any color which helps keep buildings cooler would be a popular one—but does this shade of blue keep a building cooler than a light shade of pink or yellow? Certainly not cooler than the white color used in Udaipur. Some add that the blue color doesn't just repel heat; it also repels termites. The paint is made using limestone and copper sulfate. Could one of these ingredients repel insects? I don't know.
The final theory argues that blue was used because it was the cheapest color available due to the abundance of limestone and copper in the area. This is my least favorite explanation because...boring. But it is the theory that makes the most sense to many residents of the city. I wonder if one guy didn't choose the color and then everyone else said, "Ooooh, pretty! We want our houses that color too!"
Though blue is the dominant color in the oldest part of Jodhpur, it is not ubiquitous there. And it is certainly not ubiquitous in the city as a whole where I didn't see the color much at all. I was surprised and a little disappointed by this. If I was in local government I would be supporting an ordinance that encouraged and maybe even subsidized the use of this blue color on all of the buildings in older parts of the city.
©2018 Timothy Linn
All Rights Reserved
associated gates and hydroelectric plant - fishing is good here but can be risky at high flows. Note that the roadway bridge has been demolished and replaced by a new downstream bridge
For a few days now, my thoughts have been on intimacy. I've been pondering it. What is it? How do I guard my heart and still be intimate with someone?
The secular culture has perverted the meaning of the word, and that bothers me. I know that intimacy is simply being close to or vulnerable with someone. One may be intimate with his or her deepest friends. One may be intimate with his or her family. One also may be uncomfortably intimate with someone he or she is forced to stand really close to in an outrageous line on Black Friday.
Intimacy is...tough, because, in the case of friends, family, and other relationships, there is an amount of trust involved. There is vulnerability involved. There is a deeper connection than surface-level involved. Reality and truth are involved. It's hard, and the truth is that sometimes you and I will get hurt. We'll want to return to the smiles of surface-level because it is safe there. Our hearts and the deepest things about us are not in danger there. I've found, however, that intimacy is essential. If we stay surface-level, we'll never know what lies in deeper waters. Something beautiful may be waiting in those deeper waters, but if we're too scared to swim down, we will never know it.
I've always thought that I am pretty good about being real with people and not putting up that surface-level front. A few days ago, my eyes were opened, though, when, in a conversation, I revealed something from deep within myself to the person I was talking to and the person sort-of balked. Not that it was some horrible memory or something. I was simply revealing a desire from my heart. I could tell that this person was taken a bit off guard, and I was embarrassed. And do you know what I did? I consciously returned to the surface-level. I did not want to be embarrassed anymore.
One thing I have observed is that people expect you to be surface-level. They expect conversations to go as follows: "Hey! How are you?" "I'm fine. How are you?" "I'm good." With smiling faces, you are expected to part ways, and neither of you know any more about each other than you did at the beginning of the conversation. On the inside, though, each of us truly has something worthwhile to say. We have hurts that are raging and battles being fought. We have celebrations to share and stories untold. We have treasures inside of us that we don't need to hide. Surface-level is not going to show forth the gold and silver, diamonds and pearls that are at the bottom of the sea. Intimacy is essential. Take time to actually connect with someone. Listen to his or her words. I can guarantee that, just as you and I have something to say, other people do, too.
~ In the Pursuit of Innocence, Whitney
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Montblanc Elizabeth I Patron of Arts 2010 fountain pen.
1/4 You Tube vid: youtu.be/DWN22eyQ64A
Montblanc Elizabeth I writing instrument seriously tempted my pocket book but MAC preferred another holiday trip to a warm climate.
Limited Edition 4810 and Limited Edition 888
Montblanc's Patron of Art Edition has annually honoured a legendary benefactor of the arts and culture since this special writing instrument line was originally conceived in 1992. This year’s edition is dedicated to an all time great cultural force - Elizabeth I. Regarded the most successful monarch to ever ascend an English throne, under Elizabeth's astute and skillful rule, England "came of age" and, witnessing groundbreaking achievements, was transformed from a "remote backwater" to a globally dominant imperial power. Great battles were won. The New World - or the "Americas" - was discovered and the English Renaissance reached its zenith because of Elizabeth's artistic patronage.
Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I - Limited Edition 888
Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I - Limited Edition 4810
The "best educated woman of her generation..." Elizabeth was "passionately" interested in the arts and her "luminous" court stimulated some of the greatest artistic achievements of all time. William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe flourished during her reign as did the poet Edmund Spenser, the painter Nicholas Hillyard and the English composers William Byrd, John Dowland and Thomas Tallis.
Elizabeth I was also a gifted writer and the 2010 Montblanc Patron of Art Edition is therefore composed of two writing instruments conceived with sumptuously striking and clever adornments celebrating her intellect and inimitable regal flair. Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I, limited to 4810 pieces and limited to 888 pieces, will debut in April 2010 and May 2010, respectively. And, as their presentation has always been associated with the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award - which annually celebrates contemporary arts and cultural patrons - the Patron of Art Edition continues a story linking a historical figure with future talent.
Elizabeth I - A Legend in her Own Lifetime
Centuries after her death, Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603), is still considered as one of England's "most popular and influential rulers". She was born at Greenwich Palace on 7 September 1533 to Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, although her arrival was greeted with "surprise and displeasure", by the Court. The "failure" to produce a son for King Henry jeopardized Queen Anne’s life due to her husband's obsession with conceiving a male heir. Charged with adultery, she was beheaded in May 1536.
A retinue of governesses raised the young princess Elizabeth and though she was shunned by her father, Catherine Parr, the "remarkable" sixth and last wife of Henry VIII, oversaw the education which groomed the future queen for greatness and the Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I will celebrate their special bond. Under the Cambridge scholar Roger Ascham, Elizabeth studied the classics, read history and theology and became fluent in six languages - Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish and German. Her love of music and, skill as a musician, developed from the 60 instrumentalists who resided at Hatfield House, her childhood residence. From age 11, she composed prayers and poems and, when jailed for suspected treason against Mary I, her cousin in 1554, she etched onto a glass prison window a two-line verse with a diamond.
Upon ascending the throne on 15 January 1559, Elizabeth's writing focussed on government matters. She wrote powerful speeches, such as that which she delivered at Tilbury in Essex where English troops had gathered to prepare for Spanish invasion in 1588. Brandishing a silver breastplate over a flowing white velvet gown she arrived on horseback demonstrating the "courage and leadership the English expected" of a monarch - but had never been displayed by a female - and declared to the troops: “I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman but I have the heart and stomach of a king and of a King of England, too".
Nine days later, the defeat of the Spanish Armada proved England's "finest hour". Elizabeth's popularity reached a level no "English woman had enjoyed as a public figure" and she attained supreme power comparable to a "biblical and mythological figure". Her grand mode of dress overawed her subjects while the flourishing of her Renaissance court stimulated new literary, artistic and musical achievements. "Theatres thrived", and, as Shakespeare elevated the English language to its highest level of development, England’s literacy rate soared. Elizabeth attended the debut of Shakespeare's romantic comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. Numerous works were dedicated to her including poet Edmund Spenser's masterpiece The Fairie Queen. Composers William Byrd, John Dowland and Thomas Tallis also toiled at her court.
The discoveries of adventurers Sir Francis Drake, who circumnavigated the world in 1580, Walter Raleigh's exploration of eastern Venezuela in 1594 and Humphrey Gilbert’s conquering of Newfoundland for the English throne in 1583, spearheaded a new age expansion by the end of Elizabeth's reign. Upon her passing on 24 March 1604, the pioneering monarch, it is said, "departed this life mildly like a lamb, easily like a ripe apple from the tree".
The Limited Edition Celebrating the Elizabethan Age
Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I 4810
The design and adornments of the Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I 4810 reflects the life, reign and heraldic regalia of Elizabeth I. Hand engraved on the 18 K gold nib is a bejewelled gold crown which she brandished ascending the throne in 1559. Lacquer barrel and cap signify the spots which appear on an ermine cape, part of the traditional coronation attire which Elizabeth also flaunted. While an ivory coloured Montblanc emblem tops the cap, the clip descends from gold plated Tudor Rose. This "double rose" motif became England’s floral emblem after Henry VII, Elizabeth's grandfather, commandeered it as the symbol of the Tudor Dynasty upon taking the crown from Richard IIII in 1485. The green cabochon embellishing the gold-plated cross upon the clip also reflects the bejewelled cross upon Elizabeth's crown.
Encircling the gold plate band adorning the cap - as well as the cone - is an elegant interlaced pattern inspired by the pretty needlework sleeve Elizabeth conceived for a prayer book she created especially for her stepmother, Catherine Parr, as a New Year's gift in 1544. Entitled The Mirror of the Sinful Soul, it was Lady Elizabeth's own English translation of the French verse originally composed by Queen Margaret of Navarre. A friend of Anne Boleyn, the French Queen gave the original manuscript to her and the religious poem was also a favourite of Catherine Parr’s. Today, Elizabeth I’s handmade book is owned by the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library. Etched by gold plated cap ring is "Video et Taceo" - or "I see and I keep silent". This maxim of Elizabeth I signified her moderate political views and cautious approach to foreign affairs.
Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I Limited Edition 888
This 750 solid gold fountain pen features a barrel and cap in precious lacquer. Hand engraved on its 18 K gold nib is a bejewelled gold crown in which Elizabeth I ascended the throne in 1559. Topping the cap is the Montblanc emblem rendered in shimmering mother-of-pearl. The clip descends from a solid gold Tudor Rose while its embellishment - a princess cut green garnet - reflects the bejewelled crown. The intricate interlaced motif, derived from the needlework cover of The Mirror of the Sinful Soul, beautifies the solid gold cap and barrel. Elizabeth I's "Video et Taceo" maxim is embossed upon the cap ring.
Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award
Celebrating Past and Present
The Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award is presented in 11 countries and represents an exemplary bond forged between past and present and, since its inception in 1992, this merit has been directly linked with the Patron of the Art Edition. The prize, therefore, combines a tribute to an historic patron of the arts while acknowledging a contemporary one. By recognizing the importance of private patronage, the award conveys to the public its crucial role in fostering the arts and culture.
Each recipient of the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award is chosen by an international jury of artists and receives financial support of € 15.000 in each country for a cultural project of their own choice. Montblanc also presents the honoree and the jury members with the precious Patron of Art Edition. Sought after by collectors around the world, Montblanc's Patron of Art Edition are writing instruments that will last a lifetime. And like every Montblanc writing instrument, these exceptionally handcrafted fountain pens have been created with the highest demand of craftsmanship that has made Montblanc the benchmark for writing culture.
Prized by connoisseurs and avid collectors, the Montblanc Patron of the Art Edition is a commemorative keepsake meant to be passed down through generations. Manufacturing tools, specially developed for the making of every Montblanc Limited Edition, are destroyed at the end of each production run. As a consequence, these intricately handcrafted pens are collector’s items. Limited Editions produced between 1992 and 2000, for example, have sold at auction for sums greatly exceeding their original retail price, ranging from (US) $ 2,200 to (US) $35,000. And nine years after its 1992 debut, Montblanc Patron of the Art Lorenzo de Medici sold at Christie’s in New York for more than six times its initial cost of (US) $1,292.00, ultimately fetching (US) $8,225.00.
Mei Boa-Jiu, China:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mei_Baojiu
www.flickr.com/photos/gregsu/14914200150/in/photolist-uiq...
Mei Baojiu (Chinese: 梅葆玖; pinyin: Méi Bǎojiǔ) (29 March 1934 – 25 April 2016)[1] was a contemporary Peking opera artist, also a performer of the Dan role type in Peking Opera and Kunqu opera, the leader of Mei Lanfang Peking Opera troupe in Beijing Peking Opera Theatre. Mei's father Mei Lanfang was one of the most famous Peking opera performers. Mei Baojiu was the ninth and youngest child of Mei Lanfang. For this reason, he was called Baojiu, since in Chinese, jiu means nine.[2] Mei Baojiu was the master of the second generation of Méi School descendant, he was also Mei Lanfang's only child who is now a performer of the Dan role of the Peking Opera.[3]
Mei Baojiu: 梅葆玖
Born: 29 March 1934. Shanghai, China
Died: 25 April 2016 (aged 82) Beijing, China
Occupation: Peking opera artist
Parents: Mei Lanfang (father), Fu Zhifang (mother)
From childhood, Mei had learned Peking Opera from many artists. Mei Baojiu's first opera teacher was Wang Youqing (王幼卿), the nephew of Wang Yaoqing (王瑶卿), who had been the teacher of Mei Lanfang. Tao Yuzhi (陶玉芝) was his teacher of martial arts, while Zhu Chuanming (朱传茗), the famous performer of the Dan role type in Kunqu opera, taught him Kunqu. After that Mei learned the Dan role from Zhu Qinxin (朱琴心). Mei's regular performances of traditional opera include The Hegemon-King Bids His Concubine Farewell, Guifei Intoxicated (貴妃醉酒), Lady General Mu Takes Command (穆桂英挂帅), The story of Yang Guifei (太真外传), Luo Shen (洛神), Xi Shi (西施), etc. Mei has made significant contributions to cultural exchanges and promoting Peking Opera culture. Meanwhile, he also trains more than twenty students, such as Li Shengsu (李胜素), Dong Yuanyuan (董圆圆), Zhang Jing (张晶), Zhang Xinyue (张馨月), Hu Wenge (胡文阁) (the only male student),[4] Tian Hui (田慧), Wei Haimin.[5]
Biography:
Mei Baojiu as a child
In the spring of 1934, Mei Baojiu was born at No. 87 Sinan Road, Shanghai.[2] Because of his comely appearance and delicate voice, his father decided to send Baojiu to learn Peking opera and hoped that Baojiu could make contributions to Méi School. Baojiu himself also showed great interest as well as gifts in Peking opera in his early life. In 1942, Mei Lanfang and his wife Fu Zhifang (福芝芳) invited Wang Youqing (王幼卿), the disciple of famous Dan role performer - Wang Yaoqing (王瑶卿), from Beijing to teach Baojiu as his first qingyi teacher while requesting Zhu Chuanming (朱传茗), one of the most prestigious performers of the Dan role type to teach Baojiu Kunqu Opera. When Mei Lanfang was free from work, he also gave directions to his son himself.[6]
When Baojiu was ten years old, he played Xue Yi (薛倚) in San Niang teaches the child (三娘教子) as his first performance in Shanghai. At the age of twelve, together with his sister Mei Baoyue (梅葆玥), Baojiu acted in Yang Silang Visits His Mother (四郎探母). Being a Qingyi (青衣) performer, he started giving performances of the Legend of the White Snake, The Story Of Su San (玉堂春) and some other traditional plays for charity since the age of 13. He also performed in Wu Jiapo Hill (武家坡) with Baoyue (梅葆玥) at the same time. When Baojiu was 16, he took part in the national tour of the Mei Lanfang Troupe, and toured the country with the troupe. Usually, Baojiu performed for the first three days, and Mei Lanfang performed plays in the rest, sometimes they also performed cooperatively, such as in Legend of the White Snake. Baojiu played the part of Xiao Qing the green snake, while his father played Bai Suzhen the white snake.[6]
Mei Lanfang used to make suggestions to Baojiu in order to make the performance of Baojiu perfect when Baojiu was young. Once, after watching the play The Story Of Sue San (玉堂春), in which Baojiu performed, he came to Baojiu and suggested that Baojiu change the way of acting the spoken parts. He mentioned that it was the most exciting time when the heroine, Sue San, got the Senior judge. For this reason, Baojiu should speak infectiously, he should speak faster and faster to create tension.[7]
Baojiu also got a chance to share the stage with some prestigious senior performers, such as Xiao Changhua (萧长华), Jiang Miaoxiang (姜妙香) and Yu Zhenfei (俞振飞).[8]
Due to the guidance of the actors from the earlier generation, Mei Baojiu's acting greatly improved and hemade a great effort to promote Méi School as well.[9]
In 1961, after Mei Lanfang died, Baojiu took over the position of the leader of Mei Lanfang Peking Opera troupe. During this time, he acted in some other well known plays, such as The mulan (木兰从军), Return of the Phoenix (凤还巢) and Lian Jinfeng (廉锦枫). However, after 1964, almost all performance of traditional plays was forbidden, according to central government regulations. For this reason, Baojiu was forced to do recording and stage lighting related work.[10]
Fourteen years later, in 1978, Baojiu returned to the Mei Lanfang Peking Opera troupe and came back to stage. He reformed the troupe and rearranged many traditional plays like Yuzhoufeng the Sword(宇宙锋), The story of Yang Guifei (太真外传), Luo Shen (洛神), Xi Shi (西施) as well as Royal pavilion (御碑亭) at the same time.[11]
From 1981 to 1984, together with his sister Mei Baoyue and descendants of other schools, he participated in the performance of a series memorial activities to commemorate his father. Making the eight-hour long play lasts for only three hours, he also rearranged The story of Yang Guifei in the late 1980s.[12]
In 1993, led by Baojiu, the Mei Lanfang Peking Opera troupe visited Taiwan and gave elaborately prepared performances to the public. He has made significant contributions to cultural exchanges and promoting Peking Opera culture.[13]
Baojiu cultivates more than twenty students, such as Li Shengsu, Dong Yuanyuan (董圆圆), Zhang Jing (张晶), Zhang Xinyue (张馨月), Hu Wenge (the only male student), Tian Hui (田慧), Wei Haimin (魏海敏). In the last twenty years, he mainly focused on training these students.
As a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Mei Baojiu put forward a proposal on introducing Peking Opera into elementary schools in 2009.[14]
In March 2012, at the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Mei put forward a proposal on introducing the form of animation into Peking Opera in order to make more teenagers be interested in Peking Opera.[15]
On 26 March 2012, Mei received his Ph.D. from J. F. Oberlin University in Japan.[16]
On 31 March 2016, Mei was hospitalized because of bronchospasm. He died on 25 April 2016, at the age of 82.[17]
Famous plays:
Like his father, Mei Baojiu acts Dan role in the following classic Peking opera plays. The Hegemon-King Bids His Concubine Farewell tells the sad love story of Xiang Yu and his favourite concubine Consort Yu when he is surrounded by Liu Bang’s forces. Mei plays the role of Consort Yu. Shang Changrong (the 3rd son of Shang Xiaoyun) once played the role of Xiang Yu as Mei's partner.
Guifei Intoxicated, also named Bai Hua Ting (百花亭), is about Yang Guifei. In this play she drinks down her sorrow because she is irritated by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang breaking his promise. Based on Mei Lanfang’s original work, Mei Baojiu adapted this play for The Great Concubine of Tang (大唐贵妃), a contemporary Beijing opera with historical motif in 2002. Mu Guiying Takes Command, a classic Yu opera was adapted by Mei Lanfang in 1959, and he acted the leading role the same year in celebration of the 10th anniversary of PRC.
Cooperating with famous Yu opera master Ma Jinfeng (马金凤), Mei Baojiu performed this play in the Shuang xia guo style (双下锅), which means different forms of opera performed in one play.[3]
Family:
Mei Baojiu's mother, Fu Zhifang (福芝芳), the second wife of Mei Lanfang, bore 9 children, but only 4 of them survived.
