View allAll Photos Tagged Denigration
I am enjoying recreating credible scenes from my childhood and earlier, using reference photos and local knowledge along with the power of MidJourney.
If you are someone who denigrates or otherwise despises AI … grow up. It’s just another useful tool to augment our imaginations and desires and permit people like me to reminisce, visually.
When Western pictorial art arrived in Japan in the late Edo period the Japanese were amazed at how photographic it was. One of the first famous Western-Style Japanese artists, Shiba Koukan, wrote
"What is remarkable is that it (Western Art) enables one to see clearly something that is actually not there. If a painting does not truly portray a thing it is devoid of the wonderful power of art. Fuji-san is a mountain unique in the world, and foreigners who wish to look at it can do so only in pictures. However, if one follows only the orthodox Chinese methods of painting, one’s picture will not resemble Fuji, and there will be node of the magical quality in it that painting possesses. The way to depict Fuji accurately is by means of Dutch painting." (Shiba Koukan see Keene, 1952 p.67)
The traditional Japanese painting, following its Chinese model, attempted to "delineate the spirit" (Keene, 1952, p.66) of the subject resulting in idealised or mangarized representations of "beautiful women" (bijinga) for instance. The women in Japanese biinga (above left) are as uniform as those in Anime, and the mountains in Japanese and Chinese art, sharing essence of beauty or mountain.
To Westerners however, the image is usually seen as superficial, "mere image," (Aristotle, see Brenkman, 1976) a fact which facilitates the pictorial representation of people "warts and all" such as in the famous picture of Oliver Cromwell, above right.
This is the reverse of the situation in verbal, linguistic representations of people wherein Westerners are generally very idealised (braggart) and uniform, whereas Japanese say it how it is (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999; T. R. S. Leuers = Takemoto & Sonoda, 1999; T. Leuers = Takemoto & Sonoda, 1999; T. Takemoto & Iwaizono, 2016; T. R. Takemoto & Brinthaupt, 2017; see also Takemoto, T. 武本, Timothy, 2017).
More notes
From Jay 1993, p13
Monotheistic religions, beginning with Judaism, have been deeply wary of pagan idolatry. The fictional character of artificial images, which can only be false simulators of the "truth," has occasioned distrust among more puritanical critics of representation. St. Pauls celebrate warning against the speculum obscurum, the glass (or mirror) through which we only see but darkly, vividly express this caution about terrestrial sign. Religious distrust was also aroused by teh capacity of vision to inspire what Augustine condemned as conupiscentia ocularum, ocular desire, which diverts our minds from more spiritual concerns. These and like suspicious have at times come to dominate religious movements and dictate long-standing religious taboos. Mose's strugge with Aaron over the Golden Calk, the Islamic rejection of figural representation, the iconoclastic controversy of the ieghth-centruy Byzantine church, the Cistercian monasticism of St. Bernard, the English Lollards, and finale the Protestant Reformation all express the antiocular sub-current of [Western] religious thought. In fact this hostility remains alive today. in the worl of such theologians as Jaqcues Ellul, whos Humiliation of the Word, written in I981, reads like a summa of every imaginable religious complaint against the domination of sight.
Images
Late 17th century Left Beauties by Utamaro Kitagawa
Oilver Cromwell, "Warts and All" by Sir Peter Lely
Bibliography
Brenkman, J. (1976). Narcissus in the Text. Georgia Review, 30(2), 293–327. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/41399656
Heine, S., Lehman, D., Markus, H., & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is There a Universal Need for Positive Self-Regard? Psychological Review, 106(4), 766–794. Retrieved from humancond.org/_media/papers/heine99_universal_positive_re...
Jay, M. (1993). Downcast eyes: The denigration of vision in twentieth-century French thought. Univ of California Press. dq=Downcast+Eyes:+The+Denigration+of+Vision+in+Twentieth-Century+French+Thought&ots=SFqXjWmi3P&sig=HgLHWdIcJGXKiAVAmqMCyioZJD0
Keene, D. (1952). The Japanese Discovery of Europe: Honda Toshiaki and Other Discoverers, 1720-1798. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Leuers = Takemoto, T. R. S., & Sonoda, N. (1999). Independent self bias. Progress in Asian Social Psychology, 3, 87–104. Retrieved from www.nihonbunka.com/docs/independent_self.rtf
Leuers = Takemoto, T., & Sonoda, N. (1999). The eye of the other and the independent self of the Japanese. In Symposium presentation at the 3rd Conference of the Asian Association of Social Psychology, Taipei, Taiwan. Retrieved from nihonbunka.com/docs/aasp99.htm
Takemoto, T., & Iwaizono, M. (2016). Autoscopic Individualism: A Comparison of American and Japanese Women’s Fashion Magazines. 山口経済学雑誌= Yamaguchi Journal of Economics, Business Administrations & Laws, 65(3), 173–205. Retrieved from ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/40021076383/
Takemoto, T. R., & Brinthaupt, T. M. (2017). We Imagine Therefore We Think: The Modality of Self and Thought in Japan and America. 山口経済学雑誌 (Yamaguchi Journal of Economics, Business Administrations & Laws), 65(7・8), 1–29. Retrieved from nihonbunka.com/docs/Takemoto_Brinthaupt.pdf
Takemoto, T. 武本, Timothy. (2017). ジマンガ：日本人の心像的自尊心を測る試み(Auto-Manga as Prideful-Pictures: An Attempt to Measure Japanese Mental Image Self-Esteem). 山口経済学雑誌= Yamaguchi Journal of Economics, Business Administrations & Laws, 65(6), 107–138. Retrieved from nihonbunka.com/docs/Jimanga.pdf
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
Il Trovatore
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
This is the earliest photo I can find of me wearing my own clothes that I purchased myself and doing my own makeup. I still didn't have the courage to go into regular shops but bought this skirt suit in Transformation, Manchester. Many older crossdressers will recall that Transformation was run by transexual Stephanie Anne Lloyd and eventually had branches dotted around the country. Stephanie and her chain of shops were largely denigrated in later years for ripping off the crossdressing community and charging exorbitant prices for some very dubious products, but she certainly provided an outlet for nervous and wary crossdressers such as myself.
(E) Bad Trip series is a concretization of idea I had of showing a more dirty and human side of famous cartoon characters. We always see them been successful, been heroes or at least having fun, anyway I always wondered what would've been If they had the same delusions, bad feelings, breakouts as humans have their ups and downs along life. Not trying to denigrate any of this characters representations, only to have a different light on it.
Scott Ritter on Judge Napolitano: Putin: This is a global conflict.
www.youtube.com/live/b6gY2eaKiME
Brian Berletic: China has already defeated the U.S. on Taiwan, with Carl Zha, on the Danny Haiphong channel:
The author of this Spectator article below simply couldn't help himself denigrating Russia and China, even when Ukraine is losing the war badly despite the humongous help from the U.S. and Europe. How can people trust these so called mainstream media? They are nothing more than propaganda spreading machines.
www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-putin-winning-the-world-or...
Is Putin winning? The world order is changing in his favour
Peter Frankopan
"This is not about Ukraine at all, but the world order,’ said Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, a month after the invasion. ‘The unipolar world is irretrievably receding into the past … A multi-polar world is being born.’ The US is no longer the world’s policeman, in other words – a message that resonates in countries that have long been suspicious of American power. The West’s core coalition may remain solid, but it has failed to win over many of the countries that refused to pick sides. Moscow’s diplomatic mission to build ties and hone a narrative over the past decade has paid dividends.
Look at Africa. In March last year, 25 African states out of 54 abstained or didn’t vote in a UN motion condemning the invasion, despite huge pressure from western powers. Their refusal to side clearly with Ukraine was testament to Russia’s ongoing diplomatic efforts in the developing world.
A year ago, Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s foreign minister, urged Russia to withdraw. After Lavrov’s visit a few weeks ago, Pandor was asked if she had repeated this sentiment to her Russian counterpart. It had been ‘appropriate’ last year, she said, but to repeat it now ‘would make me appear quite simplistic and infantile’. Pandor then lauded the ‘growing economic bilateral relationship’ between Pretoria and Moscow, and the two countries marked the war’s anniversary with joint military exercises.
Then there are the North African countries, which have helped Russia offset the economic effect of western sanctions. Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt have all, in the past year, imported Russian diesel and other refined oils, as well as chemicals.
Vladimir Putin is quite deliberately cultivating this alliance of nations who feel victims of western imperialism, and putting Russia at its head. The West wants to see Russia ‘as a colony’, he said in September. ‘They don’t want equal cooperation, they want to rob us.’
This message goes down equally well in large parts of Asia, where more than a third of countries declined to condemn Russia in the initial UN vote, as well as in Central and South America, where waves of anti-western and anti-capitalist sentiment continue to swell.