Mei Baojiu is the youngest child in his family. His eldest brother, Mei Baochen (梅葆琛) (1925-2008), was a senior engineer in Beijing's Academy of Architecture (北京建筑设计院). His elder brother, Mei Shaowu (梅绍武) (1928-2005), was a researcher of the Chinese academy of social sciences institute of the United States (中国社会科学院美国研究所) and the president of Mei Lanfang Culture-art Seminar (中国梅兰芳文化艺术研究会). His elder sister Mei Baoyue (梅葆玥) (1930-2000) was a performer of the Laosheng role type in Peking Opera, and performed together with Mei Baojiu sometimes. Mei Baojiu is the only heir to the Meipai Qingyi (梅派青衣).[3][18]
Mei Baojiu's wife is named Lin Liyuan (林丽媛), she is the consultant of Mei Lanfang Troupe. They have no children.[19]
References:
^ Mei Shaowu (梅绍武), Mei Weidong (梅卫东), Biography of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳自述) :Appendix - studies (附录：年谱简表)
^ a b Wu Ying (吴迎), From Mei Lanfang to Mei Baojiu (从梅兰芳到梅葆玖) Page 50
^ a b c "梅氏家族 (May Family)". Archived from the original on 19 January 2012. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
^ "胡文阁被梅葆玖"看"得紧紧的(组图) (Mei Baojiu keeps a close watch on Hu Wenge (photo))". 9 January 2012. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
^ "梅葆玖简介 (About Mei Baojiu)". July 2009. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
^ a b Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page93
^ Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page 96
^ "梅兰芳的剧照 Mei Lanfang snapshot". Archived from the original on 17 April 2012. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
^ Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page92 - 93
^ Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page110
^ Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page112-113
^ Xu Beicheng (徐北城), Mei Lanfang and the 20th century (梅兰芳与二十世纪) :chapter 10. the Dance of Mei (第十章：梅之舞)
^ Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page113-121
^ "Mei Baojiu". 11 March 2009. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
^ "Mei Baojiu". 7 March 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
^ "Mei Baojiu". 29 March 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
^ "京剧大师梅葆玖去世享年82岁 世间从此再无"梅先生"". people.cn. 25 April 2016. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
^ Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page84 - 90
^ "About Mei Baojiu". 29 March 2012. Archived from the original on 5 December 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
Martine Franck, France:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martine_Franck
Martine Franck (2 April 1938 – 16 August 2012) was a British-Belgian documentary and portrait photographer. She was a member of Magnum Photos for over 32 years. Franck was the second wife of Henri Cartier-Bresson and co-founder and president of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation.
Martine Franck
Photo of Martine Franck.jpg
Franck in 1972, by Henri-Cartier Bresson
Born: 2 April 1938 Antwerp, Belgium
Died: 16 August 2012 (aged 74) Paris, France
Occupation
Documentary and portrait photographer
Spouse(s): Henri Cartier-Bresson (m. 1970; died 2004)
Children: 1
Contents:
Early life:
Franck was born in Antwerp[1] to the Belgian banker Louis Franck and his British wife, Evelyn.[2] After her birth the family moved almost immediately to London.[2] A year later, her father joined the British army, and the rest of the family were evacuated to the United States, spending the remainder of the Second World War on Long Island and in Arizona.[3]
Franck's father was an amateur art collector who often took his daughter to galleries and museums. Franck was in boarding school from the age of six onwards, and her mother sent her a postcard every day, frequently of paintings. Ms. Franck, attended Heathfield School, an all-girls boarding school close to Ascot in England, and studied the history of art from the age of 14. "I had a wonderful teacher who really galvanized me," she says. "In those days she took us on outings to London, which was the big excitement of the year for me."[4]
Career:
Franck studied art history at the University of Madrid and at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris. After struggling through her thesis (on French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and the influence of cubism on sculpture), she said she realized she had no particular talent for writing, and turned to photography instead.[5]
In 1963, Franck's photography career started following trips to the Far East, having taken pictures with her cousin’s Leica camera. Returning to France in 1964, now possessing a camera of her own, Franck became an assistant to photographers Eliot Elisofon and Gjon Mili at Time-Life. By 1969 she was a busy freelance photographer for magazines such as Vogue, Life and Sports Illustrated, and the official photographer of the Théâtre du Soleil (a position she held for 48 years).[6] From 1970 to 1971 she worked in Paris at the Agence Vu photo agency, and in 1972 she co-founded the Viva agency.[2]
In 1980, Franck joined the Magnum Photos cooperative agency as a "nominee", and in 1983 she became a full member. She was one of a very small number of women to be accepted into the agency.
In 1983, she completed a project for the now-defunct French Ministry of Women's Rights and in 1985 she began collaborating with the non-profit International Federation of Little Brothers of the Poor. In 1993, she first traveled to the Irish island of Tory where she documented the tiny Gaelic community living there. She also traveled to Tibet and Nepal, and with the help of Marilyn Silverstone photographed the education system of the Tibetan Tulkus monks. In 2003 and 2004 she returned to Paris to document the work of theater director Robert Wilson who was staging La Fontaine's fables at the Comédie Française.[7]
Nine books of Franck's photographs have been published, and in 2005 Franck was made a chevalier of the French Légion d'Honneur.[8]
Franck continued working even after she was diagnosed with bone cancer in 2010. Her last exhibition was in October 2011 at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie. The exhibit consisted of 62 portraits of artists "coming from somewhere else” collected from 1965 through 2010. This same year, there were collections of portraits shown at New York's Howard Greenberg Gallery and at the Claude Bernard Gallery, Paris.[9]
Work:
Franck was well known for her documentary-style photographs of important cultural figures such as the painter Marc Chagall, philosopher Michel Foucault and poet Seamus Heaney, and of remote or marginalized communities such as Tibetan Buddhist monks, elderly French people, and isolated Gaelic speakers. Michael Pritchard, the Director-General of the Royal Photographic Society, observed: "Martine was able to work with her subjects and bring out their emotions and record their expressions on film, helping the viewer understand what she had seen in person. Her images were always empathetic with her subject." In 1976, Frank took one of her most iconic photos of bathers beside a pool in Le Brusc, Provence. By her account, she saw them from a distance and rushed to photograph the moment, all the while changing the roll of film in her camera. She quickly closed the lens just at the right moment, when happened to be most intense.[9]
She cited as influences the portraits of British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, the work of American photojournalist Dorothea Lange and American documentary photographer Margaret Bourke-White.[8] In 2010, she told The New York Times that photography "suits my curiosity about people and human situations." [10]
She worked outside the studio, using a 35 mm Leica camera, and preferring black and white film.[2] The British Royal Photographic Society has described her work as "firmly rooted in the tradition of French humanist documentary photography."[11]
Personal life:
Franck was often described as elegant, dignified and shy.[12][13][14]
In 1966, she met Henri Cartier-Bresson, thirty years her senior, when she was photographing Paris fashion shows for The New York Times. In 2010, she told interviewer Charlie Rose "his opening line was, ‘Martine, I want to come and see your contact sheets.’" They married in 1970, had one child, a daughter named Mélanie, and remained together until his death in 2004.[2]
Throughout her career Franck, who was sometimes described as a feminist, was uncomfortable being in the shadow of her famous husband and wanted to be recognized for her own work. In 1970, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London planned to stage Franck's first solo exhibition: when she saw that the invitations included her husband's name and said he would be present at the launch, she cancelled the show. Franck once said that she put her husband's career ahead of her own. In 2003 Franck and her daughter launched the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation to promote Cartier-Bresson's photojournalism, and in 2004 Franck became its president.[8]
Franck was diagnosed with leukemia in 2010, and died in Paris in 2012 at 74 years old.[2]
Publications:
Martine Franck: Dun jour, l'autre. France: Seuil, 1998. ISBN 978-2-02-034771-6
Tibetan Tulkus, images of continuity. London: Anna Maria Rossi & Fabio Rossi Publications, 2000. ISBN 978-0-9520992-8-4
Tory Island Images. Wolfhound Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-86327-561-6
Martine Franck Photographe, Musée de la Vie romantique, Paris-Musées/Adam Biro, 2002. ISBN 978-2-87660-346-2
Fables de la Fontaine (production by Robert Wilson), Actes Sud. Paris, 2004
Martine Franck: One Day to the Next. Aperture, 2005. ISBN 978-0-89381-845-6
Martine Franck. Louis Baring. London: Phaidon, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7148-4781-8
Martine Franck: Photo Poche. France: Actes Sud, 2007. ISBN 978-2-7427-6725-0
Women/Femmes, Steidl, 2010. ISBN 978-3-86930-149-5
Venus d'ailleurs, Actes Sud, 2011
ExhibitionsEdit
La vie et la mort, Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France, 1980[citation needed]
Martine Franck Photographe, Musée de la Vie romantique, Paris, 2004[citation needed]
Les Rencontres, Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France, 2004[citation needed]
ReferencesEdit
^ Phaidon Editors (2019). Great women artists. Phaidon Press. p. 141. ISBN 0714878774.
^ a b c d e f Leslie Kaufman (22 August 2012). "Martine Franck, Documentary Photographer, Dies at 74". New York Times. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ Tori (21 August 2012). "'Magnum has lost a point of reference, a lighthouse, and one of our most influential and beloved members – Martine Franck". Film's Not Dead. Archived from the original on 26 August 2012. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ Grey, Tobias (21 October 2011). "Martine Franck's Curious Lens". ProQuest 899273270.
^ Bussell, Mark (8 June 2010). "Martine Franck's Pictures Within Pictures". New York Times. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ Wallace, Vaughan (20 August 2012). "Martine Franck: 1938 – 2012". Life magazine. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ Magnumphotos
^ a b c Hopkinson, Amanda (19 August 2012). "Martine Franck obituary". Guardian. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ a b Childs, Martin (29 August 2012). "The Independent". The Independent. Independent Print Ltd.
^ Bussell, Mark (8 June 2010). "Martine Franck's Pictures Within Pictures". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 September 2016.
^ Laurent, Olivier (17 August 2012). "Magnum Photos member and photographer Martine Franck has died". British Journal of Photography. Archived from the original on 19 August 2012. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ Gill, A.A. (2008). Previous convictions: assignments from here and there (1st Simon & Schuster trade pbk. ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. p. 90. ISBN 978-1416572497.
^ Walker, David (17 August 2012). "Photographer Martine Franck dies". Photo District News. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ "Wife of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Martine Franck, dies at 74". Art Media Agency. 20 August 2012. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
External linksEdit
Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation
New York Times "Martine Franck's Pictures Within Pictures"
Martine Franck 1991 catalogue of Taipei Fine Art Museum, with the pencil painting of Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Dr. rer. pol. Arend Oetker, Germany:
de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arend_Oetker
Arend Oetker was born on March 30, 1939 in Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and studied business administration and political science in Hamburg, Berlin and Cologne as well as Marketing at Harvard Business School. He received his doctorate in 1966 from the University of Cologne.
Dr. Arend Oetker, Managing Partner of Dr. Arend Oetker Holding, is Honorary Chairman of the Board and majority shareholder of the food company Hero AG, Deputy Chairman and major shareholder of KWS Saat AG and chairman of the board of Cognos AG.
Furthermore, Dr. Arend Oetker is actively involved as president of the German Council on Foreign Relations (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik e. V.), board member of the Confederation of German Employers‘ Associations (Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände e. V.) and honorary member of the Federation of German Industries (Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie e. V.). He has received a number of accolades in the field of visual arts and music.
Dr. Arend Oetker is married and has five children.
Dr. William Mong Man Wai, Hong Kong:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mong
William Mong Man-wai GBS (Chinese: 蒙民偉, 7 November 1927 – 20 July 2010) was the chairman of the Shun Hing Group, the distributor of Matsushita products (National, Panasonic, Technics) in Hong Kong.
He attended La Salle College in Hong Kong. Mong Man-wai died from cancer on 20 July 2010, aged 82. Many buildings in Hong Kong universities are named after him.[1]
Award received:
Gold Bauhinia Star
honorary doctor of the University of Hong Kong
honorary doctor of the Tsinghua University (2007)
honorary doctor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Giulio Mogol, Italy:
Giulio Rapetti (born 17 August 1936), in art Mogol (Italian pronunciation: [moˈɡɔl]), is an Italian music lyricist. He is best known for his collaborations with Lucio Battisti, Gianni Bella, Adriano Celentano and Mango.
Career:
Mogol was born in Milan. His father, Mariano Rapetti, was an important director of the Ricordi record label, and had been in his own time a successful lyricist of the 1950s. Young Giulio, who was likewise employed by Ricordi as a public relations expert, began his own career as a lyricist against his father's wishes.
His first successes were "Il cielo in una stanza", set to music by Gino Paoli and sung by Mina; "Al di là", a piece that won the 1961 Sanremo Festival, performed by Luciano Tajoli and Betty Curtis; "Una lacrima sul viso", which was a huge hit for Bobby Solo in 1964. Another famous song from 1961 was "Uno dei tanti" (English: "One among many") which was rewritten by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 1963 for Ben E. King and released under the title "I (Who Have Nothing)".
In addition to writing new lyrics in Italian for a great many singers, Mogol also took it upon himself, in years in which familiarity with the English language in Italy was still sparse, to translate many hits from overseas, especially film soundtracks, but also works of Bob Dylan and David Bowie.
In 1965, he met Lucio Battisti, a young guitarist and composer from the Latium region of central Italy. Mogol's lyrics contributed to Battisti's initial success as an author, in megahits such as "29 settembre", and led him to undertake the role of producer as well, as happened with the song "Sognando la California", which Mogol himself had translated from the signature number of The Mamas & the Papas, "California Dreamin'", and with "Senza luce" ("Without light"), an Italian rendering of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum.
In 1966, Mogol, overcoming resistance from his record label, convinced Battisti to perform his own songs. The lyricist's intuition would have one of the most rewarding outcomes of the history of Italian music, as Battisti, after a halting start, would explode as a singer, becoming one of the most successful artists in the panorama of Italian music. In the same year, Mogol left the Ricordi label to create his own with Battisti, called Numero Uno, which brought together many celebrated Italian singer-songwriters. The pair wrote songs as well for Bruno Lauzi and Patty Pravo. Their greatest chart success came from the songs written for Mina in 1969–1970.
In 1980, Mogol broke the artistic relationship with Battisti, and successfully continued his independent career as a lyricist with the noted singer-songwriter Riccardo Cocciante, with whom he wrote the texts for some successful albums, first in the series being "Cervo a Primavera".
Mogol (2007)
Lately, he began his collaboration with Mango, co-writing successful songs like "Oro", "Nella mia città", "Come Monna Lisa" and "Mediterraneo".
Mogol has formed a stable partnership with Adriano Celentano; his songs for Celentano are scored by the Sicilian singer-songwriter Gianni Bella. This collaboration has produced the delicate song "L'arcobaleno", included in the CD Io non so parlar d'amore, which is considered dedicated to Battisti, who had recently died. Mogol has also collaborated with singer-songwriter Jack Rubinacci.
Mari Natsuki, Japan:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mari_Natsuki
Junko Nakajima (中島 淳子, Nakajima Junko, born 2 May 1952), more commonly known by her stage name Mari Natsuki (夏木 マリ, Natsuki Mari), is a Japanese singer, dancer and actress.[1] Born in Tokyo, she started work as a singer from a young age. In 2007, Natsuki announced her engagement to percussionist Nobu Saitō, with their marriage taking place in Spring 2008.
Mari Natsuki
MJK 08427 Mari Natsuki (Berlinale 2018).jpg
Mari Natsuki (2018)
Born: Mari Natsuki. 夏木 マリ. 2 May 1952 (age 67) Tokyo, Japan
Nationality: Japanese
Other names: Junko Nakajima
Occupation: Singer, dancer, actress
Natsuki has participated in musical theatre, including that of Yukio Ninagawa. She provided the voice of Yubaba in Spirited Away, played the young witch's mother in the Japanese TV remake of Bewitched and has twice been nominated for a Japanese Academy Award. Natsuki played the character Big Mama in the Japanese version of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots[2] and has also acted in television dramas, such as the 2005 series Nobuta o Produce, playing the Vice Principal, Katharine.
Contents:
Film:
Otoko wa Tsurai yo series:
Tora-san, My Uncle (1989)
Tora-san Takes a Vacation (1990)
Tora-san Confesses (1991)
Tora-San Makes Excuses (1992)
Tora-san to the Rescue (1995)
Tora-san, Wish You Were Here (2019)
Onimasa (1982)
Legend of the Eight Samurai (1983)
Kita no Hotaru (1984)
Jittemai (1986)
Death Powder (1986)
Otoko wa Tsurai yo: Boku no Ojisan (1989)
The Hunted (1995)
Samurai Fiction (1998)
Spirited Away (2001)
Shōjo (2001)
Ping Pong (2002)
Okusama wa Majo (2004)
Sugar and Spice (2006)
Sakuran (2007)
Girl In The Sunny Place (2013)
Isle of Dogs (2018)
Ikiru Machi (2018)
Vision (2018)
Dai Kome Sōdō (2021), Taki
Television: Yoshitsune (2005), Carnation (2011), Montage (2016), Meet Me After School (2018)
Video Games: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (Big Mama) (2008), Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (Katherine Marlowe) (2011)
Japanese dub:
Live-action: Feud (Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange)), The West Wing (C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney))
Animation: Moana (Tala)
References:
^ Mills, Ted. "Apple Music Preview. About Mari Natsuki". music.apple.com. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
^ Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots: MGS4 Voice Cast Announced Archived 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine.
Changjae Shin, South Korea:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Chang-jae
Shin Chang-jae (born 1953/54) is a Korean billionaire businessman, Chairman and CEO of Kyobo Life Insurance Company.
Shin Chang-jae
Born: 1953/1954 (age 65–66)[1]
Nationality: Korean
Alma mater: Seoul National University
Occupation: Chairman and CEO, Kyobo Life Insurance Company
Net worth: $2.3 billion (June 2015)[1]
Spouse(s): married
Children: 2 sons
Early life:
He is the son of Shin Yong-ho, who founded Kyobo Life Insurance Company in 1958.[1] he has a doctorate from Seoul National University.[1]
Career: Kyobo Life Insurance Building, Seoul
He trained as an obstetrician and worked as a professor at the Seoul National University medical school.[1]
He has been Chairman and CEO of Kyobo Life Insurance Company since 2000.[1] In June 2015, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$2.3 billion.[1]
Personal life: He is married with two sons and lives in Seoul, South Korea.[1]
References: ^ a b c d e f g h "Shin Chang-Jae". Forbes. Retrieved 9 June 2015.
Patrick Charpenel, Mexico;
Patrick Charpenel will be the new executive director of El Museo del Barrio in New York.
Charpenel is a Mexico City–based curator who has worked extensively in Mexico as well as internationally. He organized a Gabriel Orozco retrospective at the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in 2006 and an exhibition of work by Franz West at the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo in 2009. He also oversaw the Art Public section for the 2009 and 2010 editions of Art Basel Miami Beach.
Charpenel served as the executive director of Museo Jumex, the private museum in Mexico City of ART news Top 200 collector Eugenio López Alonso. (Charpenel resigned from his post in 2015 amid the controversy over the cancellation of a Hermann Nitsch show.) Charpenel is also a writer and a collector of “a heterogeneous group of works” that focuses on such interests as “the structure of the global economy and the extension of artistic experience into the social sphere.”
Patrick Charpenel is an art historian and collector currently working as an independent curator in Mexico City. He holds a graduate degree in philosophy. Charpenel has curated numerous exhibitions including Franz West, Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, Mexico (2006); Sólo los personajes cambian, Museum of Contemporary Art, Monterrey, Mexico (2004); Inter.play, Moore Space, Miami, Florida (2003); Edén, Jumex Collection, Mexico City, Mexico (2003); and ACNÉ, Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City, Mexico (1995). He has numerous critical texts published in catalogues and magazines.
2018 Bienvenidos a El Museo del Barrio!
We are excited to announce the appointment of our new Executive Director, Patrick Charpenel. El Museo del Barrio is thrilled to have Charpenel join the institution’s leadership and we look forward to seeing what he will bring to the legacy of this museum.
YouTube: youtu.be/l1Amlj49bt8
Laura Garcia-Lorca de los Rios, Spain:
Gloria Giner de los Ríos García (28 March 1886 – 6 February 1970) was a Spanish teacher at the Escuela Normal Superior de Maestras and the Institución Libre de Enseñanza. The author of innovative manuals dedicated to the teaching of history and geography,[1] she, together with Leonor Serrano Pablo [es], developed the educational "recipe" that they called "enthusiastic observation". They also worked to change the androcentric canon of geographical studies to include women.[2]
Gloria Giner de los Ríos García
Born: 28 March 1886 Madrid, Spain
Died: 6 February 1970 (aged 83) Madrid, Spain
Resting place: Civil Cemetery of Madrid [es]
Occupation: Teacher
Spouse(s): Fernando de los Ríos
Children: Laura de los Ríos Giner [es]
Parents: Hermenegildo Giner de los Ríos [es] (father), Laura García Hoppe [es] (mother)
She lived in exile during the Francoist Spain era, forming part of the intellectual elite that carried out educational, philological, literary, legal, and cultural work. Her family had close connections to that of poet Federico García Lorca.
Biography:
Gloria Giner de los Ríos García was born in Madrid on 28 March 1886. The daughter of Laura García Hoppe [es] and Hermenegildo Giner de los Ríos [es], she spent her childhood and adolescence in Madrid, Alicante, and Barcelona, cities where her father held the Chair of Philosophy. After finishing high school in 1906 and teaching in 1908, she completed her training by attending classes at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza and taking courses in art, pedagogy, and philosophy.[3] In 1909, she was promoted to the Escuela de Estudios Superiores de Magisterio [es].[1]
Marriage, family, and social life:
On 1 July 1912, Giner married Fernando de los Ríos, who had obtained the Chair of Law at the University of Granada. It was in this city that the couple took up residence, and in which Gloria was a teacher at the Normal School, by right of consort at first, and later in her own position.[3] A year later, their daughter Laura de los Ríos Giner [es] was born. In Granada, the Ríos Giner family became friends with the García Lorca family, with Manuel de Falla, and with Berta Wilhelmi and her husband Eduardo Domínguez. Wilhelmi had been in contact with the Institución Libre de Enseñanza and had organized some community schools in Almuñécar.[4] With her collaboration, Giner organized the education of her daughter Laura and other children, including Isabel García Lorca [es], in order to separate them from Granada's private education system.[3]
Laura de los Ríos and Isabel García Lorca:
Federico García Lorca was one of the select circle of friends of the Ríos family. He dedicated the poem Romance sonámbulo to Fernando and Gloria,[5] and was the one who introduced their daughters, Laura de los Ríos and Isabel García Lorca. The friendship between the latter was very intense and lasting. They became sisters-in-law when Laura married Federico's younger brother Francisco [es]. In an interview, Isabel Garcia Lorca recalled:
Gloria Giner was an extraordinary being. Well, of character, I think there was a certain similarity in all of them, some high moral tension. People a little demanding with what others did and what they could do. They were like that down deep, including my mother.[6]
Laura, in another interview, told of her mother's life in Granada:
My mother attended her classes every day...in the afternoon she prepared her classes and helped my father. She translated from German, the language my father and a German teacher in Granada had taught her. She also translated from French, which she knew very well, from Greek and Latin...lovingly and intellectually my parents were a very well-matched marriage.[7]
Professional career:
In 1931, the Provisional Government of the Republic appointed her husband Minister of Justice, and in December, Minister of Public Instruction. Giner told her daughter, "I'm not going to give up my career and live as a minister."[8] Nonetheless she performed some ceremonial functions and accompanied her husband on trips through Spain.[3] In 1932 she was on leave as a teacher at the Normal School, but continued teaching at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza. In 1933, after her husband resigned from government office, she rejoined teaching by accepting a position in Zamora. For three courses she lived alone in a hotel room three days a week, returning to Madrid for the rest of the week.[8] In Zamora, as in Granada, society shunned her for being the wife of a socialist and not attending religious services.[7]
Exile:
At the end of September 1936, Fernando de los Ríos was appointed ambassador of Spain to the United States, a position he held until March 1939. Gloria Giner moved to Washington, D.C. with her daughter, her mother, and a nephew of her husband. Fernanda Urruti, Fernando's mother, would later join them. In Washington, Giner was invited to several meetings that Eleanor Roosevelt organized in the White House.[3] During the Civil War, Fernando de los Ríos was separated from his professorship at the University of Madrid. In 1939, the Franco government definitively separated him from his chair and dismissed him.
Fernando de los Ríos taught at The New School for Social Research in New York, an institution founded to welcome European intellectuals who emigrated for political reasons.[5] Giner was a professor at Columbia University.[3][9] The Ríos-Giner family lived in exile in the United States, which did not recognize Spanish Republican exiles and subjected those who wanted to enter to immigration laws. However, university students and artists were exempt from the rigid immigration quota, provided they were endorsed by US citizens or claimed by a university. Gloria was one of the exiled academics who passed through American universities and formed an intellectual elite.[10]
In 1942, her daughter Laura married Francisco García Lorca, younger brother of the poet Federico, in the Mead Chapel of Middlebury College, where both were professors at the Spanish School.[11] The couple had three daughters, and the family lived together in a New York apartment. In addition to preparing classes, writing poems, and working on the publication of her works, Giner took care of her three granddaughters, took them out for walks and, if necessary, took them on the bus and subway in New York.
In 1949, Fernando de los Ríos died. Over 50 personalities of politics and culture attended the funeral. José de los Ríos – the younger brother of Fernando and Francisco García Lorca – presided over the dual family. Fernando's wife, mother, and daughter stayed at the house during the funeral, in accordance with Spanish custom at the time.
Return to Spain:
Gloria Giner returned to Spain with her daughter's family in 1965. She died in Madrid on 6 February 1970.[12] She was buried in the Civil Cemetery of Madrid [es], and her husband's remains were reinterred there alongside hers on 28 June 1980.[13]
Teaching methods:
Gloria Giner and her great friend Leonor Serrano Pablo [es] worked together on the teaching of geography in order to connect with students.[14] Giner defended the formative capacity of the plastic arts "as a real basis for the teaching of history in the first years of the formation of the culture of the child". Her 1935 book Cien lecturas históricas became a prominent text for educational reformers inspired by the work of Rafael Altamira.[1]
With Altamira and Maria Montessori as references, they developed didactic methods that, in Serrano's words, revolved around "enthusiastic observation". This consisted of teaching geography in dialogue with the students, strengthening their physical and emotional relationship with the environment. Another component of enthusiastic observation was emotional. Impositions of rote memorization were eliminated. In Giner's words, "the soul was educated and the spirit strengthened".
Serrano and Giner also advocated for the meaningful inclusion of women in the androcentric canon of studies on geography. The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy had, in 1803, included the meaning of the word hombre (man) to refer to all mankind. Taking the term as inclusive of women, they understood that it forced men to relate to nature as women did. Serrano considered that rendering the androcentric references in geography meaningless would foster a "new creative, loving, anti-destructive, and anti-war humanity".[2] In the opinion of professor Ana I. Simón Alegre, this teaching, in the language of the 21st century, could be called the development of environmental education or the first manifestations of ecofeminism.[15]
Giner's last book, Por tierras de España (1962), also incorporated audio-lingual teaching methods.[9]
Works:
Historia de la pedagogía (1910)
Weimer, Hermann 1872-1942 (translation)
Geografía Primer grado. Aspectos de la naturaleza y vida del hombre en la tierra (1919)
Geografía: Primer grado (1919), with Federico Ribas (1890–1952)
Geografía general. El cielo, la Tierra y el hombre (1935)
Cien lecturas históricas (1935)
Lecturas geográficas. Espectáculos de la naturaleza, paisajes, ciudades y hombres (1936)
Romances de los ríos de España (1943)
Manual de historia de la civilización española (1951)
Cumbres de la civilización española: Interpretación del espíritu español individualizado en diecinueve figuras representativas (1955)
El paisaje de Hispanoamérica a través de su literatura: (antología) (1958)
Introducción a la historia de la civilización española (1959)
Por tierras de España (1962), with Luke Nolfi, ISBN 9780030800238
References:
^ a b c Duarte-Piña, Olga (2015). La enseñanza de la historia en la educación secundaria [Teaching of History in Secondary Education] (Thesis) (in Spanish). University of Seville. pp. 105–108. Retrieved 15 July 2019 – via Dialnet.
^ a b Simón Alegre, Ana I.; Sanz Álvarez, Arancha (January–June 2010). "Prácticas y teorías de descubrir paisajes: Viajeras y cultivadoras del estudio de la geografía en España, desde finales del siglo XIX hasta el primer tercio del XX" [Practices and Theories of Discovering Landscapes: Travelers and Cultivators of the Study of Geography in Spain, from the End of the 19th Century to the First Third of the 20th]. Arenal. Revista de historia de las mujeres (in Spanish). 17 (1): 55–79. ISSN 1134-6396. Retrieved 15 July 2019 – via Dialnet.
^ a b c d e f Ruiz-Manjón, Octavio (2007). "Gloria Giner de los Ríos: noticia biográfica de una madrileña" [Gloria Giner de los Ríos: Biographical Report of a Woman from Madrid]. Cuadernos de historia contemporánea (in Spanish) (Extra 1): 265–272. ISSN 0214-400X. Retrieved 15 July 2019 – via Dialnet.
^ Ruiz-Manjón, Octavio (31 May 2007). "Fernando de los Ríos. Un intelectual en el PSOE". El Cultural (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ a b "Ríos Urruti, Fernando de los (1879–1949)" (in Spanish). Charles III University of Madrid. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ Méndez, José. "Isabel García Lorca". Revista Residencia (in Spanish). Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ a b Rodrigo, Antonia (1 May 1982). "Laura de los Ríos". Revista Triunfo (in Spanish). No. 19. p. 64. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ a b "La niña que tocaba con Falla" [The Girl Who Played With Falla]. Granada Hoy (in Spanish). 8 March 2009. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ a b "Local Pair Co-Author Spanish Text". Democrat and Chronicle. 26 December 1962. p. 15. Retrieved 15 July 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
^ García Cueto, Pedro (30 April 2015). "Dos visiones del exilio cultural español: Vicente Llorens y Jordi Gracia" [Two Visions of Spanish Cultural Exile: Vicente Llorens and Jordi Gracia]. Fronterad (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 25 July 2018. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ Seseña, Natacha (26 December 1981). "Laura de los Ríos, un duelo de labores y esperanzas" [Laura de los Ríos, a Duel of Labors and Hopes]. El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ "Doña Gloria Giner de los Ríos". El Tiempo (in Spanish). 13 February 1970. p. 4. Retrieved 15 July 2019 – via Google News.
^ "Los restos de Fernando de los Ríos recibieron sepultura en el cementerio civil de Madrid" [The Remains of Fernando de los Ríos Buried in the Civil Cemetery of Madrid]. El País (in Spanish). 29 June 1980. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ Ortells Roca, Miquel; Artero Broch, Inmaculada (1 December 2013). "¿Para qué sirven las inspectoras? Leonor Serrano: La pedagogía y/contra el poder" [What are Inspectors For? Leonor Serrano: Pedagogy and/Against Power]. Quaderns (in Spanish) (76). Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ Simón Alegre, Ana I. (1 March 2013). "Los inicios del ecofeminismo en España" [The Beginnings of Ecofeminism in Spain]. El Ecologista (in Spanish) (76). Retrieved 15 July 2019.
Further readingEdit
Fuentes, Víctor (2010). "'Manhattan transfers' personales al trasluz del exilio republicano en Nueva York". In Faber, Sebastiaan (ed.). Contra el olvido: el exilio español en Estados Unidos (in Spanish). Instituto Franklin de Estudios Norteamericanos. pp. 223–241. ISBN 9788481388701.
Zulueta, Carmen (2001). "Los domingos de don Fernando" [Sundays with Don Fernando]. Fundamentos de antropología (in Spanish) (10–11): 130–137.
Candida Gertler & Yana Peel, United Kingdom:
Candida Gertler (born 1966/1967) OBE is a British/German art collector, philanthropist, and former journalist.[2]
Candida Gertler
Born: 1966/1967 (age 52–53)[1]. Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Nationality: British, German
Occupation: Art collector
Net worth: £150 million (2009)
Spouse(s): Zak Gertler
Children: 2
Early life:
She was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, to Romanian Jewish immigrant parents.[1] [3] She studied journalism and law.[1]
Career:
In 2003 Gertler and Yana Peel founded the Outset Contemporary Art Fund.[4]
In June 2015, she was given an OBE "for services to Contemporary Visual Arts and Arts Philanthropy".[5]
She is a member of the Tate International Council.[6]
Personal life:
She is married to Zak Gertler.[7] They are Jewish, and have two children.[8]
He has been called "one of London's leading property developers".[7] In 2009, Zak Gertler and family had an estimated net worth of £150 million, down from £250 million in 2008.[9] "The Gertlers developed offices in Germany, moving into the London market in the 1990s."[9]
References:
^ a b c "The Tate's Secret Weapon: Outset". Art Market Monitor. 25 August 2009. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
^ "A missionary for art". Arterritory.com - Baltic, Russian and Scandinaviawn Art Territory. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
^ ""Artfully Dressed: Women in the Art World", Volume IV: Collectors & Patrons". Issuu. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
^ www.arterritory.com/en/art_market/collections/6202-a_miss...
^ "Candida GERTLER". www.thegazette.co.uk. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
^ "Interview with Candida Gertler, OBE". Artkurio Consultancy. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
^ a b "The London Magazine". www.thelondonmagazine.co.uk. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
^ parkeastsynagogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Annoucem...
^ a b "Zak Gertler and family". The Sunday Times. 26 April 2009. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
Yana Peel (born June 1974) is a Canadian executive, businesswoman, children's author and philanthropist.[2] She was CEO of the Serpentine Galleries from 2016 to 2019, and was previously a board member.[3][4]
Yana Peel:
Born: Yana Mirkin[1]. June 1974 (age 45). Leningrad, USSR (now Russia)
Nationality: Canadian
Alma mater: McGill University, London School of Economics
Predecessor: Julia Peyton-Jones
Spouse(s): Stephen Peel (m. 1999)
Children: 2
Peel is a co-founder of the Outset Contemporary Art Fund (with Candida Gertler), and Intelligence Squared Asia, and was CEO of Intelligence Squared Group from 2013 to 2016.[5]
Peel has several advisory positions including the Tate International Council, V-A-C Foundation, and the NSPCC therapeutic board.[6][7] She has been an advisor to the British Fashion Council, Asia Art Archive, Lincoln Center, Para Site and the Victoria and Albert Museum, where she founded the design fund.[6][8][9][7]
Early life:
Yana Peel was born in June 1974[10] in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia. Her family emigrated to Canada via Austria in 1978.[3] She grew up in Toronto, Ontario.[11]
Peel studied Russian studies at McGill University during the 1990s. [12][3][1] In 1996,[13] while being a student she co-organised a fashion show for charity.[1][6][14] After that, Peel undertook a post-graduate degree in economics at the London School of Economics.[3][11] Peel was a member of the 2011 class of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders programme.[15]
Career:
Goldman Sachs:
Peel started her career in the equities division of Goldman Sachs in 1997 in London, and became an executive director before leaving in 2003.[16][6][3][2]
Outset Contemporary Art Fund:
Peel co-founded the charity Outset Contemporary Art Fund in 2003 with Candida Gertler.[17][6][11] Peel and Gertler generated a model whereby artists could be presented to potential donors in order to raise funds to purchase their work, or to fund new commissions with a view to donating them to public institutions.[6] The Fund purchased over 100 pieces for the Tate Modern, and commissioned work by artists including Francis Alys, Yael Bartana, Candice Breitz and Steve McQueen.[6][16]
Intelligence Squared:
In 2009, Peel co-founded Intelligence Squared Asia with Amelie Von Wedel, a not-for-profit platform for hosting live debates in Hong Kong.[18][17][19] In 2012 Peel became CEO of Intelligence Squared Group,[18][20] bringing the live events business out of its financial difficulties.[6] Peel has hosted interviews including: Olafur Eliasson and Shirin Neshat at Davos,[21] Ai Wei Wei at the Cambridge Union.[22]
Serpentine Galleries:
In April 2016, Peel was appointed to the role of CEO of the Serpentine Galleries.[23][3] Peel said it was her "mission to create a safe space for unsafe ideas",[2] and to promote a "socially conscious Serpentine".[11] She indicated that she wanted to give artists a greater say in the development of the Serpentine Galleries, in order to give "artists a voice in the biggest global conversations".[11] Peel worked in tandem with the artistic director, Hans Ulrich Obrist.[6]
Peel furthered the Serpentine Galleries' technological ambitions, introducing digital engagement initiatives including Serpentine Mobile Tours[24] and the translation of the exhibition Zaha Hadid: Early Paintings and Drawings into Virtual Reality.[25][26] Peel stated that she was "committed to maintaining and open-source spirit"[27] at the Serpentine Galleries, and that it was her ambition "to inspire the widest audiences with the urgency of art and architecture".[2] The Financial Times noted that Peel "has been able to lure companies such as Google and Bloomberg as partners to help meet the Serpentine's annual £9.5m target".[24]
Peel and Obrist selected both the first African architect to work on a pavilion,[28] and the youngest architect to do so.[29] In 2018, she broadened the global reach of the Serpentine Pavilion programme by announcing the launch of a pavilion in Beijing designed by Sichuan practice, Jiakun Architects.[30]
Together with Lord Richard Rogers and Sir David Adjaye, Peel and Obrist selected Burkina Faso architect Diébédo Francis Kéré to design the 2017 pavilion.[31] The pavilion was awarded the Civic Trust Award in 2018.[32]
The Serpentine selected Mexican architect Frida Escobedo to design the 2018 pavilion. She will be the youngest architect to have participated in the Pavilion programme since it began in 2000.[29]
She stepped down as CEO in June 2019 as a consequence of the attention paid to her co-ownership of NSO Group, an Israeli cyberweapons company whose software has allegedly been used by authoritarian regimes to spy on dissidents.[4]
Philanthropy:
Peel co-chaired Para Site, a not-for-profit contemporary art space in Hong Kong, from 2010 to 2015.[33] She has been involved with the project since 2009.[17]
Peel founded the Victoria and Albert Museum's design fund in 2011.[9] The fund supported the acquisition of contemporary design objects.[9]
Peel is a member of NSPCC's therapeutic board.[7] Inspired by her children, in 2008 Peel produced a series of toddler-friendly art books published by Templar, including: Art For Baby, Color For Baby and Faces For Baby.[34] These books feature works by artists ranging from Damien Hirst to Keith Haring. Proceeds from the sales of the books go towards the NSPCC.[35]
Personal life:
In 1999, Peel married Stephen Peel,[36] a private equity financier.[37] They have two children and live in Bayswater, London.[37][38]
Awards and honours:
Montblanc Award for Arts Patronage 2011[39]
Debrett's 500 List: Art[40]
Evening Standard Progress 1000 2017[41]
ArtLyst Power 100[42]
Harper's Bazaar Women Of The Year 2017[27]
Harper's Bazaar Working Wardrobe: Best dressed women 2018[43]
Henry Crown Fellow. Appointed by the Aspen Institute in 2018.[44]
References:
^ a b c "McGill Reporter - Volume 28 Number 11". reporter-archive.mcgill.ca. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
^ a b c d Bailey, Sarah. "In Conversation: Art and Fashion Are Both About Desire", Red, London, 1 November 2017. Retrieved on 19 February 2018.