As India’s former ambassador to Russia, Venkatesh Varma, put it last week: ‘We have not accepted the western framing of the conflict. In fact there are very few takers for it in the Global South.’ He doesn’t speak for India’s government. But still India, along with China and South Africa, abstained from another UN resolution last week demanding Russia withdraw from Ukraine. Of 193 members, 141 voted in favour and 32 abstained. Seven voted against, with Russia joined by Belarus, Eritrea, Mali, North Korea, Nicaragua and Syria.
The idea that it’s America and its allies who are the sources of global disruption and instability holds sway. The setbacks in Afghanistan and the idea that the Ukrainian war happened because of Nato’s expansion have fuelled a narrative, and even sympathy, for the idea that Putin is simply standing up to the West (which explains why North Korea has shipped artillery shells and Iran has provided kamikaze drones).
Putin is a master of whipping up anti-American sentiment. In his address to the Federal Assembly last week, he referenced western military interventions in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria. These showed the West acting ‘shamelessly and duplicitously… They will never be able to wash off this shame’.
Look at how Ukraine has been supported, he added, while others have been abandoned. More than $150 billion has been spent helping and arming Kyiv, he said, while the world’s poorest countries have only received $60 billion in aid. ‘What about all this talk of fighting poverty, sustainable development and protection of the environment?’ he asked.
Putin’s Russia even audaciously claims the high ground on racial discrimination. In a speech six months ago, Putin stated: ‘The Russophobia articulated today across the entire world is nothing but racism.’ Russia thus neatly taps into western guilt at its colonial past, while pitching itself as the leading voice for what Lavrov calls ‘the international majority’. ‘Over the long centuries of colonialism, diktat and hegemony,’ Putin said last week, the West ‘got used to being allowed everything, got used to spitting on the whole world.’
At the same time, the Russian President appeals to the world’s social conservatism. That’s why last week he pointed to the Anglican Communion’s contortions over gay marriage and a ‘gender-neutral’ God, calling it ‘a spiritual catastrophe’. Such talk goes down well among the planet’s more devout populations, which tend to regard LGBTQ debates as evidence of western depravity and decadence. There’s a reason why RT, the Kremlin’s news channel, spent years stirring up the culture wars.
Moscow thus presents itself as a bastion of stability in a world gone mad, even as it seeks to destabilise the world and make it even madder. Its cultural propaganda is backed up by realpolitik and trade, with oil, gas, metals and crops used as diplomatic enticements to play Russia’s game. Arms were another inducement, although poor battlefield performance in the past year has diminished its reputation as a weapons superpower.
Then there is China, which half-heartedly called last week for peace talks, and this week is hosting Putin’s ally the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The relationship between Russia and China will always be complicated, yet the invasion of Ukraine and the West’s response have created enormous opportunities for Sino-Russian cooperation. China has been buying record amounts of cheap Russian oil and gas, for instance, while exporting far more machinery and semiconductors to Russia.
What unites them is a shared emphasis on the importance of stability and spreading the idea that it is the West which is disruptive, unpredictable and volatile.
‘We need to work together to maintain peace and stability in the world,’ said Xi Jinping in his most recent speech at the Boao Forum, ‘and oppose the wanton use of unilateral sanctions.’ Just as Lavrov’s comments about empowering other nations are aimed at countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America – all of which have been recipients of Chinese diplomatic cultivation in the past decade – so too are these Chinese calls for ‘international solidarity’.
It suits Beijing to echo Russia’s narrative about uneven playing fields, victimisation and pressure – not least since China has watched the war unfold in order to draw lessons that can shape its approach to Taiwan.
On his visit to Moscow last week, senior diplomat Wang Yi spoke of ‘new frontiers’ in the relationship between China and Russia and called for joint resistance to pressure from the ‘international community’ – an apparent rebuke to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s threat of ‘consequences’ if China supplies military support to Russia.
The fallout from the pandemic has in some ways played into Russia and China’s hands. As a report by the Carnegie Foundation said, without the resources available in the West, in economically vulnerable countries the crisis has ‘reversed decades of progress on poverty, healthcare and education’.
Western countries bought up stocks of vaccines – far greater than needed – and then refused to release patent waivers for medicines, vaccines and diagnostics, pushing up prices and resulting in higher mortality levels. By contrast, energetic vaccine diplomacy by Russia and China boosted their standing, especially in Africa and Latin America. Despite the inefficacy of China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, health officials in South Africa stopped giving the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine, believing it didn’t work. Last year, a survey of ASEAN countries in south-east Asia found the EU had a positive perception score of 2.6 per cent when it came to vaccine support – compared with almost 60 per cent for China.
As for the war, is Russia really losing? The Ukrainians have fought astonishingly well, but have suffered huge losses. Western leaders speak of giving Kyiv the tools to ‘finish the job’, but what the coming weeks, months and even years have to offer looks bleak, as the setbacks in Bakhmut suggest.
Russia’s economy appears strong enough to keep the war going: the IMF predicts its economy will grow by 0.3 per cent this year. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Russian conscripts are still being called up. As the historian Stephen Kotkin has noted, democracies fight wars differently to autocracies. Russia will keep throwing untrained recruits into the ‘meat grinder’, in which three-quarters of them die. What do their leaders do next, asks Kotkin: ‘Do they go to church on Sunday and ask forgiveness from God? They just do it again.’
That equation is different for Ukraine, regardless of what the West supplies – because Kyiv is being armed for a defensive, rather than offensive, war. Over time that tips the balance in favour of whoever can take pain for longer, in this case Russia. Wars of attrition are expensive and hard to sustain.
If procurement issues are one thing, replacing stock is another. The head of the British Army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, has said providing materials from the UK has left the army ‘weakened’. Unsurprisingly, the Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is seeking £10 billion for his department – at a time when the government is trying to fill the ‘fiscal black hole’ in its coffers.
Commentators on Russian TV gleefully make this point. Kremlin talking heads often claim Europeans are freezing to death because of high energy prices or have been forced to eat grasshoppers because of a lack of Russian wheat imports. Behind such sensationalism lies the hope that Ukraine’s supporters are exhausting themselves and that cracks will soon appear in the West’s wall of solidarity. Will Germany’s new-found commitment to Ukraine survive a colder winter? Russian propagandists are also aware that, come 2025, a new US administration might provide fresh options for Moscow, especially if there is a Republican president who is isolationist, impatient or both.
In Europe, Russia’s weaponisation of its energy resources caused widespread difficulties. Faced with shortages, European countries, including the UK, raced to replace capacity, above all through imports of liquid natural gas (LNG). This caused inflation in the West, a problem that refuses to come down even as the energy markets adapt.
There have been big winners, such as shareholders in the five oil giants – BP, Shell, Exxon, Chevron and Total Energies – who reported combined profits of $200 billion last year. The fossil fuel-producing states of OPEC also had eye-watering revenues, reaching $850 billion last year. But the price rise of LNG has meant countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh have suffered blackouts, which in turn cut productivity. This has paved the way for social unrest and political volatility – as well as increasing a global sense of resentment towards the West.
In its most blunt terms, the war has served as a moment of one of the greatest transfers of wealth in history, with energy-rich states harvesting giant cash bonuses that, in turn, have further accelerated the changing of the world order.
La Donna è mobile (Rigoletto)
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
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The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
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Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
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State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
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Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.
Jeff Koons au Château de Versailles.
I have waited that the frenzy of habitual mediatic mix and match surrendered this past exhibition. you and I know or let's hope so, that all this overkill of information and it's touch of supposed "controversy" is just the media playing the interchange of mutual publicity for 'big boys" . From the newspaper to tv, from radio to the internet, the
visual arts seems just to exist to applaud, clap at the rhythm of fame and to interchange a lot of conventionalism and repetitive praises when not to simply promote the cacophonus symphony of the public participation in form of denigrating comments and opinions.
The mediatic world loves these two extremes where the intellectual laziness and lack of expressiveness has become almost the norm.
I am just a "humble artist" which no doubt, comes from another planet and passes discreetly & casually in Paris, in doing so I visited this expo in Versailles, invited by Australian friends.
Humm... like many others i brought my digital camera and took some photos.
I present some of them in this cybernetic world, wondering were can we find something else that the rhythm of
copy and paste of well intentioned interchanges of conventionalism.
i think maybe I'm wrong in my attempts to communicate in other ways than through imitating the saturated publicist stunts
that considers every body to be a simple recipient or post box for anybody else's publicity leaflet.
ffmendoza 09
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.