^ a b c d e f McElvoy, Anne. "In The Hot Seat", Porter, London, 1 December 2016.
^ a b Greenfield, Patrick (18 June 2019). "Serpentine Galleries chief resigns in spyware firm row". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 18 June 2019 – via www.theguardian.com.
^ Sloway, Diane. "Meet Yana Peel, the Audacious Canadian Who's Transforming London's Famed Serpentine Galleries", W Magazine, 29 November 2016. Retrieved on 19 February 2018.
^ a b c d e f g h i Bourne, Henry. "L’alchimista", La Repubblica, Rome, 8 May 2017. Retrieved on 19 February 2018.
^ a b c "Serpentine Galleries Announce Appointment of Outset’s Yana Peel As CEO", ArtLys
Through its subsidiary Associated Co-operative Creameries (ACC), the Cooperative Wholesale Society was a major player in the UK milk industry until the sale of its assets to Cheshire-based Dairy Farmers of Britain in 2004. ACC had been a subsidiary of the North Eastern Co-operative Society based in Gateshead and assumed nationwide responsibility for milk production and distribution within the CWS following its acquisition of the previously separate regional co-operatives in1992. Its distinction blue and white vehicles could be seen collecting fresh milk from local farms, and delivering the processed product to wholesale and retail customers. I have no evidence that the company operated Scanias but this fictional two-axle 111 is typical of the smaller tankers used for collecting milk from farms with restricted access. Thanks to Martin Vonk for the base image (17-Dec-18).
All rights reserved. Not to be posted on Facebook or anywhere else without my prior written permission. Please follow the link below for additional information about my Flickr images:
www.flickr.com/photos/northernblue109/6046035749/in/set-7...
The associated video with this picture series is Our Trip to Crete on YouTube.
This part of our adventures on our Grand Tour of Europe is in episode four of the Take Flight with Scott video series on YouTube. Please join us there for even more content from this trip. Part four is our time on Crete, Greece with our teen nieces Madeline and Emily, including a trip to the ruins in Ancient Aptera, and a visit to the freshwater flowing through Glyka Nera Beach.
Also, you can follow my personal ZiffedTraveler Instagram or the TakeFlight with Scott Instagram pages for more content and news. We are on Facebook, too.
Rochester is a town and historic city in the unitary authority of Medway in Kent, England. It is situated at the lowest bridging point of the River Medway about 30 miles (50 km) from London.
Rochester was for many years a favourite of Charles Dickens, who owned nearby Gads Hill Place, Higham,[1] basing many of his novels on the area. The Diocese of Rochester, the second oldest in England, is based at Rochester Cathedral and was responsible for the founding of a school, now The King's School in 604 AD,[2] which is recognised as being the second oldest continuously running school in the world. Rochester Castle, built by Bishop Gundulf of Rochester, has one of the best preserved keepsin either England or France, and during the First Barons' War (1215–1217) in King John's reign, baronial forces captured the castle from Archbishop Stephen Langton and held it against the king, who then besieged it.[3]
Neighbouring Chatham, Gillingham, Strood and a number of outlying villages, together with Rochester, nowadays make up the MedwayUnitary Authority area. It was, until 1998,[4]under the control of Kent County Council and is still part of the ceremonial county of Kent, under the latest Lieutenancies Act.[5]
Toponymy[edit]
The Romano-British name for Rochester was Durobrivae, later Durobrivis c. 730 and Dorobrevis in 844. The two commonly cited origins of this name are that it either came from "stronghold by the bridge(s)",[6] or is the latinisation of the British word Dourbruf meaning "swiftstream".[7]Durobrivis was pronounced 'Robrivis. Bede copied down this name, c. 730, mistaking its meaning as Hrofi's fortified camp (OE Hrofes cæster). From this we get c. 730 Hrofæscæstre, 811 Hrofescester, 1086 Rovescester, 1610 Rochester.[6] The Latinised adjective 'Roffensis' refers to Rochester.[7]
Neolithic remains have been found in the vicinity of Rochester; over time it has been variously occupied by Celts, Romans, Jutes and/or Saxons. During the Celtic period it was one of the two administrative centres of the Cantiaci tribe. During the Roman conquest of Britain a decisive battle was fought at the Medway somewhere near Rochester. The first bridge was subsequently constructed early in the Roman period. During the later Roman period the settlement was walled in stone. King Ethelbert of Kent(560–616) established a legal system which has been preserved in the 12th century Textus Roffensis. In AD 604 the bishopric and cathedral were founded. During this period, from the recall of the legions until the Norman conquest, Rochester was sacked at least twice and besieged on another occasion.
The medieval period saw the building of the current cathedral (1080–1130, 1227 and 1343), the building of two castles and the establishment of a significant town. Rochester Castle saw action in the sieges of 1215 and 1264. Its basic street plan was set out, constrained by the river, Watling Street, Rochester Priory and the castle.
Rochester has produced two martyrs: St John Fisher, executed by Henry VIII for refusing to sanction the divorce of Catherine of Aragon; and Bishop Nicholas Ridley, executed by Queen Mary for being an English Reformation protestant.
The city was raided by the Dutch as part of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The Dutch, commanded by Admiral de Ruijter, broke through the chain at Upnor[8] and sailed to Rochester Bridge capturing part of the English fleet and burning it.[9]
The ancient City of Rochester merged with the Borough of Chatham and part of the Strood Rural District in 1974 to form the Borough of Medway. It was later renamed Rochester-upon-Medway, and its City status transferred to the entire borough. In 1998 another merger with the rest of the Medway Towns created the Medway Unitary Authority. The outgoing council neglected to appoint ceremonial "Charter Trustees" to continue to represent the historic Rochester area, causing Rochester to lose its City status – an error not even noticed by council officers for four years, until 2002.[10][11]
Military History
Rochester has for centuries been of great strategic importance through its position near the confluence of the Thames and the Medway. Rochester Castle was built to guard the river crossing, and the Royal Dockyard's establishment at Chatham witnessed the beginning of the Royal Navy's long period of supremacy. The town, as part of Medway, is surrounded by two circles of fortresses; the inner line built during the Napoleonic warsconsists of Fort Clarence, Fort Pitt, Fort Amherst and Fort Gillingham. The outer line of Palmerston Forts was built during the 1860s in light of the report by the Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdomand consists of Fort Borstal, Fort Bridgewood, Fort Luton, and the Twydall Redoubts, with two additional forts on islands in the Medway, namely Fort Hoo and Fort Darnet.
During the First World War the Short Brothers' aircraft manufacturing company developed the first plane to launch a torpedo, the Short Admiralty Type 184, at its seaplane factory on the River Medway not far from Rochester Castle. In the intervening period between the 20th century World Wars the company established a world-wide reputation as a constructor of flying boats with aircraft such as the Singapore, Empire 'C'-Class and Sunderland. During the Second World War, Shorts also designed and manufactured the first four-engined bomber, the Stirling.
The UK's decline in naval power and shipbuilding competitiveness led to the government decommissioning the RN Shipyard at Chatham in 1984, which led to the subsequent demise of much local maritime industry. Rochester and its neighbouring communities were hit hard by this and have experienced a painful adjustment to a post-industrial economy, with much social deprivation and unemployment resulting. On the closure of Chatham Dockyard the area experienced an unprecedented surge in unemployment to 24%; this had dropped to 2.4% of the local population by 2014.[12]
Former City of Rochester[edit]
Rochester was recognised as a City from 1211 to 1998. The City of Rochester's ancient status was unique, as it had no formal council or Charter Trustees nor a Mayor, instead having the office of Admiral of the River Medway, whose incumbent acted as de facto civic leader.[13] On 1 April 1974, the City Council was abolished under the Local Government Act 1972, and the territory was merged with the District of Medway, Borough of Chatham and most of Strood Rural District to form a new a local government district called the Borough of Medway, within the county of Kent. Medway Borough Council applied to inherit Rochester's city status, but this was refused; instead letters patent were granted constituting the area of the former Rochester local government district to be the City of Rochester, to "perpetuate the ancient name" and to recall "the long history and proud heritage of the said City".[14] The Home Officesaid that the city status may be extended to the entire borough if it had "Rochester" in its name, so in 1979, Medway Borough Council renamed the borough to Borough of Rochester-upon-Medway, and in 1982, Rochester's city status was transferred to the entire borough by letters patent, with the district being called the City of Rochester-upon-Medway.[13]
On 1 April 1998, the existing local government districts of Rochester-upon-Medway and Gillingham were abolished and became the new unitary authority of Medway. The Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions informed the city council that since it was the local government district that officially held City status under the 1982 Letters Patent, the council would need to appoint charter trustees to preserve its city status, but the outgoing Labour-run council decided not to appoint charter trustees, so the city status was lost when Rochester-upon-Medway was abolished as a local government district.[15][16][17] The other local government districts with City status that were abolished around this time, Bath and Hereford, decided to appoint Charter Trustees to maintain the existence of their own cities and the mayoralties. The incoming Medway Council apparently only became aware of this when, in 2002, it was advised that Rochester was not on the Lord Chancellor's Office's list of cities.[18][19]
In 2010, Medway Council started to refer to the "City of Medway" in promotional material, but it was rebuked and instructed not to do so in future by the Advertising Standards Authority.[20]
Governance[edit]
Civic history and traditions[edit]
Rochester and its neighbours, Chatham and Gillingham, form a single large urban area known as the Medway Towns with a population of about 250,000. Since Norman times Rochester had always governed land on the other side of the Medway in Strood, which was known as Strood Intra; before 1835 it was about 100 yards (91 m) wide and stretched to Gun Lane. In the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act the boundaries were extended to include more of Strood and Frindsbury, and part of Chatham known as Chatham Intra. In 1974, Rochester City Council was abolished and superseded by Medway Borough Council, which also included the parishes of Cuxton, Halling and Cliffe, and the Hoo Peninsula. In 1979 the borough became Rochester-upon-Medway. The Admiral of the River Medway was ex-officio Mayor of Rochester and this dignity transferred to the Mayor of Medway when that unitary authority was created, along with the Admiralty Court for the River which constitutes a committee of the Council.[21]
Like many of the mediaeval towns of England, Rochester had civic Freemen whose historic duties and rights were abolished by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. However, the Guild of Free Fishers and Dredgers continues to the present day and retains rights, duties and responsibilities on the Medway, between Sheerness and Hawkwood Stone.[22] This ancient corporate body convenes at the Admiralty Court whose Jury of Freemen is responsible for the conservancy of the River as enshrined in current legislation. The City Freedom can be obtained by residents after serving a period of "servitude", i.e. apprenticeship (traditionally seven years), before admission as a Freeman. The annual ceremonial Beating of the Boundsby the River Medway takes place after the Admiralty Court, usually on the first Saturday of July.
Rochester first obtained City status in 1211, but this was lost due to an administrative oversight when Rochester was absorbed by the Medway Unitary Authority.[10] Subsequently, the Medway Unitary Authority has applied for City status for Medway as a whole, rather than merely for Rochester. Medway applied unsuccessfully for City status in 2000 and 2002 and again in the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Year of 2012.[23] Any future bid to regain formal City status has been recommended to be made under the aegis of Rochester-upon-Medway.
Ecclesiastical parishes[edit]
There were three medieval parishes: St Nicholas', St Margaret's and St Clement's. St Clement's was in Horsewash Lane until the last vicar died in 1538 when it was joined with St Nicholas' parish; the church last remaining foundations were finally removed when the railway was being constructed in the 1850s. St Nicholas' Church was built in 1421 beside the cathedral to serve as a parish church for the citizens of Rochester. The ancient cathedral included the Benedictine monastic priory of St Andrew with greater status than the local parishes.[24] Rochester's pre-1537 diocese, under the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome, covered a vast area extending into East Anglia and included all of Essex.[25]
As a result of the restructuring of the Church during the Reformation the cathedral was reconsecrated as the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary without parochial responsibilities, being a diocesan church.[26] In the 19th century the parish of St Peter's was created to serve the burgeoning city with the new church being consecrated in 1859. Following demographic shifts, St Peter's and St Margaret's were recombined as a joint benefice in 1953 with the parish of St Nicholas with St Clement being absorbed in 1971.[27] The combined parish is now the "Parish of St Peter with St Margaret", centred at the new (1973) Parish Centre in The Delce (St Peter's) with St Margaret's remaining as a chapel-of-ease. Old St Peter's was demolished in 1974, while St Nicholas' Church has been converted into the diocesan offices but remains consecrated. Continued expansion south has led to the creation of an additional more recent parish of St Justus (1956) covering The Tideway estate and surrounding area.[28]
A church dedicated to St Mary the Virgin at Eastgate, which was of Anglo-Saxon foundation, is understood to have constituted a parish until the Middle Ages, but few records survive.[29]
Geography
Rochester lies within the area, known to geologists, as the London Basin. The low-lying Hoo peninsula to the north of the town consists of London Clay, and the alluvium brought down by the two rivers—the Thames and the Medway—whose confluence is in this area. The land rises from the river, and being on the dip slope of the North Downs, this consists of chalksurmounted by the Blackheath Beds of sand and gravel.
As a human settlement, Rochester became established as the lowest river crossing of the River Medway, well before the arrival of the Romans.
It is a focal point between two routes, being part of the main route connecting London with the Continent and the north-south routes following the course of the Medway connecting Maidstone and the Weald of Kent with the Thames and the North Sea. The Thames Marshes were an important source of salt. Rochester's roads follow north Kent's valleys and ridges of steep-sided chalk bournes. There are four ways out of town to the south: up Star Hill, via The Delce,[30] along the Maidstone Road or through Borstal. The town is inextricably linked with the neighbouring Medway Towns but separate from Maidstone by a protective ridge known as the Downs, a designated area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
At its most limited geographical size, Rochester is defined as the market town within the city walls, now associated with the historic medieval city. However, Rochester historically also included the ancient wards of Strood Intra on the river's west bank, and Chatham Intra as well as the three old parishes on the Medway's east bank.
The diocese of Rochester is another geographical entity which can be referred to as Rochester.
Climate[edit]
Rochester has an oceanic climate similar to much of southern England, being accorded Köppen Climate Classification-subtype of "Cfb" (Marine West Coast Climate).[31]
On 10 August 2003, neighbouring Gravesend recorded one of the highest temperatures since meteorogical records began in the United Kingdom, with a reading of 38.1 degrees Celsius (100.6 degrees Fahrenheit),[32]only beaten by Brogdale, near Faversham, 22 miles (35 km) to the ESE.[33] The weather station at Brogdale is run by a volunteer, only reporting its data once a month, whereas Gravesend, which has an official Met Office site at the PLA pilot station,[34] reports data hourly.
Being near the mouth of the Thames Estuary with the North Sea, Rochester is relatively close to continental Europe and enjoys a somewhat less temperate climate than other parts of Kent and most of East Anglia. It is therefore less cloudy, drier and less prone to Atlanticdepressions with their associated wind and rain than western regions of Britain, as well as being hotter in summer and colder in winter. Rochester city centre's micro-climate is more accurately reflected by these officially recorded figures than by readings taken at Rochester Airport.[35]
North and North West Kent continue to record higher temperatures in summer, sometimes being the hottest area of the country, eg. on the warmest day of 2011, when temperatures reached 33.1 degrees.[36]Additionally, it holds at least two records for the year 2010, of 30.9 degrees[37] and 31.7 degrees C.[38] Another record was set during England's Indian summer of 2011 with 29.9 degrees C., the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK for October.
North and North West Kent continue to record higher temperatures in summer, sometimes being the hottest area of the country, eg. on the warmest day of 2011, when temperatures reached 33.1 degrees.[36]Additionally, it holds at least two records for the year 2010, of 30.9 degrees[37] and 31.7 degrees C.[38] Another record was set during England's Indian summer of 2011 with 29.9 degrees C., the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK for October.
Building
Rochester comprises numerous important historic buildings, the most prominent of which are the Guildhall, the Corn Exchange, Restoration House, Eastgate House, as well as Rochester Castle and Rochester Cathedral. Many of the town centre's old buildings date from as early as the 14th century up to the 18th century. The chapel of St Bartholomew's Hospital dates from the ancient priory hospital's foundation in 1078.
Economy
Thomas Aveling started a small business in 1850 producing and repairing agricultural plant equipment. In 1861 this became the firm of Aveling and Porter, which was to become the largest manufacturer of agricultural machinery and steam rollers in the country.[39] Aveling was elected Admiral of the River Medway (i.e. Mayor of Rochester) for 1869-70.
Culture[edit]
Sweeps Festival[edit]
Since 1980 the city has seen the revival of the historic Rochester Jack-in-the-Green May Day dancing chimney sweeps tradition, which had died out in the early 1900s. Though not unique to Rochester (similar sweeps' gatherings were held across southern England, notably in Bristol, Deptford, Whitstable and Hastings), its revival was directly inspired by Dickens' description of the celebration in Sketches by Boz.
The festival has since grown from a small gathering of local Morris dancesides to one of the largest in the world.[40] The festival begins with the "Awakening of Jack-in-the-Green" ceremony,[41] and continues in Rochester High Street over the May Bank Holiday weekend.