“The mere act of pointing out the race and gender of a white guy (perky or otherwise) is often regarded as a denigrating attack in itself, even though those of us who are not (presumptively cisgendered, heterosexual) white guys are routinely framed in terms of our racial and/or our gender and sexual identities in explicitly denigrating terms. And both food and diversity are regularly deployed to avoid any meaningful discussion of racism. As Luke Pearson from NITV has pointed out, a quick glance at the Meat and Livestock board of directors shows it to be dominated by white males (none of them perky). It’s far more straightforward to line up a diverse range of guests at a fictitious barbecue than it is to implement diversity in employment practices, let alone to critique the origins of the national day, which has formed the core of the company’s publicity campaigns for the past 12 years.” —Shakira Hussein
with the death of rudolf brazda, gad beck is perhaps the last survivor of nazi concentration camps confined there because of his sexual orientation. obviously there is much information lost about these years (not only the names, but the excuses and labels given), so more survivors could be alive but undeclared.
this button is a relic from 1981, and is representative of the moment that the protest for queer rights in toronto became more unified and understood within and beyond the community.
adopting the pink (and the black) triangle as a symbol has always been my preference - rainbow flags to me seem an unholy mishmash of unicorn excretions and military uniformity. i understand the arguments presented that deny the importance of icons, but i still believe symbols carry weight and can galvanise loose associations of fellow travellers to act in hopes of achieving a common goal.
culture wars are ongoing. the current mayor of this city and the prime minister of my country are malignant, hateful bigots. their prejudice was clear and open before they were elected to office, and despite the work of their handlers is still baldly apparent. i have a theory that one day bigotry will be classified for what it is - a self-selected and -imposed mental illness whose impairment is considered desirable for a small band of reasons (the wish to have an outlet for cruelty, the pursuit of financial gain, the need to gain self-esteem via denigrating others, etc.). we do not and likely will not have the ability to isolate and treat these people in facilities that isolate them from decent society, so our best option is education - a well-educated population is comprised of self-aware people who are more than just tolerant, but accepting of the intrinsic differences and variation in human life and beyond. tools (shaming, ridicule, hate crime legislation) beyond the traditional definition of education work, of course, and can be used to augment lessons or to propel society toward a state in which harmony may be approached.
...
join team atwood and help preserve literacy in toronto while pointing out to rob ford and his sycophantic shitheads at city hall that libraries are important and deserve funding. online petition here, which i signed and added this comment to:
Rob Fraud and the rest of these moronic reactionary fools are prime examples of the reason why we should be investing in more and broader forms of education and not closing libraries. A learned population would not vote for these hateful imbeciles in the first place.
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
©2007 kelly angard
Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
- Henry Miller
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
Machiavelli spent time in exile in the hamlet of Sant'Andrea in Percussina, outside San Casciano. He wrote of his stay there and described this tavern unflatteringly (the "accio" suffix denigrates the base "albergo").
Before visiting Sant'Andrea in Percussina we had visited several little churches in the area around the villa, none open. One had a view all the way to Florence's duomo and its campanile, however.
(E) Bad Trip series is a concretization of idea I had of showing a more dirty and human side of famous cartoon characters. We always see them been successful, been heroes or at least having fun, anyway I always wondered what would've been If they had the same delusions, bad feelings, breakouts as humans have their ups and downs along life. Not trying to denigrate any of this characters representations, only to have a different light on it.
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
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The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
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Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
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State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
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Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
The cunning little Vixen (Leoš Janáček)
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
The cunning little Vixen (Leoš Janáček)
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.
www.nowpublic.com/sc_voters_to_decide_on_same_sex_marriage
This is the ending point of their 20- week walk across America from Phoenix, Arizona to Foundry United Methodist Church on 16th St. NW, Washington DC.
CrossWalk America embraces no particular political ideology, and seeks to explore and articulate the theological principles behind both faith and politics from a distinctly moderate/progressive Christian perspective. While our organization is joyfully and unapologetically Christian, we welcome the participation of Christians and non-Christians alike, from all walks of life.
CrossWalk America (CWA) is both a brand-new organization, and an organization that has been around a number of years:
In 1998, a group of Christian clergy gathered in a Phoenix coffeehouse, concerned about the increasing marginalization of moderate and progressive voices within the public sphere of Christianity. These clergy came from several traditionally “mainline” denominations - United Methodist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, and Lutheran.
The ministers’ original vision was to speak on a wide variety of topics, offering an alternative voice to that of radical fundamentalism. They also felt it would be important to include laypeople in their membership. However, at the time, there was so much controversy over gay and lesbian issues, largely propagated by Christian ministers, they decided to focus on this single set of issues for the time being, and to do so specifically as Christian clergy.
No Longer Silent : Clergy for Justice (NLS:CFJ) was formed as a clergy-only group dedicated to offering an alternative voice to Christian fundamentalism, strictly regarding glbt issues. One of the significant products of their efforts is The Phoenix Declaration – a document that, among other things, points out that there is no credible biblical or theological basis for determining homosexuality to be a sin, or for excluding gays and lesbians from the full life of church and society. The essence of Christian life is not focused on sexual orientation, but how one lives in relationship with God with compassion toward humanity. Over 160 clergy in Arizona signed this document.
While NLS:CFJ continues to operate as a powerful voice within and beyond the state of Arizona , this year the original vision to expand both in terms of voice and membership has become reality.
A new organization has been formed, called CrossWalk America . The purpose of CWA is to articulate and act upon a set of twelve theological principles called The Phoenix Affirmations. These Affirmations articulate what it means to live as a Christian seeking to embody Jesus’ great commandments to love God with heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.
The basic assumption of both CWA and NLS:CFJ is that moderate and progressive Christians have been overly content to remain silent as fundamentalism has gradually eroded mainstream Christianity in the public sphere. We believe it is time to “stand up and be counted,” calling the church to be church, in voice and action.
A quote by Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984), sums our stance up well:
"When they came for the communists, I was silent, because I was not a communist; When they came for the socialists, I was silent, because I was not a socialist; When they came for the trade unionists, I did not protest, because I was not a trade unionist; When they came for the Jews, I did not protest, because I was not a Jew; When they came for me, there was no one left to protest on my behalf."
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The Phoenix Affirmations:
The public face of Christianity in America today bears little connection to the historic faith of our ancestors. It represents even less our own faith as Christians who continue to celebrate the gifts of our Creator, revealed and embodied in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Heartened by our experience of the transforming presence of Christ’s Holy Spirit in our world, we find ourselves in a time and place where we will be no longer silent. We hereby mark an end to our silence by making the following affirmations:
As people who are joyfully and unapologetically Christian, we pledge ourselves completely to the way of Love. We work to express our love, as Jesus teaches us, in three ways: by loving God, neighbor, and self.
(Matt 22:34-40 // Mk 12:28-31 // Lk 10:25-28; Cf. Deut 6:5; Lev. 19:18)
Loving God Includes:
Affirmation 1:
Walking fully in the path of Jesus, without denying the legitimacy of other paths God may provide humanity;
Matthew 11:28-29; John 8:12; John 10:16; Mark 9:40
As Christians, we find spiritual awakening, challenge, growth, and fulfillment in Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection. While we have accepted the Path of Jesus as our Path, we do not deny the legitimacy of other paths God may provide humanity. Where possible, we seek lively dialog with those of other faiths for mutual benefit and fellowship.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found wherever love of God, neighbor, and self are practiced together. Whether or not the path bears the name of Jesus, such paths bear the identity of Christ.
We confess that we have stepped away from Christ’s Path whenever we have failed to practice love of God, neighbor, and self, or have claimed Christianity is the only way, even as we claim it to be our way.
Affirmation 2:
Listening for God’s Word which comes through daily prayer and meditation, through studying the ancient testimonies which we call Scripture, and through attending to God’s present activity in the world;
2 Timothy 3:16-17; 1 Corinthians 13:12
As Christians, we listen for God’s Word in the living presence of the Holy Spirit, praying every day, and discerning God’s present activity in our world. We also study and revere the ancient records which we call Scripture, recognizing that they have been formed within distinct historical and cultural contexts, yet have been informed by God’s Spirit, which transcends all ages and times. Most of all we seek the meaning of salvation, of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection as it is presented in the Scriptures and discerned in daily life.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers engage in daily prayer and meditation, as well as personal and community study and interpretation of Scripture, as central ways God’s continuing voice is discerned in everyday life.
We confess that we have moved away from Christ’s Path when we have claimed that God’s Word is restricted to that which may be contained in a written document, or that either the recording of God’s Word in Scripture, or our interpretation of it, are infallible. Further, we have moved away from the Path when we have allowed the mere fact of Scripture’s fallibility, or our own, to dissuade us from seeking God’s Word in Scripture, prayer, and reflection on daily life.