There are numerous other festivals in Rochester apart from the Sweeps Festival. The association with Dickens is the theme for Rochester's two Dickens Festivals held annually in June and December.[42] The Medway Fuse Festival[43] usually arranges performances in Rochester and the latest festival to take shape is the Rochester Literature Festival, the brainchild of three local writers.[44]
Library[edit]
A new public library was built alongside the Adult Education Centre, Eastgate. This enabled the registry office to move from Maidstone Road, Chatham into the Corn Exchange on Rochester High Street (where the library was formerly housed). As mentioned in a report presented to Medway Council's Community Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 28 March 2006, the new library opened in late summer (2006).[45]
Theatre[edit]
There is a small amateur theatre called Medway Little Theatre on St Margaret's Banks next to Rochester High Street near the railway station.[46] The theatre was formed out of a creative alliance with the Medway Theatre Club, managed by Marion Martin, at St Luke's Methodist Church on City Way, Rochester[47] between 1985 and 1988, since when drama and theatre studies have become well established in Rochester owing to the dedication of the Medway Theatre Club.[48]
Media[edit]
Local newspapers for Rochester include the Medway Messenger, published by the KM Group, and free newspapers such as Medway Extra(KM Group) and Yourmedway (KOS Media).
The local commercial radio station for Rochester is KMFM Medway, owned by the KM Group. Medway is also served by community radio station Radio Sunlight. The area also receives broadcasts from county-wide stations BBC Radio Kent, Heart and Gold, as well as from various Essex and Greater London radio stations.[49]
Sport[edit]
Football is played with many teams competing in Saturday and Sunday leagues.[50] The local football club is Rochester United F.C. Rochester F.C. was its old football club but has been defunct for many decades. Rugby is also played; Medway R.F.C. play their matches at Priestfields and Old Williamsonians is associated with Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School.[51]
Cricket is played in the town, with teams entered in the Kent Cricket League. Holcombe Hockey Club is one of the largest in the country,[52]and is based at Holcombe Park. The men's and women's 1st XI are part of the England Hockey League.[53] Speedway was staged on a track adjacent to City Way that opened in 1932. Proposals for a revival in the early 1970s did not materialise and the Rochester Bombers became the Romford Bombers.[54]
Sailing and rowing are also popular on the River Medway with respective clubs being based in Rochester.[55][56]
Film[edit]
The 1959 James Bond Goldfinger describes Bond driving along the A2through the Medway Towns from Strood to Chatham. Of interest is the mention of "inevitable traffic jams" on the Strood side of Rochester Bridge, the novel being written some years prior to the construction of the M2 motorway Medway bypass.
Rochester is the setting of the controversial 1965 Peter Watkins television film The War Game, which depicts the town's destruction by a nuclear missile.[57] The opening sequence was shot in Chatham Town Hall, but the credits particularly thank the people of Dover, Gravesend and Tonbridge.
The 2011 adventure film Ironclad (dir. Jonathan English) is based upon the 1215 siege of Rochester Castle. There are however a few areaswhere the plot differs from accepted historical narrative.
Notable people[edit]
Charles Dickens
The historic city was for many years the favourite of Charles Dickens, who lived within the diocese at nearby Gads Hill Place, Higham, many of his novels being based on the area. Descriptions of the town appear in Pickwick Papers, Great Expectations and (lightly fictionalised as "Cloisterham") in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Elements of two houses in Rochester, Satis House and Restoration House, are used for Miss Havisham's house in Great Expectations, Satis House.[58]
Sybil Thorndike
The actress Dame Sybil Thorndike and her brother Russell were brought up in Minor Canon Row adjacent to the cathedral; the daughter of a canon of Rochester Cathedral, she was educated at Rochester Grammar School for Girls. A local doctors' practice,[59] local dental practice[60] and a hall at Rochester Grammar School are all named after her.[61]
Peter Buck
Sir Peter Buck was Admiral of the Medway in the 17th century; knightedin 1603 he and Bishop Barlow hosted King James, the Stuart royal familyand the King of Denmark in 1606. A civil servant to The Royal Dockyardand Lord High Admiral, Buck lived at Eastgate House, Rochester.
Denis Redman
Major-General Denis Redman, a World War II veteran, was born and raised in Rochester and later became a founder member of REME, head of his Corps and a Major-General in the British Army.
Kelly Brook
The model and actress Kelly Brook went to Delce Junior School in Rochester and later the Thomas Aveling School (formerly Warren Wood Girls School).
The singer and songwriter Tara McDonald now lives in Rochester.
The Prisoners, a rock band from 1980 to 1986, were formed in Rochester. They are part of what is known as the "Medway scene".
Kelly Tolhurst MP is the current parliamentary representative for the constituency.
NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana speaks during a Strengthening Acquisition and Program Management at the Agency fireside chat, Thursday, May 18, 2023, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Keegan Barber)
Marc Zakharovich Chagall (/ʃəˈɡɑːl/ shə-GAHL;[3][nb 1] born Moishe Zakharovich Shagal;[4] 6 July [O.S. 24 June] 1887 – 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist of Belarusian Jewish origin.[1] An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in virtually every artistic format, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints.
Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century" (though Chagall saw his work as "not the dream of one people but of all humanity"). According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists". For decades, he "had also been respected as the world's preeminent Jewish artist". Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra.
Before World War I, he travelled between Saint Petersburg, Paris and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde, founding the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris in 1922.
He had two basic reputations, writes Lewis: as a pioneer of modernism and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism". Yet throughout these phases of his style "he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, whose work was one long dreamy reverie of life in his native village of Vitebsk."[5] "When Matisse dies," Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is".[6]
Contents
1 Early life and education
1.1 Early life
1.2 Art education
1.3 Artistic inspiration
2 Art career
2.1 Russia (1906–1910)
2.2 France (1910–1914)
2.3 Russia and Soviet Belarus (1914–1922)
2.4 France (1923–1941)
2.4.1 The Bible illustrations
2.4.2 Nazi campaigns against modern art
2.4.3 Escaping occupied France
2.5 United States (1941–1948)
2.5.1 Aleko ballet (1942)
2.5.2 Coming to grips with World War II
2.5.3 Post-war years
2.6 France (1948–1985)
2.6.1 Ceiling of the Paris Opera (1963)
3 Art styles and techniques
3.1 Color
3.2 Subject matter
3.2.1 From life memories to fantasy
3.2.2 Jewish themes
Early life and education
Chagall's Parents
Marc Chagall was born Moishe Segal in a Lithuanian Jewish family in Liozna,[7] near the city of Vitebsk (Belarus, then part of the Russian Empire) in 1887.[note][8] At the time of his birth, Vitebsk's population was about 66,000, with half the population being Jewish.[5] A picturesque city of churches and synagogues, it was called "Russian Toledo", after a cosmopolitan city of the former Spanish Empire. As the city was built mostly of wood, little of it survived years of occupation and destruction during World War II.
Chagall was the eldest of nine children. The family name, Shagal, is a variant of the name Segal, which in a Jewish community was usually borne by a Levitic family.[9] His father, Khatskl (Zachar) Shagal, was employed by a herring merchant, and his mother, Feige-Ite, sold groceries from their home. His father worked hard, carrying heavy barrels but earning only 20 roubles each month (the average wages across the Russian Empire being 13 roubles a month). Chagall would later include fish motifs "out of respect for his father", writes Chagall biographer, Jacob Baal-Teshuva. Chagall wrote of these early years:
Day after day, winter and summer, at six o'clock in the morning, my father got up and went off to the synagogue. There he said his usual prayer for some dead man or other. On his return he made ready the samovar, drank some tea and went to work. Hellish work, the work of a galley-slave. Why try to hide it? How tell about it? No word will ever ease my father's lot... There was always plenty of butter and cheese on our table. Buttered bread, like an eternal symbol, was never out of my childish hands.[10]
One of the main sources of income of the Jewish population of the town was from the manufacture of clothing that was sold throughout Russia. They also made furniture and various agricultural tools.[11] From the late 18th century to the First World War, the Russian government confined Jews to living within the Pale of Settlement, which included modern Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, almost exactly corresponding to the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth recently taken over by Imperial Russia. This caused the creation of Jewish market-villages (shtetls) throughout today's Eastern Europe, with their own markets, schools, hospitals, and other community institutions.[12]:14
Most of what is known about Chagall's early life has come from his autobiography, My Life. In it, he described the major influence that the culture of Hasidic Judaism had on his life as an artist. Vitebsk itself had been a center of that culture dating from the 1730s with its teachings derived from the Kabbalah. Chagall scholar Susan Tumarkin Goodman describes the links and sources of his art to his early home:
Chagall's art can be understood as the response to a situation that has long marked the history of Russian Jews. Though they were cultural innovators who made important contributions to the broader society, Jews were considered outsiders in a frequently hostile society... Chagall himself was born of a family steeped in religious life; his parents were observant Hasidic Jews who found spiritual satisfaction in a life defined by their faith and organized by prayer.[12]:14
Chagall was friends with Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, and later with Menachem M. Schneerson.[13]
Art education
Portrait of Chagall by Yehuda (Yuri) Pen, his first art teacher in Vitebsk
In Russia at that time, Jewish children were not allowed to attend regular Russian schools or universities. Their movement within the city was also restricted. Chagall therefore received his primary education at the local Jewish religious school, where he studied Hebrew and the Bible. At the age of 13, his mother tried to enroll him in a Russian high school, and he recalled, "But in that school, they don't take Jews. Without a moment's hesitation, my courageous mother walks up to a professor." She offered the headmaster 50 roubles to let him attend, which he accepted.[10]
A turning point of his artistic life came when he first noticed a fellow student drawing. Baal-Teshuva writes that for the young Chagall, watching someone draw "was like a vision, a revelation in black and white". Chagall would later say that there was no art of any kind in his family's home and the concept was totally alien to him. When Chagall asked the schoolmate how he learned to draw, his friend replied, "Go and find a book in the library, idiot, choose any picture you like, and just copy it". He soon began copying images from books and found the experience so rewarding he then decided he wanted to become an artist.[11]
He eventually confided to his mother, "I want to be a painter", although she could not yet understand his sudden interest in art or why he would choose a vocation that "seemed so impractical", writes Goodman. The young Chagall explained, "There's a place in town; if I'm admitted and if I complete the course, I'll come out a regular artist. I'd be so happy!" It was 1906, and he had noticed the studio of Yehuda (Yuri) Pen, a realist artist who also operated a small drawing school in Vitebsk, which included the future artists El Lissitzky and Ossip Zadkine. Due to Chagall's youth and lack of income, Pen offered to teach him free of charge. However, after a few months at the school, Chagall realized that academic portrait painting did not suit his desires.[11]
Artistic inspiration
Marc Chagall, 1912, Calvary (Golgotha), oil on canvas, 174.6 × 192.4 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Alternative titles: Kreuzigung Bild 2 Christus gewidmet [Golgotha. Crucifixion. Dedicated to Christ]. Sold through Galerie Der Sturm (Herwarth Walden), Berlin to Bernhard Koehler (1849–1927), Berlin, 1913. Exhibited: Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon, Berlin, 1913
Goodman notes that during this period in Russia, Jews had two basic alternatives for joining the art world: One was to "hide or deny one's Jewish roots". The other alternative—the one that Chagall chose—was "to cherish and publicly express one's Jewish roots" by integrating them into his art. For Chagall, this was also his means of "self-assertion and an expression of principle."[12]:14
Chagall biographer Franz Meyer, explains that with the connections between his art and early life "the hassidic spirit is still the basis and source of nourishment for his art."[14] Lewis adds, "As cosmopolitan an artist as he would later become, his storehouse of visual imagery would never expand beyond the landscape of his childhood, with its snowy streets, wooden houses, and ubiquitous fiddlers... [with] scenes of childhood so indelibly in one's mind and to invest them with an emotional charge so intense that it could only be discharged obliquely through an obsessive repetition of the same cryptic symbols and ideograms... "[5]
Years later, at the age of 57 while living in the United States, Chagall confirmed this when he published an open letter entitled, "To My City Vitebsk":
Why? Why did I leave you many years ago? ... You thought, the boy seeks something, seeks such a special subtlety, that color descending like stars from the sky and landing, bright and transparent, like snow on our roofs. Where did he get it? How would it come to a boy like him? I don't know why he couldn't find it with us, in the city—in his homeland. Maybe the boy is "crazy", but "crazy" for the sake of art. ...You thought: "I can see, I am etched in the boy's heart, but he is still 'flying,' he is still striving to take off, he has 'wind' in his head." ... I did not live with you, but I didn't have one single painting that didn't breathe with your spirit and reflection.[15]
Art career
Russia (1906–1910)
In 1906, he moved to Saint Petersburg which was then the capital of Russia and the center of the country's artistic life with its famous art schools. Since Jews were not permitted into the city without an internal passport, he managed to get a temporary passport from a friend. He enrolled in a prestigious art school and studied there for two years.[11] By 1907, he had begun painting naturalistic self-portraits and landscapes.
Between 1908 and 1910, Chagall was a student of Léon Bakst at the Zvantseva School of Drawing and Painting. While in Saint Petersburg, he discovered experimental theater and the work of such artists as Paul Gauguin.[16] Bakst, also Jewish, was a designer of decorative art and was famous as a draftsman designer of stage sets and costumes for the Ballets Russes, and helped Chagall by acting as a role model for Jewish success. Bakst moved to Paris a year later. Art historian Raymond Cogniat writes that after living and studying art on his own for four years, "Chagall entered into the mainstream of contemporary art. ...His apprenticeship over, Russia had played a memorable initial role in his life."[17]:30
Chagall stayed in Saint Petersburg until 1910, often visiting Vitebsk where he met Bella Rosenfeld. In My Life, Chagall described his first meeting her: "Her silence is mine, her eyes mine. It is as if she knows everything about my childhood, my present, my future, as if she can see right through me."[11]:22
France (1910–1914)
Marc Chagall, 1911–12, The Drunkard (Le saoul), 1912, oil on canvas. 85 × 115 cm. Private collection
Marc Chagall, 1912, The Fiddler, an inspiration for the musical Fiddler on the Roof[18]
In 1910, Chagall relocated to Paris to develop his artistic style. Art historian and curator James Sweeney notes that when Chagall first arrived in Paris, Cubism was the dominant art form, and French art was still dominated by the "materialistic outlook of the 19th century". But Chagall arrived from Russia with "a ripe color gift, a fresh, unashamed response to sentiment, a feeling for simple poetry and a sense of humor", he adds. These notions were alien to Paris at that time, and as a result, his first recognition came not from other painters but from poets such as Blaise Cendrars and Guillaume Apollinaire.[19]:7 Art historian Jean Leymarie observes that Chagall began thinking of art as "emerging from the internal being outward, from the seen object to the psychic outpouring", which was the reverse of the Cubist way of creating.[20]
He therefore developed friendships with Guillaume Apollinaire and other avant-garde luminaries such as Robert Delaunay and Fernand Léger.[21] Baal-Teshuva writes that "Chagall's dream of Paris, the city of light and above all, of freedom, had come true."[11]:33 His first days were a hardship for the 23-year-old Chagall, who was lonely in the big city and unable to speak French. Some days he "felt like fleeing back to Russia, as he daydreamed while he painted, about the riches of Russian folklore, his Hasidic experiences, his family, and especially Bella".
In Paris, he enrolled at Académie de La Palette, an avant-garde school of art where the painters Jean Metzinger, André Dunoyer de Segonzac and Henri Le Fauconnier taught, and also found work at another academy. He would spend his free hours visiting galleries and salons, especially the Louvre; artists he came to admire included Rembrandt, the Le Nain brothers, Chardin, van Gogh, Renoir, Pissarro, Matisse, Gauguin, Courbet, Millet, Manet, Monet, Delacroix, and others. It was in Paris that he learned the technique of gouache, which he used to paint Belarusian scenes. He also visited Montmartre and the Latin Quarter "and was happy just breathing Parisian air."[11] Baal-Teshuva describes this new phase in Chagall's artistic development:
Chagall was exhilarated, intoxicated, as he strolled through the streets and along the banks of the Seine. Everything about the French capital excited him: the shops, the smell of fresh bread in the morning, the markets with their fresh fruit and vegetables, the wide boulevards, the cafés and restaurants, and above all the Eiffel Tower.
Another completely new world that opened up for him was the kaleidoscope of colours and forms in the works of French artists. Chagall enthusiastically reviewed their many different tendencies, having to rethink his position as an artist and decide what creative avenue he wanted to pursue.[11]:33
During his time in Paris, Chagall was constantly reminded of his home in Vitebsk, as Paris was also home to many painters, writers, poets, composers, dancers, and other émigrés from the Russian Empire. However, "night after night he painted until dawn", only then going to bed for a few hours, and resisted the many temptations of the big city at night.[11]:44 "My homeland exists only in my soul", he once said.[20]:viii He continued painting Jewish motifs and subjects from his memories of Vitebsk, although he included Parisian scenes—- the Eiffel Tower in particular, along with portraits. Many of his works were updated versions of paintings he had made in Russia, transposed into Fauvist or Cubist keys.[5]
Marc Chagall, 1912, Still-life (Nature morte), oil on canvas, private collection
Chagall developed a whole repertoire of quirky motifs: ghostly figures floating in the sky, ... the gigantic fiddler dancing on miniature dollhouses, the livestock and transparent wombs and, within them, tiny offspring sleeping upside down.[5] The majority of his scenes of life in Vitebsk were painted while living in Paris, and "in a sense they were dreams", notes Lewis. Their "undertone of yearning and loss", with a detached and abstract appearance, caused Apollinaire to be "struck by this quality", calling them "surnaturel!" His "animal/human hybrids and airborne phantoms" would later become a formative influence on Surrealism.[5] Chagall, however, did not want his work to be associated with any school or movement and considered his own personal language of symbols to be meaningful to himself. But Sweeney notes that others often still associate his work with "illogical and fantastic painting", especially when he uses "curious representational juxtapositions".[19]:10
Sweeney writes that "This is Chagall's contribution to contemporary art: the reawakening of a poetry of representation, avoiding factual illustration on the one hand, and non-figurative abstractions on the other". André Breton said that "with him alone, the metaphor made its triumphant return to modern painting".[19]:7
Russia and Soviet Belarus (1914–1922)
Because he missed his fiancée, Bella, who was still in Vitebsk—"He thought about her day and night", writes Baal-Teshuva—and was afraid of losing her, Chagall decided to accept an invitation from a noted art dealer in Berlin to exhibit his work, his intention being to continue on to Belarus, marry Bella, and then return with her to Paris. Chagall took 40 canvases and 160 gouaches, watercolors and drawings to be exhibited. The exhibit, held at Herwarth Walden's Sturm Gallery was a huge success, "The German critics positively sang his praises."[11]
People's Art School where the Vitebsk Museum of Modern Art was situated
After the exhibit, he continued on to Vitebsk, where he planned to stay only long enough to marry Bella. However, after a few weeks, the First World War began, closing the Russian border for an indefinite period. A year later he married Bella Rosenfeld and they had their first child, Ida. Before the marriage, Chagall had difficulty convincing Bella's parents that he would be a suitable husband for their daughter. They were worried about her marrying a painter from a poor family and wondered how he would support her. Becoming a successful artist now became a goal and inspiration. According to Lewis, "[T]he euphoric paintings of this time, which show the young couple floating balloon-like over Vitebsk—its wooden buildings faceted in the Delaunay manner—are the most lighthearted of his career".[5] His wedding pictures were also a subject he would return to in later years as he thought about this period of his life.[11]:75
Bella with White Collar, 1917
In 1915, Chagall began exhibiting his work in Moscow, first exhibiting his works at a well-known salon and in 1916 exhibiting pictures in St. Petersburg. He again showed his art at a Moscow exhibition of avant-garde artists. This exposure brought recognition, and a number of wealthy collectors began buying his art. He also began illustrating a number of Yiddish books with ink drawings. He illustrated I. L. Peretz's The Magician in 1917.[22] Chagall was 30 years old and had begun to become well known.[11]:77
The October Revolution of 1917 was a dangerous time for Chagall although it also offered opportunity. By then he was one of the Russia's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde, which enjoyed special privileges and prestige as the "aesthetic arm of the revolution".[5] He was offered a notable position as a commissar of visual arts for the country[clarification needed], but preferred something less political, and instead accepted a job as commissar of arts for Vitebsk. This resulted in his founding the Vitebsk Arts College which, adds Lewis, became the "most distinguished school of art in the Soviet Union".