Affirmation 3:
Celebrating the God whose Spirit pervades and whose glory is reflected in all of God’s Creation, including the earth and its ecosystems, the sacred and secular, the Christian and non-Christian, the human and non-human;
Genesis 1:31a; Psalm 96:1,11-12; Acts 17:23
As Christians, we seek to act as righteous stewards of the earth and its ecosystems. We celebrate the reflections of the Creator’s glory in both the sacred and secular, human and non-human, Christian and non-Christian.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers act as caring stewards of the earth, and where the presence of the living Christ is celebrated wherever Christ’s spirit manifests itself, transcending all preconceived human categories.
We confess that we have stepped away from this Path when we have ignored our role as stewards of the earth, or have interpreted Scripture in a way that fails to account for the sacredness of the earth or the integrity of its ecosystems. We have further moved away whenever we have claimed that that the glorification and praise of God is limited only to that which is consciously and overtly Christian.
Affirmation 4:
Expressing our love in worship that is as sincere, vibrant, and artful as it is scriptural.
Genesis 2:7; Exodus 31:2-5l; Revelation 18:22
As Christians, we strive to respond to God’s artistry in Creation by integrating the arts in worship, education and proclamation. We encourage the reclaiming of artistry and artistic expression in all Christian endeavors, both personal and communal.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers make sincere and vibrant worship of God as central to the life of their community as Jesus did. We further affirm artistic expression as a way of reflecting God’s creativity, joy, and prophetic voice in what may be seen, heard, felt, tasted, sung and spoken.
We confess that we have moved away from Christ’s Path when we have failed to make worship the product of our best efforts to experience and express love for God, neighbor and self in community with others. We have moved further from this path when we have considered the arts as trivial or merely tangential to the life of a mature Christian community.
Loving Our Neighbor Includes:
Affirmation 5:
Engaging people authentically, as Jesus did, treating all as creations made in God’s very image, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental ability, nationality, or economic class;
Genesis 1:27; Psalm 8:3-5; 1 Corinthians 12:3-7
As Christians, we welcome those of every race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical and mental ability, nationality, and economic class into the full life of our community.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers uplift and celebrate the worth and integrity of all people as created in God’s very image and likeness. We further affirm that Christ’s Path includes treating people authentically rather than as mere categories or classes, challenging and inspiring all people to live according to their high identity.
We confess that we have stepped away from this Path whenever we have failed to recognize the essential goodness of God’s Creation by treating some classes of human beings as more godly than others. We have moved further from Christ’s Path when we have treated people superficially, as objects to be used rather than human beings with depth and distinction.
Affirmation 6:
Standing, as Jesus does, with the outcast and oppressed, the denigrated and afflicted, seeking peace and justice with or without the support of others;
Micah 6:8; Luke 12:48
As Christians, we advocate and care for those who experience oppression and poverty, either physically or spiritually, within our faith communities, our country, and the world. We recognize the local congregation as the primary context for offering such care, even as we seek to extend it beyond our faith communities into the wider world.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers honor the essential unity of spirit and matter by connecting worship and theology with concrete acts of justice and righteousness, kindness and humility, with or without the support of others.
We confess that we have moved away from this Path when we have suggested that Christianity is concerned with only the spiritual in contrast to the material, or vice-versa. We have moved further away when we have celebrated blessings given by God without also acknowledging responsibilities that come with blessing.
Affirmation 7:
Preserving religious freedom and the Church’s ability to speak prophetically to government by resisting the commingling of Church and State;
Luke 20:25; 1 Peter 2:17
As Christians, we strive to live as responsible citizens of our country, just as we seek to live as Christ’s disciples. We celebrate the separation of Church and State as much for the protection of the Church, and other faith communities, as the State.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers honor the role of the State in maintaining justice and peace, so far as human discernment and ability make possible. We affirm the separation of Church and State, even as we endeavor to support the state in as far as Christian conscience allows.
We confess that we have moved away from this Path when we have confused the role of the State with that of the Church. We have moved further from the Path when we have renounced the Church’s calling to speak prophetically to the State by suggesting that the Church should or could take on the nature, tasks and dignity which belong to the State, thus becoming itself an organ of the State.
Affirmation 8:
Walking humbly with God, acknowledging our own shortcomings while honestly seeking to understand and call forth the best in others, including those who consider us their enemies;
Luke 18:9-14; Luke 6:27-29; Galatians 5:22-23; John 15:18-19
As Christians, we recognize that we are misfits both with respect to God’s Realm and the world. We are misfits with respect to God’s Realm in that we rarely live up to the principles and ideals we espouse. We are misfits with respect to the world in that the ideals for which we strive frequently do not conform to the ways of the world.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers love those who consider them their enemies as much as they love themselves, striving humbly to embody the “fruits of the Spirit”: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
We confess that we have moved away from this Path when we have promoted a notion that people of faith are morally or ethically superior to those without faith. Further, we have moved away when we have supported any cause, no matter how just or righteous, without reflecting the “fruits of the Spirit” toward all.
Loving Ourselves Includes:
Affirmation 9:
Basing our lives on the faith that, in Christ, all things are made new, and that we, and all people, are loved beyond our wildest imagination – for eternity;
Psalm 22:27-29; Psalm 23:4-6; Psalm 139:7-12; John 3:16-17; Romans 14:7-11; Philippians 1:20-26
As Christians, we bear witness to, and nurture faith in, all persons who are hungry for, or open to the revelation, love, and salvation of God in Christ. We do not seek to evangelize those who have no desire to explore the Christian Path. We trust, rather, that God’s love, grace and invitation, has been, and will be, revealed in other paths, witnesses and times.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers are continually discovering, and rediscovering that they – and all people – are loved beyond their wildest imagination, and they determine to live their lives according to this discovery. We find in this discovery and surrender the very essence of salvation, which is a process, not an end-point, within an eternal journey.
We confess that we have moved away from this Path whenever we have denied God’s love for all people, or have denied the effectiveness of God’s eternal will that all be saved. We have moved further from Christ’s path when we have not actively born witness to God’s love and grace with those who seek it.
Affirmation 10:
Claiming the sacredness of both our minds and our hearts, recognizing that faith and science, doubt and belief serve the pursuit of truth;
Proverbs 1:20-22; 1 Corinthians 3:18-19; 1 Corinthians 14:15
As Christians, we seek to develop intellectually as sincerely as we seek emotional development. We further seek to clarify that the truths contained in Scripture are not conveyed primarily through scientific revelations, but through wisdom which may be gleaned frequently in story and song, symbol and parable.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers value the pursuit of wisdom, which is found at the intersection of head and heart, where God seeks relationship with the human soul.
We confess that we have moved away from this Path when we have denied either the role of the mind, or that of the heart, in the seeking of wisdom. Further, we have moved off the Path when we have denigrated the role of doubt or pursuit of scientific knowledge as if they were enemies rather than allies of faith.
Affirmation 11
Caring for our bodies, and insisting on taking time to enjoy the benefits of prayer, reflection, worship and recreation in addition to work;
Exodus 5:4-8; 1 Corinthians 6:19; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-19
As Christians, we strive to embrace and embody ways of living that promote the health of the body, the joy of living, and the benefits attained when work is combined with rest and recreation, reflection and prayer. We do this for our sake, for the sake of others, for the sake of the earth, and for the sake of Christ.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers care for their bodies as temples of the holy, and take time to pray and play, to worship, and to reflect, as essential parts of their vocation.
We confess that we have moved away from this Path when we have supported the ethics of Pharaoh over the ethics of God by promoting systems of production and consumption without attending to the disciplines of rest and recreation, reflection and prayer. We have further moved from the Path when we have denigrated or abused our bodies, or those of others, or denied the rights and responsibilities of others to make decisions about how they care for the bodies God gave them.
Affirmation 12
Acting on the faith that we are born with a meaning and purpose; a vocation and ministry that serves to strengthen and extend God’s realm of love.
Jeremiah 1:5; Luke 5:15-16; Romans 12:4-8; 1 Corinthians 12:4-31
As Christians, we practice prayer as a daily discipline, seeking in prayer both to enjoy God’s presence and to discern God’s will for our lives and our faith communities. We accept it as one of our highest responsibilities and privileges to help those in our communities of faith discern God’s direction for their lives, and to celebrate and value their discernment in the worship and missional life of the church. In every available way, we seek to help people develop and use their diverse callings as an expression of their faith.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where all of Christ’s followers are understood to be called into a ministry. God’s intention for us can be found and followed, however haltingly and imperfectly, in obedience to the guidance and insights, which come in prayer. We hold this conviction to be true of the Church as well as of each of its members.
We confess that we have moved away from this Path when we have claimed that one form of ministry is any higher or more sacred than any other, in or outside a church Further, we have moved from the Path when we have failed to concretely value meaningful input and participation by both laypeople and clergy in the worship and mission of our communities.
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.
Barack Obama’s Speech on Race Published: March 18, 2008
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who's been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”
“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
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State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
The News Line: News Thursday, 7 April 2016
Junior doctors confident of victory!
Teachers from Sunny Hill school in Southwark joined striking junior doctors on the picket line at Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell yesterday
www.wrp.org.uk/images/photos/16-04-06-11925.jpg
A GOOD picket of junior doctors turned out at the Norfolk and Norwich hospital at 8am. They were in good spirits despite the wind and the rain.
Mid-morning a band came along with accordion, guitar and lead singer to entertain them and encourage a singalong. Off-duty firemen also came to show their support. Clinical fellow Dr Gurung told News Line: ‘How can you get a seven-day service with funding for five days? It’s not only doctors they are cutting down, it’s everything – and yet the government is promising seven days.
‘We’re already stretched in the current situation with lack of staff. They want to get the contracts changed for consultants and all NHS staff. They don’t show the detail of how they’re going to do it and it needs more money. We must defend our NHS. We don’t want a privatised system like in America.’
Dr James Rowson, BMA rep, said: ‘We hear talk from the RCN about possible strike action because unsocial hours are threatened. We are still very angry about the imposition of a newly released contract which will see unsafer working hours, reduced rates of pay, and inequality. This may see doctors leaving their jobs for better climes, piling more pressure on an already pressurised service.
‘This attack is not a standalone attack on an individual section of the workforce. It is systematic undermining of the service, starting with the doctors and is only a matter of time before allied health professionals will be similarly attacked. They are paving the way for privatisation. We need to get everyone involved. Every union should get together and defend our NHS, one of the best things about this country.’
Outside Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital on Denmark Hill, Andrew Howe, junior doctor said: ‘We are here again, for the fourth time because the government will not listen to doctors. The whole medical profession is telling them “this contract will not work”. You cannot have a seven-day NHS like they want. It already is a seven-day NHS anyway, so what are they talking about?
‘The final straw is the equality of the contract which the government has openly said “it will discriminate against women”, and that that is OK. I thought we were living in 2016 not the 1950s, so what is going on? It disgusts me! So that is why we are here protesting and we will keep going until we win.’
NUT Rep for Lambeth, Michael Holland, supporting the junior doctors at Maudsley and Kings College Hospitals, said: ‘The junior doctors’ fight against privatisation is the same fight we are facing in education – the privatisation of our schools. I would agree with lobbying the TUC to get a general strike. The old slogan, TUC Get Off Your Knees and Call a General Strike, is apt.
‘They need to do it because people on the ground – teachers on the ground, junior doctors on the ground, library workers on the ground, people all over the country – are absolutely desperate to fight back. We are beginning to get a bit off Corbyn who has taken Cameron on about off-shore tax havens, but we need an industrial strategy, to bring all the fights together and, yeah, organise together and call a general strike.
‘All this stuff about tax havens, the Icelandic prime minister resigning and Cameron coming under pressure to declare his tax returns, shows up in black and white what we have always suspected – that the rich just fleece us – constantly – every single day!
‘So much poverty, suffering, war and racism, it is obscene. I went down to Calais and taught refugees there. Brilliant people of such strength and courage despite everything they have been through, and a week later, David Cameron calls them “a bunch of migrants”. They have more integrity in the mud on their boots, than he has in his entire cabinet.’
Strikers were in a determined mood at the Royal Free Hospital, northwest London, as hospital workers and patients stopped to ask for badges and stickers. BMA rep Tom Urwin told News Line: ‘People are resilient. The tide is turning. The government’s mask has slipped with the publication of the details of the new contract. This explicitly explains their plans to disadvantage women in the workplace. We’re not going away. All the health secretary has to do is listen to our concerns.’
BMA member John Williams said: ‘The strike for me is against the denigration of the profession. It’s making politically-motivated change to move towards the privatisation of the NHS.’
Medical student and BMA member Craig Nunn joined the picket. He said: ‘I support the junior doctors completely. I’m against the imposed contract that does not put in place appropriate safeguards to promote patient safety.’ Patient Kiah Hann, a veterinary student, said: ‘I’m standing on the picket line with the junior doctors because they saved my life many times.’
Nurse Tamara Bellecchia stopped by the picket. She said: ‘I support the doctors. They work many hours here. In my country, Italy, the doctors can only work eight hours a day. When you work so many hours, it’s not safe for the patients and it’s not safe for the doctors. The government wants them to work even more hours. Other unions should take action with the junior doctors, everybody can do something.’
Nicola West BMA rep at North Middlesex Hospital told News Line: ‘We knew this was going to be an ongoing problem for the last three years. The government could see that we are getting in the way of their endgame which we believe is ultimately a step towards privatisation and making the workforce as cheap as possible so we intend to continue fighting this contract which we believe will be detrimental to patient safety and the wellbeing of the workforce and has now been understood to be discriminatory against women by the government’s own admission.’
Junior doctors were joined by Unison, council workers, supporters and consultants on the picket line at Whipps Cross Hospital in Walthamstow in east London. Passing motorists tooted their horns in support to cheers from the lively picket.
Dave Knight, retired Branch Secretary of Unison at Waltham Forest Council told News Line: ‘Unison have come down to give 100% full support to the junior doctors. We believe this is part of a wider strategy by the Tories to crush trade unions and attack pay and conditions. Unison has lots of members in the hospital and we should all come out to strike together.’
Rob Owen, a retired consultant who worked at Whipps Cross Hospital for 20 years, came to support the picket. He said: ‘Consultants support junior doctors. I agree with the escalation of the struggle.’
Niki Fitzgerald, BMA rep for the junior doctors at Whipps Cross Hospital, said: ‘I went to the trade council meeting on Tuesday night and asked for their support to call on the TUC to call for a national demonstration in support of the junior doctors to build up toward a general strike.
‘At the meeting, I linked up with the NUT teachers rep so that we can have meetings and in the future the possibility of joint strike action. When you take into consideration the wide spectrum of attacks on the public sector, multiple sections of the public sector have the right to call strike action.’
At the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel in east London, junior doctors came out to the side of the main road to mass-leaflet passers-by and win support from busy passing traffic.
Kathryn Greaves, a junior doctor specialising in anaesthetics, said: ‘We are out today in opposition to the imposition of the new contract in August, it is unfair and unsafe. The bigger picture is that this is part of the privatisation of the NHS. For elective surgery at the weekend you will need other staff – theatre staff and consultants. If they want us to work doing elective surgery at the weekends they will have to come for everyone else’s contracts too. This is the start and we have to stop the ball rolling before it even gets going.’
At the picket line outside Homerton Hospital, Angela Greenford, a Unison member and admin worker for bank staff at Homerton, said: ‘In our department it is very short-staffed in terms of medical staff. There need to be more doctors and nurses, as some people have to wait three or four hours to be seen because of the lack of staff. I support the junior doctors, I know how it is to work so many hours and so many days in a row.’
At Charing Cross Hospital striking junior doctor Yvette Anan told News Line: ‘I think it speaks volumes that for the first time the BMA is considering a full walkout in the history of the NHS. I think teachers and other workers should all walk out. This government doesn’t care about disabled or the working poor.’ Neeraj Kalra, first on the the picket line at Charing Cross Hospital, said: ‘I think a contract that discriminates against women is not fit for the 21st century.’
At Hammersmith Hospital junior doctor Fiona Crotty told News Line: ‘It’s horrifying that the government has acknowleged that discrimination against women and single parents is OK with them.’ Another striker James T said: ‘You can’t fund a 7-day NHS with a 5-day budget. We’re already working at full capacity.’
On a lively picket line at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, junior doctors Frances Rogerson and Sophie Clark told News Line: ‘We’ve got to continue the strike to challenge the misinformation that this is about a pay rise when we are actually fighting a pay cut. ‘We don’t want to do the same amount of work for a 30% pay cut. We are fighting for the future of the NHS healthcare system and want to make sure there are safeguards in place.’
At Northwick Park Hospital, Susanna Olsen, Dipti Hirani and Kaniseya Nadarasa, all BMA members, spoke to News Line together, saying: ‘We think the government needs to start listening to us. The public need to know that we are doing this for a fair contract and for long-term patient safety. There is no system like the NHS and we will do everything to save it, we are one profession and we stand together for our patients.’
Jo Evans from Northwick Park Cardiac Unit, who left her desk to join the doctors’ picket, said: ‘I used to work in Ealing Hospital. Our Cardiac Rehab Unit was lovely, with positive feedback from patients all the time. Patients loved it. It has been tendered out to the community now, with Imperial Healthcare taking up the contract.