It obtained for its faculty some of the most important artists in the country, such as El Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich. He also added his first teacher, Yehuda Pen. Chagall tried to create an atmosphere of a collective of independently minded artists, each with their own unique style. However, this would soon prove to be difficult as a few of the key faculty members preferred a Suprematist art of squares and circles, and disapproved of Chagall's attempt at creating "bourgeois individualism". Chagall then resigned as commissar and moved to Moscow.
In Moscow he was offered a job as stage designer for the newly formed State Jewish Chamber Theater. It was set to begin operation in early 1921 with a number of plays by Sholem Aleichem. For its opening he created a number of large background murals using techniques he learned from Bakst, his early teacher. One of the main murals was 9 feet (2.7 m) tall by 24 feet (7.3 m) long and included images of various lively subjects such as dancers, fiddlers, acrobats, and farm animals. One critic at the time called it "Hebrew jazz in paint". Chagall created it as a "storehouse of symbols and devices", notes Lewis.[5] The murals "constituted a landmark" in the history of the theatre, and were forerunners of his later large-scale works, including murals for the New York Metropolitan Opera and the Paris Opera.[11]:87
Famine spread after the war ended in 1918. The Chagalls found it necessary to move to a smaller, less expensive, town near Moscow, although he now had to commute to Moscow daily using crowded trains. In 1921, he worked as an art teacher in a Jewish boys' shelter in suburban Malakhovka, which housed orphaned refugees from Ukrainian pogroms.[6]:270 While there, he created a series of illustrations for the Yiddish poetry cycle Grief written by David Hofstein, who was another teacher at the Malakhovka shelter.[6]:273
After spending the years between 1921 and 1922 living in primitive conditions, he decided to go back to France so that he could develop his art in a more comfortable country. Numerous other artists, writers, and musicians were also planning to relocate to the West. He applied for an exit visa and while waiting for its uncertain approval, wrote his autobiography, My Life.[11]:121
France (1923–1941)
In 1923, Chagall left Moscow to return to France. On his way he stopped in Berlin to recover the many pictures he had left there on exhibit ten years earlier, before the war began, but was unable to find or recover any of them. Nonetheless, after returning to Paris he again "rediscovered the free expansion and fulfillment which were so essential to him", writes Lewis. With all his early works now lost, he began trying to paint from his memories of his earliest years in Vitebsk with sketches and oil paintings.[5]
He formed a business relationship with French art dealer Ambroise Vollard. This inspired him to begin creating etchings for a series of illustrated books, including Gogol's Dead Souls, the Bible, and the La Fontaine's Fables. These illustrations would eventually come to represent his finest printmaking efforts.[5] In 1924, he travelled to Brittany and painted La fenêtre sur l'Île-de-Bréhat.[23] By 1926 he had his first exhibition in the United States at the Reinhardt gallery of New York which included about 100 works, although he did not travel to the opening. He instead stayed in France, "painting ceaselessly", notes Baal-Teshuva.[11] It was not until 1927 that Chagall made his name in the French art world, when art critic and historian Maurice Raynal awarded him a place in his book Modern French Painters. However, Raynal was still at a loss to accurately describe Chagall to his readers:
Chagall interrogates life in the light of a refined, anxious, childlike sensibility, a slightly romantic temperament ... a blend of sadness and gaiety characteristic of a grave view of life. His imagination, his temperament, no doubt forbid a Latin severity of composition.[6]:314
During this period he traveled throughout France and the Côte d'Azur, where he enjoyed the landscapes, colorful vegetation, the blue Mediterranean Sea, and the mild weather. He made repeated trips to the countryside, taking his sketchbook.[6]:9 He also visited nearby countries and later wrote about the impressions some of those travels left on him:
I should like to recall how advantageous my travels outside France have been for me in an artistic sense—in Holland or in Spain, Italy, Egypt, Palestine, or simply in the south of France. There, in the south, for the first time in my life, I saw that rich greenness—the like of which I had never seen in my own country. In Holland I thought I discovered that familiar and throbbing light, like the light between the late afternoon and dusk. In Italy I found that peace of the museums which the sunlight brought to life. In Spain I was happy to find the inspiration of a mystical, if sometimes cruel, past, to find the song of its sky and of its people. And in the East [Palestine] I found unexpectedly the Bible and a part of my very being.[15]:77
The Bible illustrations
"The Prophet Jeremiah" (1968)
After returning to Paris from one of his trips, Vollard commissioned Chagall to illustrate the Old Testament. Although he could have completed the project in France, he used the assignment as an excuse to travel to Israel to experience for himself the Holy Land. He arrived there in February 1931 and ended up staying for two months. Chagall felt at home in Israel where many people spoke Yiddish and Russian. According to Jacob Baal-Teshuva, "he was impressed by the pioneering spirit of the people in the kibbutzim and deeply moved by the Wailing Wall and the other holy places".[11]:133
Chagall later told a friend that Israel gave him "the most vivid impression he had ever received". Wullschlager notes, however, that whereas Delacroix and Matisse had found inspiration in the exoticism of North Africa, he as a Jew in Israel had different perspective. "What he was really searching for there was not external stimulus but an inner authorization from the land of his ancestors, to plunge into his work on the Bible illustrations".[6]:343 Chagall stated that "In the East I found the Bible and part of my own being."
As a result, he immersed himself in "the history of the Jews, their trials, prophecies, and disasters", notes Wullschlager. She adds that beginning the assignment was an "extraordinary risk" for Chagall, as he had finally become well known as a leading contemporary painter, but would now end his modernist themes and delve into "an ancient past".[6]:350 Between 1931 and 1934 he worked "obsessively" on "The Bible", even going to Amsterdam in order to carefully study the biblical paintings of Rembrandt and El Greco, to see the extremes of religious painting. He walked the streets of the city's Jewish quarter to again feel the earlier atmosphere. He told Franz Meyer:
I did not see the Bible, I dreamed it. Ever since early childhood, I have been captivated by the Bible. It has always seemed to me and still seems today the greatest source of poetry of all time.[6]:350
Chagall saw the Old Testament as a "human story, ... not with the creation of the cosmos but with the creation of man, and his figures of angels are rhymed or combined with human ones", writes Wullschlager. She points out that in one of his early Bible images, "Abraham and the Three Angels", the angels sit and chat over a glass of wine "as if they have just dropped by for dinner".[6]:350
He returned to France and by the next year had completed 32 out of the total of 105 plates. By 1939, at the beginning of World War II, he had finished 66. However, Vollard died that same year. When the series was completed in 1956, it was published by Edition Tériade. Baal-Teshuva writes that "the illustrations were stunning and met with great acclaim. Once again Chagall had shown himself to be one of the 20th century's most important graphic artists".[11]:135 Leymarie has described these drawings by Chagall as "monumental" and,
...full of divine inspiration, which retrace the legendary destiny and the epic history of Israel to Genesis to the Prophets, through the Patriarchs and the Heroes. Each picture becomes one with the event, informing the text with a solemn intimacy unknown since Rembrandt.[20]:ix
Nazi campaigns against modern art
Not long after Chagall began his work on the Bible, Adolf Hitler gained power in Germany. Anti-Semitic laws were being introduced and the first concentration camp at Dachau had been established. Wullschlager describes the early effects on art:
The Nazis had begun their campaign against modernist art as soon as they seized power. Expressionist, cubist, abstract, and surrealist art—anything intellectual, Jewish, foreign, socialist-inspired, or difficult to understand—was targeted, from Picasso and Matisse going back to Cézanne and van Gogh; in its place traditional German realism, accessible and open to patriotic interpretation, was extolled.[6]:374
Beginning during 1937 about twenty thousand works from German museums were confiscated as "degenerate" by a committee directed by Joseph Goebbels.[6]:375 Although the German press had once "swooned over him", the new German authorities now made a mockery of Chagall's art, describing them as "green, purple, and red Jews shooting out of the earth, fiddling on violins, flying through the air ... representing [an] assault on Western civilization".[6]:376
After Germany invaded and occupied France, the Chagalls naively remained in Vichy France, unaware that French Jews, with the help of the Vichy government, were being collected and sent to German concentration camps, from which few would return. The Vichy collaborationist government, directed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, immediately upon assuming power established a commission to "redefine French citizenship" with the aim of stripping "undesirables", including naturalized citizens, of their French nationality. Chagall had been so involved with his art, that it was not until October 1940, after the Vichy government, at the behest of the Nazi occupying forces, began approving anti-Semitic laws, that he began to understand what was happening. Learning that Jews were being removed from public and academic positions, the Chagalls finally "woke up to the danger they faced". But Wullschlager notes that "by then they were trapped".[6]:382 Their only refuge could be America, but "they could not afford the passage to New York" or the large bond that each immigrant had to provide upon entry to ensure that they would not become a financial burden to the country.
Escaping occupied France
According to Wullschlager, "[T]he speed with which France collapsed astonished everyone: the French army, with British support, capitulated even more quickly than Poland had done" a year earlier. "Shock waves crossed the Atlantic... as Paris had until then been equated with civilization throughout the non-Nazi world."[6]:388 Yet the attachment of the Chagalls to France "blinded them to the urgency of the situation."[6]:389 Many other well-known Russian and Jewish artists eventually sought to escape: these included Chaim Soutine, Max Ernst, Max Beckmann, Ludwig Fulda, author Victor Serge and prize-winning author Vladimir Nabokov, who although not Jewish himself, was married to a Jewish woman.[24]:1181 Russian author Victor Serge described many of the people living temporarily in Marseille who were waiting to emigrate to America:
Here is a beggar's alley gathering the remnants of revolutions, democracies and crushed intellects... In our ranks are enough doctors, psychologists, engineers, educationalists, poets, painters, writers, musicians, economists and public men to vitalize a whole great country.[6]:392
After prodding by their daughter Ida, who "perceived the need to act fast",[6]:388 and with help from Alfred Barr of the New York Museum of Modern Art, Chagall was saved by having his name added to the list of prominent artists whose lives were at risk and who the United States should try to extricate. Varian Fry, the American journalist, and Hiram Bingham IV, the American Vice-Consul in Marseilles, ran a rescue operation to smuggle artists and intellectuals out of Europe to the US by providing them with forged visas to the US. Chagall was one of over 2,000 who were rescued by this operation. He left France in May 1941, "when it was almost too late", adds Lewis. Picasso and Matisse were also invited to come to America but they decided to remain in France. Chagall and Bella arrived in New York on 23 June 1941, the day after Germany invaded the Soviet Union.[11]:150 Ida and her husband Michel followed on the notorious refugee ship SS Navemar with a large case of Chagall's work.[25] A chance post-war meeting in a French café between Ida and intelligence analyst Konrad Kellen led to Kellen carrying more paintings on his return to the United States.[26]
United States (1941–1948)
Photo portrait of Chagall in 1941 by Carl Van Vechten
Even before arriving in the United States in 1941, Chagall was awarded the Carnegie Prize third prize in 1939 for "Les Fiancés". After being in America he discovered that he had already achieved "international stature", writes Cogniat, although he felt ill-suited in this new role in a foreign country whose language he could not yet speak. He became a celebrity mostly against his will, feeling lost in the strange surroundings.[17]:57
After a while he began to settle in New York, which was full of writers, painters, and composers who, like himself, had fled from Europe during the Nazi invasions. He lived at 4 East 74th Street.[27] He spent time visiting galleries and museums, and befriended other artists including Piet Mondrian and André Breton.[11]:155
Baal-Teshuva writes that Chagall "loved" going to the sections of New York where Jews lived, especially the Lower East Side. There he felt at home, enjoying the Jewish foods and being able to read the Yiddish press, which became his main source of information since he did not yet speak English.[11]
Contemporary artists did not yet understand or even like Chagall's art. According to Baal-Teshuva, "they had little in common with a folkloristic storyteller of Russo-Jewish extraction with a propensity for mysticism." The Paris School, which was referred to as 'Parisian Surrealism,' meant little to them.[11]:155 Those attitudes would begin to change, however, when Pierre Matisse, the son of recognized French artist Henri Matisse, became his representative and managed Chagall exhibitions in New York and Chicago in 1941. One of the earliest exhibitions included 21 of his masterpieces from 1910 to 1941.[11] Art critic Henry McBride wrote about this exhibit for the New York Sun:
Chagall is about as gypsy as they come... these pictures do more for his reputation than anything we have previously seen... His colors sparkle with poetry... his work is authentically Russian as a Volga boatman's song...[28]
He was offered a commission by choreographer Leonid Massine of the Ballet Theatre of New York to design the sets and costumes for his new ballet, Aleko. This ballet would stage the words of Pushkin's verse narrative The Gypsies with the music of Tchaikovsky. While Chagall had done stage settings before while in Russia, this was his first ballet, and it would give him the opportunity to visit Mexico. While there he quickly began to appreciate the "primitive ways and colorful art of the Mexicans," notes Cogniat. He found "something very closely related to his own nature", and did all the color detail for the sets while there.[17] Eventually, he created four large backdrops and had Mexican seamstresses sew the ballet costumes.
When the ballet premiered on 8 September 1942 it was considered a "remarkable success."[11] In the audience were other famous mural painters who came to see Chagall's work, including Diego Rivera and José Orozco. According to Baal-Teshuva, when the final bar of music ended, "there was a tumultuous applause and 19 curtain calls, with Chagall himself being called back onto the stage again and again." The ballet also opened in New York City four weeks later at the Metropolitan Opera and the response was repeated, "again Chagall was the hero of the evening".[11]:158 Art critic Edwin Denby wrote of the opening for the New York Herald Tribune that Chagall's work:
has turned into a dramatized exhibition of giant paintings... It surpasses anything Chagall has done on the easel scale, and it is a breathtaking experience, of a kind one hardly expects in the theatre.[29]
Coming to grips with World War II
After Chagall returned to New York in 1943, however, current events began to interest him more, and this was represented by his art, where he painted subjects including the Crucifixion and scenes of war. He learned that the Germans had destroyed the town where he was raised, Vitebsk, and became greatly distressed.[11]:159 He also learned about the Nazi concentration camps.[11] During a speech in February 1944, he described some of his feelings:
Meanwhile, the enemy jokes, saying that we are a "stupid nation." He thought that when he started slaughtering the Jews, we would all in our grief suddenly raise the greatest prophetic scream, and would be joined by the Christian humanists. But, after two thousand years of "Christianity" in the world—say whatever you like—but, with few exceptions, their hearts are silent... I see the artists in Christian nations sit still—who has heard them speak up? They are not worried about themselves, and our Jewish life doesn't concern them.[15]:89
In the same speech he credited Soviet Russia with doing the most to save the Jews:
The Jews will always be grateful to it. What other great country has saved a million and a half Jews from Hitler's hands, and shared its last piece of bread? What country abolished antisemitism? What other country devoted at least a piece of land as an autonomous region for Jews who want to live there? All this, and more, weighs heavily on the scales of history.[15]:89
On 2 September 1944, Bella died suddenly due to a virus infection, which was not treated due to the wartime shortage of medicine. As a result, he stopped all work for many months, and when he did resume painting his first pictures were concerned with preserving Bella's memory.[17] Wullschlager writes of the effect on Chagall: "As news poured in through 1945 of the ongoing Holocaust at Nazi concentration camps, Bella took her place in Chagall's mind with the millions of Jewish victims." He even considered the possibility that their "exile from Europe had sapped her will to live."[6]:419
With Virginia Haggard McNeil
After a year of living with his daughter Ida and her husband Michel Gordey, he entered into a romance with Virginia Haggard, daughter of diplomat Sir Godfrey Digby Napier Haggard and great-niece of the author Sir Henry Rider Haggard; their relationship endured seven years. They had a child together, David McNeil, born 22 June 1946.[11] Haggard recalled her "seven years of plenty" with Chagall in her book, My Life with Chagall (Robert Hale, 1986).
A few months after the Allies succeeded in liberating Paris from Nazi occupation, with the help of the Allied armies, Chagall published a letter in a Paris weekly, "To the Paris Artists":
In recent years I have felt unhappy that I couldn't be with you, my friends. My enemy forced me to take the road of exile. On that tragic road, I lost my wife, the companion of my life, the woman who was my inspiration. I want to say to my friends in France that she joins me in this greeting, she who loved France and French art so faithfully. Her last joy was the liberation of Paris... Now, when Paris is liberated, when the art of France is resurrected, the whole world too will, once and for all, be free of the satanic enemies who wanted to annihilate not just the body but also the soul—the soul, without which there is no life, no artistic creativity.[15]:101
This Associated "Flying A" service station is quite indicative of the mid '30s architecture. Octagonal floor plan and sweeping, circular awning. Right in step with the drive-in diners popping up everywhere.
The lighting captured in this rare night shot is positively memorizing. Imagine the soft glow the incandescent awning lights cast, in contrast to the bright neon signage. The warm glow from the gas pump globes and all. What a special time for architecture and lighting.
NASA Associate Administrator for the Space Operations Mission Directorate (SpaceOps), Kathy Lueders, speaks during a NASA town hall to discuss the reorganization of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate into two mission directorates: SpaceOps and the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD), Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021 at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. As head of SpaceOps, Kathy Lueders will lead launch and space operations including the International Space Station, the commercialization of low-Earth orbit, and eventually operations on and around the Moon. Associate Administrator of ESDMD, Jim Free, will lead efforts to define and manage systems development for programs critical to NASA’s Artemis program and the planning of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)
Cameo glass is primarily a product of the early Roman Empire and is specifically associated with the elite and royal of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Its manufacture is therefore mostly limited to the decades around 25 BC – AD 25 and it is rare; less than twenty pieces have survived in their entirety. The technique imitates cameos carved from shell or colored stone and the most popular color scheme is white over a blue background. In this case, the tiny flask was first blown in translucent blue glass; after a brief period of cooling it was dipped in opaque white glass, after which it was carved and polished by a lapidary artisan.
The annexation of Egypt in 30 BCE and the arrival in Rome in 10 BCE of two obelisks from Heliopolis helped to develop a milieu in which the use of Egyptian motifs thrived, inspiring Roman artists to evoke the imagery and iconography of ancient Egypt. While it has been suggested that the scenes on this flask might represent specific gods, such as Amon-Re, Horus and Thoth, the meaningless hieroglyphs on the obelisk as well as the general obscurity of the iconography prevents a specific reading of the narrative. Instead, the figures and motifs would seem to evoke through setting and characterization the exotic Egyptian atmosphere so popular in the art of Julio-Claudian Rome.