‘Now we have no cardiac rehab in Northwick Park either. All the evidence shows that cardiac patients should be dealt with on the ward after the event. If it’s in the community a lot of patients don’t turn up for their appointments. I’m supporting the junior doctors because the whole dispute is about privatisation and the destruction of our NHS. They must win for all of us.’
At Ealing Hospital junior doctors set up their strike placards alongside the banner of the West London Council of Action, which holds a daily 7am-9am picket of the hospital against the planned closure of the Charlie Chaplin Children’s Ward and A&E in June. The Council of Action is holding a meeting for all trade unionists and local people at 7pm tonight at The Dominion Centre, The Green, Southall to discuss action to support the junior doctors and stop the closure of Ealing Hospital.
BMA member Helena Lendrum told News Line: ‘It’s essential for us to realise that this is a threat to the whole NHS.’ BMA member Mohammad Razai said: ‘The entire NHS management and clinical staff leaders are aware that the contract they are seeking to impose is not workable and will destroy the NHS.’
BMA member Ravi Ganepola began by speaking about Ealing Hospital, saying: ‘You hear rumours they are going to close parts of the hospital, like we heard rumours over maternity, and you assume that they know what they are doing and if they are closing they will make provision elsewhere, but then it closes and you realise that no provision has been made elsewhere.
‘Now we hear they are closing paediatrics in June and again you imagine they will make provision, but people are concerned, and rightly. The same applies to our contracts, people can’t believe they would be so irresponsible as to impose unworkable contracts on doctors.’
In the rain and wind, over 50 junior doctors massed with their supporters outside King’s College Hospital in south London. Teachers and library workers, pensioners, nurses and patients joined them on their picket line while across the road, there was a large picket of doctors from the Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital. Doctor Chris James said: ‘The strike going well and junior doctors’ resolve is building and the feeling that now is the time to do something more, that this struggle has to have a bigger impact.
‘There have to be other unions banding together, so people are coming out together. It has become a bigger question than just the junior doctors at this stage. It’s about people looking after themselves, the healthcare, the education of their children, housing, everything, because it seems that this government, what they are after is destroying everything and pulling everything down.
‘There needs to be a conscious decision from the public that enough is enough, and that we have to come together to defend the fundamental things in life, to come together and fight for it. We need to start thinking about general strikes and as a junior doctor I would support the lobby of the TUC to discuss that.’
Doctor Marianne Narona said: ‘We all need to stand together to defend our NHS. The government have got their paws on it.’ Annie Jones, from Carnegie Library in Lambeth which has been occupied and sent a delegation to the junior doctors’ picket, said: ‘We have to show our solidarity with the whole National Health team because the cuts to the NHS are affecting the doctors now and will impact on all of us in the future. The junior doctors fight is everybody’s fight. The cuts to the NHS are affecting the doctors but will come to affect us all. We have come from the well-loved Carnegie Library
‘They are making cuts to Carnegie Library, a library very beloved by all the locals, which children come to to get an education. It is a beautiful building, a place to socialise, and they want to turn it into a gym. So we are occupying at the moment and we have come down with our banner to show solidarity with the doctors.’
Junior doctor Joe Hetherington said: ‘What is so shocking in the contract is the blatant discrimination against women and the Department of Health has acknowledged that head on, saying it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. If you are a woman, if you have children if you need childcare, it’s not our problem we need to plough on with their contract. It shows how little the government care about working people, and they want to steamroll through.
‘The bigger picture is the privatisation of the NHS. That’s their end and they will use whatever they can to get that. I think it is a tough week for the government. We should pile the pressure on them. The doctors, the teachers, the tax havens, the steel industry, we have to pile the pressure on them.’
At St George’s Hospital Tooting, Dr Andrew D’Silva, Cardiology Registrar, said: ‘There are so many factors to this contract that just make it dangerous for patients.’ About 100 pickets stood outside St. Thomas’ Hospital. Doctor Adjogatse said: ‘These new contract changes really try to turn back time. It will definitely have a negative impact on patient safety and also on recruitment and retention of staff.’
At Rotherham District General Hospital, surgeon trainee Miran Panchania said: ‘Consideration has to be given to the words of the proposed contract. It states, “We consider that the proposed payments are fair, and that any adverse effect on women is a proportionate means of addressing a legitimate aim.” It adds women doctors who have childcare commitments “should try to obtain unpaid childcare from friends or family”.’
• see more pictures in photo gallery
The News Line: News Thursday, 7 April 2016
Junior doctors confident of victory!
Teachers from Sunny Hill school in Southwark joined striking junior doctors on the picket line at Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell yesterday
www.wrp.org.uk/images/photos/16-04-06-11925.jpg
A GOOD picket of junior doctors turned out at the Norfolk and Norwich hospital at 8am. They were in good spirits despite the wind and the rain.
Mid-morning a band came along with accordion, guitar and lead singer to entertain them and encourage a singalong. Off-duty firemen also came to show their support. Clinical fellow Dr Gurung told News Line: ‘How can you get a seven-day service with funding for five days? It’s not only doctors they are cutting down, it’s everything – and yet the government is promising seven days.
‘We’re already stretched in the current situation with lack of staff. They want to get the contracts changed for consultants and all NHS staff. They don’t show the detail of how they’re going to do it and it needs more money. We must defend our NHS. We don’t want a privatised system like in America.’
Dr James Rowson, BMA rep, said: ‘We hear talk from the RCN about possible strike action because unsocial hours are threatened. We are still very angry about the imposition of a newly released contract which will see unsafer working hours, reduced rates of pay, and inequality. This may see doctors leaving their jobs for better climes, piling more pressure on an already pressurised service.
‘This attack is not a standalone attack on an individual section of the workforce. It is systematic undermining of the service, starting with the doctors and is only a matter of time before allied health professionals will be similarly attacked. They are paving the way for privatisation. We need to get everyone involved. Every union should get together and defend our NHS, one of the best things about this country.’
Outside Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital on Denmark Hill, Andrew Howe, junior doctor said: ‘We are here again, for the fourth time because the government will not listen to doctors. The whole medical profession is telling them “this contract will not work”. You cannot have a seven-day NHS like they want. It already is a seven-day NHS anyway, so what are they talking about?
‘The final straw is the equality of the contract which the government has openly said “it will discriminate against women”, and that that is OK. I thought we were living in 2016 not the 1950s, so what is going on? It disgusts me! So that is why we are here protesting and we will keep going until we win.’
NUT Rep for Lambeth, Michael Holland, supporting the junior doctors at Maudsley and Kings College Hospitals, said: ‘The junior doctors’ fight against privatisation is the same fight we are facing in education – the privatisation of our schools. I would agree with lobbying the TUC to get a general strike. The old slogan, TUC Get Off Your Knees and Call a General Strike, is apt.
‘They need to do it because people on the ground – teachers on the ground, junior doctors on the ground, library workers on the ground, people all over the country – are absolutely desperate to fight back. We are beginning to get a bit off Corbyn who has taken Cameron on about off-shore tax havens, but we need an industrial strategy, to bring all the fights together and, yeah, organise together and call a general strike.
‘All this stuff about tax havens, the Icelandic prime minister resigning and Cameron coming under pressure to declare his tax returns, shows up in black and white what we have always suspected – that the rich just fleece us – constantly – every single day!
‘So much poverty, suffering, war and racism, it is obscene. I went down to Calais and taught refugees there. Brilliant people of such strength and courage despite everything they have been through, and a week later, David Cameron calls them “a bunch of migrants”. They have more integrity in the mud on their boots, than he has in his entire cabinet.’
Strikers were in a determined mood at the Royal Free Hospital, northwest London, as hospital workers and patients stopped to ask for badges and stickers. BMA rep Tom Urwin told News Line: ‘People are resilient. The tide is turning. The government’s mask has slipped with the publication of the details of the new contract. This explicitly explains their plans to disadvantage women in the workplace. We’re not going away. All the health secretary has to do is listen to our concerns.’
BMA member John Williams said: ‘The strike for me is against the denigration of the profession. It’s making politically-motivated change to move towards the privatisation of the NHS.’
Medical student and BMA member Craig Nunn joined the picket. He said: ‘I support the junior doctors completely. I’m against the imposed contract that does not put in place appropriate safeguards to promote patient safety.’ Patient Kiah Hann, a veterinary student, said: ‘I’m standing on the picket line with the junior doctors because they saved my life many times.’
Nurse Tamara Bellecchia stopped by the picket. She said: ‘I support the doctors. They work many hours here. In my country, Italy, the doctors can only work eight hours a day. When you work so many hours, it’s not safe for the patients and it’s not safe for the doctors. The government wants them to work even more hours. Other unions should take action with the junior doctors, everybody can do something.’