25 BCE-25 CE, Roman Empire (created).
Getty Villa Museum (85.AF.84)
Kenroku-en Gardens & Kanazawa Castle, Kanazawa, Japan
Kenroku-en (兼六園, Six Attributes Garden), located in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan, is an old private garden associated with Kanazawa Castle. Along with Kairaku-en and Kōraku-en, Kenroku-en is one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan.
Kenroku-en was developed from the 1620s to the 1840s by the Maeda clan, the daimyōs who ruled the former Kaga Domain.
While the date of initial development of the garden that would be become known as Kenroku-en is rather unclear, one version of the garden's origins can perhaps be marked by the completion of the Tatsumi water channel in 1632 by Maeda Toshitsune, the third daimyō of the powerful Maeda clan and ruler of the Kaga Domain from 1605 to 1639, as this feature would be later incorporated into creating the garden's twisting waterways in 1822.
The garden is located outside the gates of Kanazawa Castle where it originally formed the outer garden, and covers 114,436.65 m² (over 25 acres). It began in 1676 when the 5th daimyō Maeda Tsunanori moved his administration to the castle and began to landscape a garden in this vicinity. This garden was, however, destroyed by fire in 1759.
The garden was named by Matsudaira Sadanobu at the request of Narinaga. Its name was derived from the "Chronicles of the Famous Luoyang Gardens" (洛陽名園記), a book by the Chinese poet Li Gefei (李格非), and stands for the six attributes of a perfect landscape: spaciousness, seclusion, artifice, antiquity, waterways, and panoramas.
Kanazawa
Kanazawa (金沢市 Kanazawa-shi) is a city located in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. As of 1 January 2018, the city had an estimated population of 466,029 in 203,271 households. The total area of the city was 468.64 square kilometres (180.94 sq mi). It is the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture.
Kanazawa is located in north-western Ishikawa Prefecture in the Hokuriku region of Japan and is bordered by the Sea of Japan to the west and Toyama Prefecture to the east. The city sits between the Sai and Asano rivers. The eastern portion of the city is dominated by the Japanese Alps. Parts of the city are within the borders of the Hakusan National Park. Kanazawa has a humid continental climate (Köppen Cfa) characterized by hot and humid summers and cold winters with heavy snowfall. Average temperatures are slightly cooler than those of Tokyo, with means approximately 4 °C (39 °F) in January, 12 °C (54 °F) in April, 27 °C (81 °F) in August, 17 °C (63 °F) in October, and 7 °C (45 °F) in December. The minimum temperature on record was −9.4 °C (15.1 °F) on January 27, 1904, with a maximum of 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) standing as a record since September 8, 1902. The city is distinctly wet, with an average humidity of 73% and 193 rainy days in an average year. Precipitation is highest in the autumn and winter; it averages more than 250 millimetres (10 in)/ month November through January when the Aleutian Low is strongest, but it is above 125 millimetres (4.9 in) every month of the year.
The area around Kanazawa was part of ancient Kaga Province. The name "Kanazawa" (金沢, 金澤), which literally means "marsh of gold", is said to derive from the legend of the peasant Imohori Togoro (literally "Togoro Potato-digger"), who was digging for potatoes when flakes of gold washed up. The well in the grounds of Kenroku-en known as 'Kinjo Reitaku' (金城麗澤) to acknowledge these roots. The area where Kanazawa is was originally known as Ishiura, whose name is preserved at the Ishiura Shrine near the Kenrokuen Gardens.
During the Muromachi period, as the powers of the central shōguns in Kyoto was waning, Kaga Province came under the control of the Ikkō-ikki, followers of the teachings of priest Rennyo, of the Jōdo Shinshū sect, who displaced the official governors of the province, the Togashi clan, and established a kind of theocratic republic later known as "The Peasants' Kingdom". Their principal stronghold was the Kanazawa Gobo, on the tip of the Kodatsuno Ridge. Backed by high hills and flanked on two sides by rivers, it was a natural fortress, around which a castle town developed. This was the start of what would become the city of Kanazawa.
The astronaut themed socks of NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana are seen during a Moon to Mars Town Hall, Thursday, May 18, 2023, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Keegan Barber)
The Estates at Acqualina condos in Sunny Isles Beach is a project by the firm of Cohen Freedman Encinosa & Associates, the same people behind the original Acqualina condo and the Mansions at Acqualina. The buildings consists of a pair of 50+ story towers located east of Collins Avenue with a position near the Atlantic Ocean and the city's namesake sands.
The Estates at Acqualina are 154 exquisite residences ranging from 2,910 to 6,500 square feet. Adjacent to the Five Star Acqualina Resort & Spa on the Beach, The Estates also feature two single family homes and two, two-story penthouses – all with private leisure pools.
The Estates at Acqualina features an impressive Villa Acqualina with more than 45,000 square feet of remarkable facilities including a spa and fitness center, one of a kind dining with a world-renowned restaurant and Circus Maximus, a full floor of magical amenities such as ice-skating rink, bowling lanes, a Wall Street Traders Club room, and a movie theater among many other attractions to delight people of every age. Villa Acqualina has something for everyone, creating a never-before-seen ocean-side lifestyle.
THE ESTATES GROUNDS AND GARDENS - 5.6 acres of private seaside oasis
The Estates' "backyard" is a lushly landscaped arena for celebrating the sporting life or observing it from the meticulously manicured sidelines. There are beautifully curated gardens featuring multiple infinity pools, a FlowRider® for surfers, a basketball court, a romantic beachfront restaurant and bar, and 502 feet of Atlantic oceanfront on a 5.6 acre site with all the benefits of Acqualina’s five-star lifestyle.
INTERIOR DESIGN – Attention to detail at every level
Each residence is delivered in furniture ready condition. Owners are given the opportunity to work with a renowned Interior Design firm to select from tastefully composed palettes offering an uncompromising attention to detail and style.
THE LOBBIES - Design by Karl Lagerfeld
Karl Lagerfeld's design and style further enhance the grandeur of two of the most important spaces at The Estates – The Residential Towers. The Estates mark the first interior design project in the United States for the designer and will reflect his iconic style and eye for detail, with custom features, finishes and furnishings conceived and designed by Mr. Lagerfeld himself.
Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:
estatesatsunnyisles.com/building/the-estates-at-acqualina...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Sunny_...
www.skyscrapercity.com/threads/sunny-isles-beach-estates-...
www.sunnyislesmiamirealestate.com/sunny-isles-condos/esta...
estatesatsunnyisles.com/building/the-estates-at-acqualina...
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Cannaregio one of the six sestieri of Venice in Veneto, Italy.
Cannaregio is the northernmost of the six historic sestieri (districts) of Venice. It is the second largest sestiere by land area and the largest by population, with 13,169 people as of 2007. Isola di San Michele, the historic cemetery island, is associated with the district.
The Cannaregio Canal, which was the main route into the city until the construction of a railway link to the mainland, gave the district its name (Canal Regio is Italian for Royal Canal). Development began in the eleventh century as the area was drained and parallel canals were dredged. Although elegant palazzos were built facing the Grand Canal, the area grew primarily with working class housing and manufacturing. Beginning in 1516, Jews were restricted to living in the Venetian Ghetto.
It was enclosed by guarded gates and no one could leave from sunset to dawn. However, Jews held successful positions in the city such as merchants, physicians, money lenders, and other trades. Restrictions on daily Jewish life continued for more than 270 years, until Napoleon Bonaparte conquered the Venetian Republic in 1797. He removed the gates and gave all residents the freedom to live where they chose.
In the 19th century, civil engineers built a street named Strada Nuova through Cannaregio, and a railway bridge and road bridge were constructed to connect Venice directly to Mestre. Today, the areas of the district along the Grand Canal from the train station to the Rialto Bridge are packed with tourists, but the rest of Cannaregio is residential and relatively peaceful, with morning markets, neighbourhood shops, and small cafés.
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Not a bird you would associate with beauty but when you see the feather formation up close in this light you can only admire the normally hidden beauty of this much overlooked bird.
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A disused former village lock-up on Everton Brow, Liverpool. It was built in 1787 but its use to hold minor criminals overnight stopped in the 19th century. It is now associated with Everton Football Club and is image is featured on the club's crest.
In 2009, SUPERVALU sold the majority of their Albertsons locations in Utah to wholesaler Associated Food Stores, who converted many locations to the "Fresh Market" banner.
Fresh Market, former Albertsons, on Harrison Boulevard in South Ogden, Utah.
The associated video with this picture series is Our Trip to Crete on YouTube.
This part of our adventures on our Grand Tour of Europe is in episode three of the Take Flight with Scott video series on YouTube. Please join us there for even more content from this trip. Part one is our time on Crete, Greece with our teen nieces Madeline and Emily.
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Covent Garden (/ˈkɒvənt/) is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the elegant buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the London Transport Museum.
Though mainly fields until the 16th century, the area was briefly settled when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic. After the town was abandoned, part of the area was walled off by 1200 for use as arable land and orchards by Westminster Abbey, and was referred to as "the garden of the Abbey and Convent". The land, now called "the Covent Garden", was seized by Henry VIII, and granted to the Earls of Bedford in 1552. The 4th Earl commissioned Inigo Jones to build some fine houses to attract wealthy tenants. Jones designed the Italianate arcaded square along with the church of St Paul's. The design of the square was new to London, and had a significant influence on modern town planning, acting as the prototype for the laying-out of new estates as London grew. A small open-air fruit and vegetable market had developed on the south side of the fashionable square by 1654. Gradually, both the market and the surrounding area fell into disrepute, as taverns, theatres, coffee-houses and brothels opened up; the gentry moved away, and rakes, wits and playwrights moved in. By the 18th century it had become a well-known red-light district, attracting notable prostitutes. An Act of Parliament was drawn up to control the area, and Charles Fowler's neo-classical building was erected in 1830 to cover and help organise the market. The area declined as a pleasure-ground as the market grew and further buildings were added: the Floral Hall, Charter Market, and in 1904 the Jubilee Market. By the end of the 1960s traffic congestion was causing problems, and in 1974 the market relocated to the New Covent Garden Market about three miles (5 km) south-west at Nine Elms. The central building re-opened as a shopping centre in 1980, and is now a tourist location containing cafes, pubs, small shops, and a craft market called the Apple Market, along with another market held in the Jubilee Hall.
Covent Garden, with the postcode WC2, falls within the London boroughs of Westminster and Camden, and the parliamentary constituencies of Cities of London and Westminster and Holborn and St Pancras. The area has been served by the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden tube station since 1907; the journey from Leicester Square, at 300 yards, is the shortest in London.
Early history
The route of the Strand on the southern boundary of what was to become Covent Garden was used during the Roman period as part of a route to Silchester, known as "Iter VII" on the Antonine Itinerary. Excavations in 2006 at St Martin-in-the-Fields revealed a Roman grave, suggesting the site had sacred significance. The area to the north of the Strand was long thought to have remained as unsettled fields until the 16th century, but theories by Alan Vince and Martin Biddle that there had been an Anglo-Saxon settlement to the west of the old Roman town of Londinium were borne out by excavations in 1985 and 2005. These revealed Covent Garden as the centre of a trading town called Lundenwic, developed around 600 AD, which stretched from Trafalgar Square to Aldwych. Alfred the Great gradually shifted the settlement into the old Roman town of Londinium from around 886 AD onwards, leaving no mark of the old town, and the site returned to fields.
Around 1200 the first mention of an abbey garden appears in a document mentioning a walled garden owned by the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St. Peter, Westminster. A later document, dated between 1250 and 1283, refers to "the garden of the Abbot and Convent of Westminster". By the 13th century this had become a 40-acre (16 ha) quadrangle of mixed orchard, meadow, pasture and arable land, lying between modern-day St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane, and Floral Street and Maiden Lane. The use of the name "Covent"—an Anglo-French term for a religious community, equivalent to "monastery" or "convent" —appears in a document in 1515, when the Abbey, which had been letting out parcels of land along the north side of the Strand for inns and market gardens, granted a lease of the walled garden, referring to it as "a garden called Covent Garden". This is how it was recorded from then on.
The Bedford Estate (1552–1918)
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540, Henry VIII took for himself the land belonging to Westminster Abbey, including the convent garden and seven acres to the north called Long Acre; and in 1552 his son, Edward VI, granted it to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford. The Russell family, who in 1694 were advanced in their peerage from Earl to Duke of Bedford, held the land from 1552 to 1918.
Russell had Bedford House and garden built on part of the land, with an entrance on the Strand, the large garden stretching back along the south side of the old walled-off convent garden. Apart from this, and allowing several poor-quality tenements to be erected, the Russells did little with the land until the 4th Earl of Bedford, Francis Russell, an active and ambitious businessman, commissioned Inigo Jones in 1630 to design and build a church and three terraces of fine houses around a large square or piazza. The commission had been prompted by Charles I taking offence at the condition of the road and houses along Long Acre, which were the responsibility of Russell and Henry Carey, 2nd Earl of Monmouth. Russell and Carey complained that under the 1625 Proclamation concerning Buildings, which restricted building in and around London, they could not build new houses; the King then granted Russell, for a fee of £2,000, a licence to build as many new houses on his land as he "shall thinke fitt and convenient". The church of St Paul's was the first building, begun in July 1631 on the western side of the square. The last house was completed in 1637.
The houses initially attracted the wealthy, though when a market developed on the south side of the square around 1654, the aristocracy moved out and coffee houses, taverns, and prostitutes moved in. The Bedford Estate was expanded in 1669 to include Bloomsbury, when Lord Russell married Lady Rachel Vaughan, one of the daughters of the 4th Earl of Southampton.
By the 18th century, Covent Garden had become a well-known red-light district, attracting notable prostitutes such as Betty Careless and Jane Douglas. Descriptions of the prostitutes and where to find them were provided by Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies, the "essential guide and accessory for any serious gentleman of pleasure". In 1830 a market hall was built to provide a more permanent trading centre. In 1913, Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford agreed to sell the Covent Garden Estate for £2 million to the MP and land speculator Harry Mallaby-Deeley, who sold his option in 1918 to the Beecham family for £250,000.
Modern changes
Charles Fowler's 1830 neo-classical building restored as a retail market.
The Covent Garden Estate was part of Beecham Estates and Pills Limited from 1924 to 1928, after which time it was managed by a successor company called Covent Garden Properties Company Limited, owned by the Beechams and other private investors. This new company sold some properties at Covent Garden, while becoming active in property investment in other parts of London. In 1962 the bulk of the remaining properties in the Covent Garden area, including the market, were sold to the newly established government-owned Covent Garden Authority for £3,925,000.
By the end of the 1960s, traffic congestion had reached such a level that the use of the square as a modern wholesale distribution market was becoming unsustainable, and significant redevelopment was planned. Following a public outcry, buildings around the square were protected in 1973, preventing redevelopment. The following year the market moved to a new site in south-west London. The square languished until its central building re-opened as a shopping centre in 1980. An action plan was drawn up by Westminster Council in 2004 in consultation with residents and businesses to improve the area while retaining its historic character. The market buildings, along with several other properties in Covent Garden, were bought by a property company in 2006.
Geography
Historically, the Bedford Estate defined the boundary of Covent Garden, with Drury Lane to the east, the Strand to the south, St. Martin's Lane to the west, and Long Acre to the north. However, over time the area has expanded northwards past Long Acre to High Holborn, and since 1971, with the creation of the Covent Garden Conservation Area which incorporated part of the area between St Martins Lane and Charring Cross Road, the Western boundary is sometimes considered to be Charring Cross Road. Shelton Street, running parallel to the north of Long Acre, marks the London borough boundary between Camden and Westminster. Long Acre is the main thoroughfare, running north-east from St Martin's Lane to Drury Lane.
The area to the south of Long Acre contains the Royal Opera House, the market and central square, and most of the elegant buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the London Transport Museum; while the area to the north of Long Acre is largely given over to independent retail units centred on Neal Street, Neal's Yard and Seven Dials; though this area also contains residential buildings such as Odhams Walk, built in 1981 on the site of the Odhams print works, and is home to over 6,000 residents.
Governance
The Covent Garden estate was originally under the control of Westminster Abbey and lay in the parish of St Margaret. During a reorganisation in 1542 it was transferred to St Martin in the Fields, and then in 1645 a new parish was created, splitting governance of the estate between the parishes of St Paul Covent Garden and St Martin, both still within the Liberty of Westminster. St Paul Covent Garden was completely surrounded by the parish of St Martin in the Fields. It was grouped into the Strand District in 1855 when it came within the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works.
In 1889 the parish became part of the County of London and in 1900 it became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Westminster. It was abolished as a civil parish in 1922. Since 1965 Covent Garden falls within the London boroughs of Westminster and Camden, and is in the Parliamentary constituencies of Cities of London and Westminster and Holborn and St Pancras. For local council elections it falls within the St James's ward for Westminster, and the Holborn and Covent Garden ward for Camden.
Economy
The area's historic association with the retail and entertainment economy continues. In 1979, Covent Garden Market reopened as a retail centre; in 2010, the largest Apple Store in the world opened in The Piazza. The central hall has shops, cafes and bars alongside the Apple Market stalls selling antiques, jewellery, clothing and gifts; there are additional casual stalls in the Jubilee Hall Market on the south side of the square. Long Acre has a range of clothes shops and boutiques, and Neal Street is noted for its large number of shoe shops. London Transport Museum and the side entrance to the Royal Opera House box office and other facilities are also located on the square. During the late 1970s and 1980s the Rock Garden music venue was popular with up and coming punk rock and New Wave artists.
The market halls and several other buildings in Covent Garden were bought by CapCo in partnership with GE Real Estate in August 2006 for £421 million, on a 150-year head lease. The buildings are let to the Covent Garden Area Trust, who pay an annual peppercorn rent of one red apple and a posy of flowers for each head lease, and the Trust protects the property from being redeveloped. In March 2007 CapCo also acquired the shops located under the Royal Opera House. The complete Covent Garden Estate owned by CapCo consists of 550,000 sq ft (51,000 m2), and has a market value of £650 million.
Landmarks
The Royal Opera House, often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", was constructed as the "Theatre Royal" in 1732 to a design by Edward Shepherd. During the first hundred years or so of its history, the theatre was primarily a playhouse, with the Letters Patent granted by Charles II giving Covent Garden and Theatre Royal, Drury Lane exclusive rights to present spoken drama in London. In 1734, the first ballet was presented; a year later Handel's first season of operas began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premières here. It has been the home of The Royal Opera since 1945, and the Royal Ballet since 1946.
The current building is the third theatre on the site following destructive fires in 1808 and 1857. The façade, foyer and auditorium were designed by Edward Barry, and date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive £178 million reconstruction in the 1990s. The Royal Opera House seats 2,268 people and consists of four tiers of boxes and balconies and the amphitheatre gallery. The stage performance area is roughly 15 metres square. The main auditorium is a Grade 1 listed building. The inclusion of the adjacent old Floral Hall, previously a part of the old Covent Garden Market, created a new and extensive public gathering place. In 1779 the pavement outside the playhouse was the scene of the murder of Martha Ray, mistress of the Earl of Sandwich, by her admirer the Rev. James Hackman.
Covent Garden square
Balthazar Nebot's 1737 painting of the square before the 1830 market hall was constructed.
The central square in Covent Garden is simply called "Covent Garden", often marketed as "Covent Garden Piazza" to distinguish it from the eponymous surrounding area. Laid out in 1630, it was the first modern square in London, and was originally a flat, open space or piazza with low railings. A casual market started on the south side, and by 1830 the present market hall was built. The space is popular with street performers, who audition with the site's owners for an allocated slot. The square was originally laid out when the 4th Earl of Bedford, Francis Russell, commissioned Inigo Jones to design and build a church and three terraces of fine houses around the site of a former walled garden belonging to Westminster Abbey. Jones's design was informed by his knowledge of modern town planning in Europe, particularly Piazza d'Arme, in Leghorn, Tuscany, Piazza San Marco in Venice, Piazza Santissima Annunziata in Florence, and the Place des Vosges in Paris. The centrepiece of the project was the large square, the concept of which was new to London, and this had a significant influence on modern town planning in the city,[56] acting as the prototype for the laying-out of new estates as the metropolis grew. Isaac de Caus, the French Huguenot architect, designed the individual houses under Jones's overall design.
The church of St Paul's was the first building, and was begun in July 1631 on the western side of the square. The last house was completed in 1637. Seventeen of the houses had arcaded portico walks organised in groups of four and six either side of James Street on the north side, and three and four either side of Russell Street. These arcades, rather than the square itself, took the name Piazza; the group from James Street to Russell Street became known as the "Great Piazza" and that to the south of Russell Street as the "Little Piazza". None of Inigo Jones's houses remain, though part of the north group was reconstructed in 1877–79 as Bedford Chambers by William Cubitt to a design by Henry Clutton.
Covent Garden market
The first record of a "new market in Covent Garden" is in 1654 when market traders set up stalls against the garden wall of Bedford House. The Earl of Bedford acquired a private charter from Charles II in 1670 for a fruit and vegetable market, permitting him and his heirs to hold a market every day except Sundays and Christmas Day. The original market, consisting of wooden stalls and sheds, became disorganised and disorderly, and the 6th Earl requested an Act of Parliament in 1813 to regulate it, then commissioned Charles Fowler in 1830 to design the neo-classical market building that is the heart of Covent Garden today. The contractor was William Cubitt and Company. Further buildings were added—the Floral hall, Charter Market, and in 1904 the Jubilee Market for foreign flowers was built by Cubitt and Howard.
By the end of the 1960s, traffic congestion was causing problems for the market, which required increasingly large lorries for deliveries and distribution. Redevelopment was considered, but protests from the Covent Garden Community Association in 1973 prompted the Home Secretary, Robert Carr, to give dozens of buildings around the square listed-building status, preventing redevelopment. The following year the market relocated to its new site, New Covent Garden Market, about three miles (5 km) south-west at Nine Elms. The central building re-opened as a shopping centre in 1980, with cafes, pubs, small shops and a craft market called the Apple Market. Another market, the Jubilee Market, is held in the Jubilee Hall on the south side of the square. The market halls and several other buildings in Covent Garden have been owned by the property company Capital & Counties Properties (CapCo) since 2006.
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The current Theatre Royal on Drury Lane is the most recent of four incarnations, the Second of which opened in 1663, making it the oldest continuously used theatre in London. For much of its first two centuries, it was, along with the Royal Opera House, a patent theatre granted rights in London for the production of drama, and had a claim to be one of London's leading theatres. The first theatre, known as "Theatre Royal, Bridges Street", saw performances by Nell Gwyn and Charles Hart. After it was destroyed by fire in 1672, English dramatist and theatre manager Thomas Killigrew engaged Christopher Wren to build a larger theatre on the same spot, which opened in 1674. This building lasted nearly 120 years, under leadership including Colley Cibber, David Garrick, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In 1791, under Sheridan's management, the building was demolished to make way for a larger theatre which opened in 1794; but that survived only 15 years, burning down in 1809. The building that stands today opened in 1812. It has been home to actors as diverse as Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean, child actress Clara Fisher, comedian Dan Leno, the comedy troupe Monty Python (who recorded a concert album there), and musical composer and performer Ivor Novello. Since November 2008 the theatre has been owned by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and generally stages popular musical theatre. It is a Grade I listed building.
London Transport Museum
The London Transport Museum is in a Victorian iron and glass building on the east side of the market square. It was designed as a dedicated flower market by William Rogers of William Cubitt and Company in 1871, and was first occupied by the museum in 1980. Previously the transport collection had been held at Syon Park and Clapham. The first parts of the collection were brought together at the beginning of the 20th century by the London General Omnibus Company (LGOC) when it began to preserve buses being retired from service. After the LGOC was taken over by the London Electric Railway (LER), the collection was expanded to include rail vehicles. It continued to expand after the LER became part of the London Passenger Transport Board in the 1930s and as the organisation passed through various successor bodies up to TfL, London's transport authority since 2000. The Covent Garden building has on display many examples of buses, trams, trolleybuses and rail vehicles from 19th and 20th centuries as well as artefacts and exhibits related to the operation and marketing of passenger services and the impact that the developing transport network has had on the city and its population.
St Paul's Church
St Paul's, commonly known as the Actors' Church, was designed by Inigo Jones as part of a commission by Francis Russell in 1631 to create "houses and buildings fitt for the habitacons of Gentlemen and men of ability". Work on the church began that year and was completed in 1633, at a cost of £4,000, with it becoming consecrated in 1638. In 1645 Covent Garden was made a separate parish and the church was dedicated to St Paul. It is uncertain how much of Jones's original building is left, as the church was damaged by fire in 1795 during restoration work by Thomas Hardwick; though it is believed that the columns are original—the rest is mostly Georgian or Victorian reconstruction.
Culture
The Covent Garden area has long been associated with both entertainment and shopping, and this continues. Covent Garden has 13 theatres, and over 60 pubs and bars, with most south of Long Acre, around the main shopping area of the old market. The Seven Dials area in the north of Covent Garden was home to the punk rock club The Roxy in 1977, and the area remains focused on young people with its trendy mid-market retail outlets.
Street performance
Street entertainment at Covent Garden was noted in Samuel Pepys's diary in May 1662, when he recorded the first mention of a Punch and Judy show in Britain. Impromptu performances of song and swimming were given by local celebrity William Cussans in the eighteenth century. Covent Garden is licensed for street entertainment, and performers audition for timetabled slots in a number of venues around the market, including the North Hall, West Piazza, and South Hall Courtyard. The courtyard space is dedicated to classical music only. There are street performances at Covent Garden Market every day of the year, except Christmas Day. Shows run throughout the day and are about 30 minutes in length. In March 2008, the market owner, CapCo, proposed to reduce street performances to one 30-minute show each hour.
Pubs and bars
The Covent Garden area has over 60 pubs and bars; several of them are listed buildings, with some also on CAMRA's National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors; some, such as The Harp in Chandos Place, have received consumer awards. The Harp's awards include London Pub of the Year in 2008 by the Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood, and National Pub of the Year by CAMRA in 2011. It was at one time owned by the Charrington Brewery, when it was known as The Welsh Harp; in 1995 the name was abbreviated to just The Harp, before Charrington sold it to Punch Taverns in 1997. It has been owned by the landlady since 2010.
The Lamb and Flag in Rose Street has a reputation as the oldest pub in the area, though records are not clear. The first mention of a pub on the site is 1772 (when it was called the Cooper's Arms – the name changing to Lamb & Flag in 1833); the 1958 brick exterior conceals what may be an early 18th-century frame of a house replacing the original one built in 1638.[94] The pub acquired a reputation for staging bare-knuckle prize fights during the early 19th century when it earned the nickname "Bucket of Blood". The alleyway beside the pub was the scene of an attack on John Dryden in 1679 by thugs hired by John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, with whom he had a long-standing conflict.
The Salisbury in St. Martin's Lane was built as part of a six-storey block around 1899 on the site of an earlier pub that had been known under several names, including the Coach & Horses and Ben Caunt's Head; it is both Grade II listed, and on CAMRA's National Inventory, due to the quality of the etched and polished glass and the carved woodwork, summed up as "good fin de siècle ensemble". The Freemasons Arms on Long Acre is linked with the founding of the Football Association in 1896; however, the meetings took place at The Freemasons Tavern on Great Queen Street, which was replaced in 1909 by the Connaught Rooms.
Other pubs that are Grade II listed are of minor interest, they are three 19th century rebuilds of 17th century/18th century houses, the Nell Gwynne Tavern in Bull Inn Court, the Nag's Head on James Street, and the White Swan on New Row; a Victorian pub built by lessees of the Marquis of Exeter, the Old Bell on the corner of Exeter Street and Wellington Street; and a late 18th or early 19th century pub the Angel and Crown on St. Martin's Lane.
Cultural connections
Covent Garden, and especially the market, have appeared in a number of works. Eliza Doolittle, the central character in George Bernard Shaw's play, Pygmalion, and the musical adaptation by Alan Jay Lerner, My Fair Lady, is a Covent Garden flower seller. Alfred Hitchcock's 1972 film Frenzy about a Covent Garden fruit vendor who becomes a serial sex killer, was set in the market where his father had been a wholesale greengrocer. The daily activity of the market was the topic of a 1957 Free Cinema documentary by Lindsay Anderson, Every Day Except Christmas, which won the Grand Prix at the Venice Festival of Shorts and Documentaries.
Transport
Covent Garden is served by the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden tube station on the corner of Long Acre and James Street. The station was opened by Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway on 11 April 1907, four months after services on the rest of the line began operating on 15 December 1906. Platform access is only by lift or stairs; until improvements to the exit gates in 2007, due to high passenger numbers (16 million annually), London Underground had to advise travellers to get off at Leicester Square and walk the short distance (the tube journey at less than 300 yards is London's shortest) to avoid the congestion. Stations just outside the area include the Charing Cross tube station and Charing Cross railway station, Leicester Square tube station, and Holborn tube station. While there is only one bus route in Covent Garden itself—the RV1, which uses Catherine Street as a terminus, just to the east of Covent Garden square—there are over 30 routes which pass close by, mostly on the Strand or Kingsway.
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Sé de Evora, apostles
The ogival main portal is a masterpiece of Portuguese Gothic sculpture. The marble columns are occupied by huge statues of the Apostles executed in the 1330s, perhaps by sculptors Master Pero (Mestre Pero) and Telo Garcia. It is the best of its kind in Portugal. Such free-standing Gothic sculptures are rather rare in Portugal. They are usually associated with memorial graves.
The associated video with this picture series is Our Trip to Crete on YouTube.
This part of our adventures on our Grand Tour of Europe is in episode three of the Take Flight with Scott video series on YouTube. Please join us there for even more content from this trip. Part one is our time on Crete, Greece with our teen nieces Madeline and Emily.
Also, you can follow my personal ZiffedTraveler Instagram or the TakeFlight with Scott Instagram pages for more content and news. We are on Facebook, too.
An ex Whittle Bedford YMT Duple Dominant 2 nearing the end of its life with Associated Coachways, Harlow, on 16th May, 1997.
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Even the doors to the back rooms at Bass Pro at the Memphis Pyramid are pretty fancy! And they never seem to miss a chance to add a bit of that unique Bass Pro décor wherever they can as well.
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Bass Pro Shops, 1991-built (as The Pyramid arena), Bass Pro Dr. at Riverside Dr./Front St., Memphis
St Helena Island in Moreton Bay contains evidence of both Aboriginal use and a number of structures of stone, brick and timber associated with the operation of a quarantine station and a prison during the period 1865 to 1933.
The name of the island recalls an incident in 1828 regarding an Aborigine nick-named Napoleon for his resemblance to the French general who was exiled on the island of St Helena. 'Napoleon', whose real name was Nugoon, stole an axe from the government stores at Dunwich and was 'exiled' by the authorities on one of the Green Islands, however, he constructed a canoe from materials on the island and returned to Dunwich within days. For many years the name of the island alternated between St Helena and Nugoon, however it was the former which gained official recognition.
During the 1840s and '50s the island was a base for the hunting and processing of dugong for meat and oil, which was valued for medicinal purposes. For some time this business was highly profitable, however due to mismanagement and diminishing supplies of dugong it eventually failed.
In 1865 when a quarantine station was planned, the vegetation of the island was divided between mangrove swamp, scrub land and grass flats. Its isolation made it ideal as a location for a quarantine station. Buildings were designed by Charles Tiffin, Colonial Architect, and construction work commenced in 1865 using labour from the prison hulk 'Proserpine', moored at the mouth of the Brisbane River. The first structure completed was a lock-up for the prisoners working on the island. Work proceeded slowly and by 1867 overcrowding in Brisbane prisons had increased to such an extent that it was decided to convert the proposed quarantine station into a prison and to retain the existing quarantine facilities at Dunwich. Despite this, the island was apparently used for quarantine purposes during this period and at least two graves for unidentified immigrants are within the vicinity of prison burials on the eastern shore of the island. The official prison cemetery is on the southern end of the island.
The first superintendent of the gaol was John McDonald, who served in this post for fifteen years, during which time he did much to establish the prison and its associated activities. The philosophy of prisoner rehabilitation was changing from the earlier ethos of punishment and isolation. The aim was to provide prisoners with a full day of constructive activity and instruction which would equip them with life skills. In addition, the financial strictures of the colony made it desirable for the prison to be as self-sufficient as possible. McDonald showed considerable initiative and perseverance in meeting these demands.
Punishment for defaulting prisoners, though considered less brutal than in many prisons, was still strict and included gagging and shot drill. Flogging was reserved for extreme offences and was eventually replaced by incarceration in underground isolation cells. Under McDonald's care the prison was described by newspaper journalists as being of the highest standard with clean, healthy prisoners engaged in constructive enterprises that provided them with excellent opportunities for self improvement. The aim of self-sufficiency was reflected in the process by which new prison buildings were constructed when they were needed. Plans were prepared by several long-serving prisoners to the requirements of the Superintendent, the government architect not being employed. The materials were obtained on the island when possible. The scrub was not sufficient to meet the demand for building timber, but the island stone and the lime extracted from neighbouring coral reefs provided raw materials for many of the structures. The lime was burned in a kiln constructed on the island by 1869 using bricks and the local stone. Later, when the sugar mill was operational, the lime produced was used for settling the vegetable matter suspended in the sugar syrup.
In 1868 a substantial timber barracks to house approximately 130 prisoners was completed, in addition to the buildings and jetty previously constructed for the quarantine station. A bakehouse, wash house, kitchen, punishment cells and a convalescent ward for sick prisoners were also built. On the rising ground behind these buildings, a large timber structure housed store rooms, doctors rooms, clerks rooms, quarters for twelve military personnel and one officer, and accommodation for ten warders. Also on rising ground, though separate, was a five room cottage for the superintendent in an acre of fenced land. A further area was devoted to growing maize, sugar cane and vegetables for the prison. Fifty acres were cleared with the intention of planting sugar cane. This was to be processed in a sugar refinery on site. A boat house of local stone, a coarse conglomerate, was being constructed near the landing area. It was also planned to construct a church and schoolhouse within the stockade.
One of the most successful early enterprises undertaken on the island was the growing and processing of sugar. McDonald trained himself in the processes involved and the mill was considered something of a wonder in its own right. The crushing rollers were horse-driven and hand fed by the prisoners. The syrup was gravity fed into vats for boiling down and crystallisation. The final product was a fine golden coloured sugar of table quality which was used, not only by other government institutions, but was sold commercially. Both cane and sugar won many awards at the annual International Exhibition. The cane served other useful functions on the island, the trash providing fuel for the warders' fires. The chief disadvantage of the cane crop was the cover it provided for malingerers or absconding prisoners. Following Macdonald's departure in 1882, his successor, Capt. Townley, reduced the acreage on the island to provide only for the prison's needs. This crop was subsequently reduced even further, until in 1890 the prison commenced purchasing sugar from external sources. The sugar mill was converted into a laundry and a herd of dairy cattle was introduced to provide milk, butter and cheese for the prison. A low flat area on the western side of the island was used for pasturing prison animals. It had stables, cowsheds, piggeries, sheep yards and a slaughter house.
The prison continued to expand until, at its peak, it could accommodate approximately 300 prisoners. Townley enforced a more rigid discipline than McDonald and the harsh conditions on the island soon earned St Helena the nicknames of the 'hell-hole of the Pacific' and 'Queensland's Inferno', although the press described it as a model prison. The shark-infested waters of Moreton Bay were a barrier to escape, although this was achieved on a few occasions.
A tramline had been constructed between the prison compound and the jetty in the late 1870s to move goods and raw materials. A series of temporary lines were also laid down and relocated as required to transport everything from laundry to the nightsoil brought from the mainland and buried in trenches on the island in the 1880s. A variety of rolling stock was used over the years including a two-handed pumper vehicle similar to that used on railways. This was eventually superseded by a horse drawn tram car which operated for some thirty years. In the 1930s the tramway fell into disrepair and the rails were removed, although much of the associated earthworks remain.
In 1891 five political prisoners were imprisoned on the island for their role in the Shearers' Strikes of that year. One of these, William Hamilton, was later to become Member of the Legislative Assembly for Gregory, Minister for Mines and President of the Legislative Council of Queensland. He later enjoyed reminding others that he had been incarcerated on St Helena for three years.
By the early twentieth century conditions had changed once more under the superintendence of James Ryan and visitors to the island extolled its virtues at length. It was described as the 'pearl of Moreton Bay' and 'the garden of beauty'. Such descriptions aroused public interest and in 1912 a campaign was mounted by the Moreton Bay League for the closure of the prison and the conversion of the island into a place of public recreation. The Government quashed this movement by announcing plans for a new, more substantial prison on St Helena, but this did not proceed and in 1921 it was decided to close the prison and make the island a prison farm. Most of the inmates were removed to Boggo Road Gaol and those who remained were occupied with the demolition of most of the gaol's infrastructure, including fences, stockade walls, workshops and other buildings. A few buildings were retained, possibly because they continued to be of use to the farm. Much of the material removed was later re-used in other government projects. In 1933 the farm was closed down and the remaining prisoners were transferred to Boggo Road Gaol.
In 1933 the island became the responsibility of Brisbane City Council whose plans for the island included golf courses, landing strips, holiday cabins and tennis courts. Of these, only a dance hall and kiosk were erected and a few trees planted to provide shelter at the picnic area near the wharf. A regular ferry service was supplied to carry people to the island, but the scheme proved uneconomic. In 1939 the Council surrendered its control of the island and a dairy farm was established once more.
In 1979 the island became the first 'historic' National Park in Queensland in recognition of the significance of the island's past and those buildings which remained. The island is now an open air museum and studies have been made of the island's history and of the ruins of the prison. Conservation and reconstruction work has been carried out on the surviving buildings and interpretive signage has been installed. In 1997 the Rotary Club of Wynnum/Manly constructed a tram track between the jetty and the principal group of buildings partially following the route of the old tramline.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.