Nicola West BMA rep at North Middlesex Hospital told News Line: ‘We knew this was going to be an ongoing problem for the last three years. The government could see that we are getting in the way of their endgame which we believe is ultimately a step towards privatisation and making the workforce as cheap as possible so we intend to continue fighting this contract which we believe will be detrimental to patient safety and the wellbeing of the workforce and has now been understood to be discriminatory against women by the government’s own admission.’
Junior doctors were joined by Unison, council workers, supporters and consultants on the picket line at Whipps Cross Hospital in Walthamstow in east London. Passing motorists tooted their horns in support to cheers from the lively picket.
Dave Knight, retired Branch Secretary of Unison at Waltham Forest Council told News Line: ‘Unison have come down to give 100% full support to the junior doctors. We believe this is part of a wider strategy by the Tories to crush trade unions and attack pay and conditions. Unison has lots of members in the hospital and we should all come out to strike together.’
Rob Owen, a retired consultant who worked at Whipps Cross Hospital for 20 years, came to support the picket. He said: ‘Consultants support junior doctors. I agree with the escalation of the struggle.’
Niki Fitzgerald, BMA rep for the junior doctors at Whipps Cross Hospital, said: ‘I went to the trade council meeting on Tuesday night and asked for their support to call on the TUC to call for a national demonstration in support of the junior doctors to build up toward a general strike.
‘At the meeting, I linked up with the NUT teachers rep so that we can have meetings and in the future the possibility of joint strike action. When you take into consideration the wide spectrum of attacks on the public sector, multiple sections of the public sector have the right to call strike action.’
At the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel in east London, junior doctors came out to the side of the main road to mass-leaflet passers-by and win support from busy passing traffic.
Kathryn Greaves, a junior doctor specialising in anaesthetics, said: ‘We are out today in opposition to the imposition of the new contract in August, it is unfair and unsafe. The bigger picture is that this is part of the privatisation of the NHS. For elective surgery at the weekend you will need other staff – theatre staff and consultants. If they want us to work doing elective surgery at the weekends they will have to come for everyone else’s contracts too. This is the start and we have to stop the ball rolling before it even gets going.’
At the picket line outside Homerton Hospital, Angela Greenford, a Unison member and admin worker for bank staff at Homerton, said: ‘In our department it is very short-staffed in terms of medical staff. There need to be more doctors and nurses, as some people have to wait three or four hours to be seen because of the lack of staff. I support the junior doctors, I know how it is to work so many hours and so many days in a row.’
At Charing Cross Hospital striking junior doctor Yvette Anan told News Line: ‘I think it speaks volumes that for the first time the BMA is considering a full walkout in the history of the NHS. I think teachers and other workers should all walk out. This government doesn’t care about disabled or the working poor.’ Neeraj Kalra, first on the the picket line at Charing Cross Hospital, said: ‘I think a contract that discriminates against women is not fit for the 21st century.’
At Hammersmith Hospital junior doctor Fiona Crotty told News Line: ‘It’s horrifying that the government has acknowleged that discrimination against women and single parents is OK with them.’ Another striker James T said: ‘You can’t fund a 7-day NHS with a 5-day budget. We’re already working at full capacity.’
On a lively picket line at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, junior doctors Frances Rogerson and Sophie Clark told News Line: ‘We’ve got to continue the strike to challenge the misinformation that this is about a pay rise when we are actually fighting a pay cut. ‘We don’t want to do the same amount of work for a 30% pay cut. We are fighting for the future of the NHS healthcare system and want to make sure there are safeguards in place.’
At Northwick Park Hospital, Susanna Olsen, Dipti Hirani and Kaniseya Nadarasa, all BMA members, spoke to News Line together, saying: ‘We think the government needs to start listening to us. The public need to know that we are doing this for a fair contract and for long-term patient safety. There is no system like the NHS and we will do everything to save it, we are one profession and we stand together for our patients.’
Jo Evans from Northwick Park Cardiac Unit, who left her desk to join the doctors’ picket, said: ‘I used to work in Ealing Hospital. Our Cardiac Rehab Unit was lovely, with positive feedback from patients all the time. Patients loved it. It has been tendered out to the community now, with Imperial Healthcare taking up the contract.
‘Now we have no cardiac rehab in Northwick Park either. All the evidence shows that cardiac patients should be dealt with on the ward after the event. If it’s in the community a lot of patients don’t turn up for their appointments. I’m supporting the junior doctors because the whole dispute is about privatisation and the destruction of our NHS. They must win for all of us.’
At Ealing Hospital junior doctors set up their strike placards alongside the banner of the West London Council of Action, which holds a daily 7am-9am picket of the hospital against the planned closure of the Charlie Chaplin Children’s Ward and A&E in June. The Council of Action is holding a meeting for all trade unionists and local people at 7pm tonight at The Dominion Centre, The Green, Southall to discuss action to support the junior doctors and stop the closure of Ealing Hospital.
BMA member Helena Lendrum told News Line: ‘It’s essential for us to realise that this is a threat to the whole NHS.’ BMA member Mohammad Razai said: ‘The entire NHS management and clinical staff leaders are aware that the contract they are seeking to impose is not workable and will destroy the NHS.’
BMA member Ravi Ganepola began by speaking about Ealing Hospital, saying: ‘You hear rumours they are going to close parts of the hospital, like we heard rumours over maternity, and you assume that they know what they are doing and if they are closing they will make provision elsewhere, but then it closes and you realise that no provision has been made elsewhere.
‘Now we hear they are closing paediatrics in June and again you imagine they will make provision, but people are concerned, and rightly. The same applies to our contracts, people can’t believe they would be so irresponsible as to impose unworkable contracts on doctors.’
In the rain and wind, over 50 junior doctors massed with their supporters outside King’s College Hospital in south London. Teachers and library workers, pensioners, nurses and patients joined them on their picket line while across the road, there was a large picket of doctors from the Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital. Doctor Chris James said: ‘The strike going well and junior doctors’ resolve is building and the feeling that now is the time to do something more, that this struggle has to have a bigger impact.
‘There have to be other unions banding together, so people are coming out together. It has become a bigger question than just the junior doctors at this stage. It’s about people looking after themselves, the healthcare, the education of their children, housing, everything, because it seems that this government, what they are after is destroying everything and pulling everything down.
‘There needs to be a conscious decision from the public that enough is enough, and that we have to come together to defend the fundamental things in life, to come together and fight for it. We need to start thinking about general strikes and as a junior doctor I would support the lobby of the TUC to discuss that.’
Doctor Marianne Narona said: ‘We all need to stand together to defend our NHS. The government have got their paws on it.’ Annie Jones, from Carnegie Library in Lambeth which has been occupied and sent a delegation to the junior doctors’ picket, said: ‘We have to show our solidarity with the whole National Health team because the cuts to the NHS are affecting the doctors now and will impact on all of us in the future. The junior doctors fight is everybody’s fight. The cuts to the NHS are affecting the doctors but will come to affect us all. We have come from the well-loved Carnegie Library
‘They are making cuts to Carnegie Library, a library very beloved by all the locals, which children come to to get an education. It is a beautiful building, a place to socialise, and they want to turn it into a gym. So we are occupying at the moment and we have come down with our banner to show solidarity with the doctors.’
Junior doctor Joe Hetherington said: ‘What is so shocking in the contract is the blatant discrimination against women and the Department of Health has acknowledged that head on, saying it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. If you are a woman, if you have children if you need childcare, it’s not our problem we need to plough on with their contract. It shows how little the government care about working people, and they want to steamroll through.
‘The bigger picture is the privatisation of the NHS. That’s their end and they will use whatever they can to get that. I think it is a tough week for the government. We should pile the pressure on them. The doctors, the teachers, the tax havens, the steel industry, we have to pile the pressure on them.’
At St George’s Hospital Tooting, Dr Andrew D’Silva, Cardiology Registrar, said: ‘There are so many factors to this contract that just make it dangerous for patients.’ About 100 pickets stood outside St. Thomas’ Hospital. Doctor Adjogatse said: ‘These new contract changes really try to turn back time. It will definitely have a negative impact on patient safety and also on recruitment and retention of staff.’
At Rotherham District General Hospital, surgeon trainee Miran Panchania said: ‘Consideration has to be given to the words of the proposed contract. It states, “We consider that the proposed payments are fair, and that any adverse effect on women is a proportionate means of addressing a legitimate aim.” It adds women doctors who have childcare commitments “should try to obtain unpaid childcare from friends or family”.’
• see more pictures in photo gallery
[My ancestor]
Louis the Pious (778-840), King of the Franks
Artist: François Séraphin Delpech (1778–1825)
"September 11, 813: Charlemagne crowns Louis I “The Pious,” his only surviving son, as coregent of the Holy Roman Empire. Louis’s 26-year reign, though marked by civil war, was the longest of any medieval emperor until Henry IV (1056-1106). Deeply religious, Louis cleared the imperial court of pagan imagery collected by his father, sent his unmarried sisters to nunneries (partly to keep them away from scheming brothers-in-law), and performed public penance before Pope Paschal I for causing the death of his rebellious son Bernard, king of Italy." TDICH by CT
[Louis/Ludwig I "the Pious", d. 20 June 840, Holy Roman Emperor. He is my 37th-great-grandfather (HII 3740). Child of 6740-1 6740: Charlemagne, d. 28 January 814, king of the Franks, Emperor.
6741. Hildegarde, d. 30 April 783.]
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica [public domain]
"LOUIS I. surnamed the "Pious," Roman emperor, third son of the emperor Charlemagne and his wife Hildegarde, was born at Chasseneuil in central France, and crowned king of Aquitaine in 781. He received a good education; but as his tastes were ecclesiastical rather than military, the government of his kingdom was mainly conducted by his counsellors. Louis, however, gained sound experience in warfare in the defence of Aquitaine, shared in campaigns against the Saxons and the Avars, and led an army to Italy in 792. In 794 or 795 he married Irmengarde, daughter of Ingram, count of Haspen. After the deaths of his two elder brothers, Louis, at his father's command, crowned himself co-emperor at Aix-la-Chapelle on the nth of September 813, and was formally associated in the government of the Empire, of which he became sole ruler, in the following January. He earned the surname of " Pious " by banishing his sisters and others of immoral life from court; by attempting to reform and purify monastic life; and by showing great liberality to the church. In October 816 he was crowned emperor at Reims by Pope Stephen IV.; and at Aix in July 817, he arranged for a division of his Empire among his sons. This was followed by a revolt of his nephew, Bernard, king of Italy; but the rising was easily suppressed, and Bernard was mutilated and killed. The emperor soon began to repent of this cruelty, and when his remorse had been accentuated by the death of his wife in 818, he pardoned the followers of Bernard and restored their estates, and in 822 did public penance at Attigny. In 819 he married Judith, daughter of Welf I., count of Bavaria, who in 823 bore him a son Charles, afterwards called the Bald. Judith made unceasing efforts to secure a kingdom for her child; and with the support of her eldest step-son Lothair, a district was carved out for Charles in 829. Discontent at this arrangement increased to the point of rebellion, which broke out the following year, provoked by Judith's intrigues with Bernard, count of Barcelona, whom she had installed as her favourite at court. Lothair and his brother Pippin joined the rebels, and after Judith had been sent into a convent and Bernard had fled to Spain, an assembly was held at Compiegne, when Louis was practically deposed and Lothair became the real ruler of the Empire. Sympathy was, however, soon aroused for the emperor, who was treated as a prisoner, and a second assembly was held at Nimwegen in October 830 when, with the concurrence of his sons Pippin and Louis, he was restored to power and Judith returned to court.
Further trouble between Pippin and his father led to the nominal transfer of Aquitaine from Pippin to his brother Charles in 831. The emperor's plans for a division of his dominions then led to a revolt of his three sons. Louis met them in June 833 near Kolmar, but owing possibly to the influence of Pope Gregory IV., who took part in the negotiations, he found himself deserted by his supporters, and the treachery and falsehood which marked the proceedings gave to the place the name of Lugenfeld, or the " field of lies." Judith, charged with infidelity, was again banished; Louis was sent into the monastery of St Medard at Soissons; and the government of the Empire was assumed by his sons. The emperor was forced to confess his sins, and declare himself unworthy of the throne, but Lothair did not succeed in his efforts to make his father a monk. Sympathy was again felt for Louis, and when the younger Louis had failed to induce Lothair to treat the emperor in a more becoming fashion, he and Pippin took up arms on behalf of their father. The result was that in March 834 Louis was restored to power at St Denis; Judith once more returned to his side and the kingdoms of Louis and Pippin were increased. The struggle with Lothair continued until the autumn, when he submitted to the emperor and was confined to Italy. To make the restoration more complete, a great assembly at Diedenhofen declared the deposition of Louis to have been contrary to law, and a few days later he was publicly restored in the cathedral of Metz. In December 838 Pippin died, and a new arrangement was made by which the Empire, except Bavaria, the kingdom of Louis, was divided between Lothair, now reconciled to his father, and Charles. The emperor was returning from suppressing a revolt on the part of his son Louis, provoked by this disposition, when he died on the 2oth of June 840 on an island in the Rhine near [[../Ingelheim |Ingelheim]]. He was buried in the church of St Arnulf at Metz. Louis was a man of strong frame, who loved the chase, and did not shrink from the hardships of war. He was, however, easily influenced and was unequal to the government of the Empire bequeathed to him by his father. No sustained effort was made to ward off the inroads of the Danes and others, who were constantly attacking the borders of the Empire. Louis, who is also called Le Dtbonnaire, counts as Louis I., king of France."
See Annales Fuldenlt*; Annales Bertiniani; Thegan, Vita Hludowici; the Vita Hiudowici attributed to Astronomus; Ermoldus Nigellus, In honorem Hludowici imperatoris; Nithard, Hisloriarum libri, all in the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriplores, Bande i. and ii. (Hanover and Berlin, 1826 fol.) ; E. Muhlbacher, Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter den Karolingern (Inns-bruck, 1881); and Deutsche Geschichte unter den Karolingern (Stutt-gart, 1886) ; B. Simson, Jahrbucher des frankischen Reichs unter Ludwig dem Frommen (Leipzig, 1874-1876); and E. Dummler, Geschichte des ostfrdnkischen Keiches (Leipzig, 1887-1888).
(A. W. H.*)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"Louis the Pious (778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair, and the Debonaire,[1] was the King of the Franks and co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aquitaine from 781.
As the only surviving adult son of Charlemagne and Hildegard, he became the sole ruler of the Franks after his father's death in 814, a position which he held until his death, save for the period 833–34, during which he was deposed.
During his reign in Aquitaine, Louis was charged with the defence of the empire's southwestern frontier. He conquered Barcelona from the Muslims in 801 and asserted Frankish authority over Pamplona and the Basques south of the Pyrenees in 812. As emperor he included his adult sons, Lothair, Pepin, and Louis, in the government and sought to establish a suitable division of the realm among them. The first decade of his reign was characterised by several tragedies and embarrassments, notably the brutal treatment of his nephew Bernard of Italy, for which Louis atoned in a public act of self-debasement.
In the 830s his empire was torn by civil war between his sons, only exacerbated by Louis's attempts to include his son Charles by his second wife in the succession plans. Though his reign ended on a high note, with order largely restored to his empire, it was followed by three years of civil war. Louis is generally compared unfavourably to his father, though the problems he faced were of a distinctly different sort.
Birth and rule in Aquitaine[edit]
Louis was born while his father Charlemagne was on campaign in Spain, at the Carolingian villa of Cassinogilum, according to Einhard and the anonymous chronicler called Astronomus; the place is usually identified with Chasseneuil, near Poitiers.[2] He was the third son of Charlemagne by his wife Hildegard. His grandfather was King Pepin the Younger.
Louis was crowned King of Aquitaine as a child in 781[3] and sent there with regents and a court. Charlemagne constituted the sub-kingdom in order to secure the border of his kingdom after the destructive war against the Aquitanians and Basques under Waifer (capitulated c. 768) and later Hunald II, which culminated in the disastrous Battle of Roncesvalles (778). Charlemagne wanted his son Louis to grow up in the area where he was to reign. However, in 785, wary of the customs his son may have been taking in Aquitaine, Charlemagne sent for him to Aquitaine and Louis presented himself at the Royal Council of Paderborn dressed up in Basque costumes along with other youths in the same garment, which may have made a good impression in Toulouse, since the Basques of Vasconia were a mainstay of the Aquitanian army.
In 794, Charlemagne settled four former Gallo-Roman villas on Louis, in the thought that he would take in each in turn as winter residence: Doué-la-Fontaine in today's Anjou, Ebreuil in Allier, Angeac-Charente, and the disputed Cassinogilum. Charlemagne's intention was to see all his sons brought up as natives of their given territories, wearing the national costume of the region and ruling by the local customs. Thus were the children sent to their respective realms at so young an age. Each kingdom had its importance in keeping some frontier, Louis's was the Spanish March. In 797, Barcelona, the greatest city of the Marca, fell to the Franks when Zeid, its governor, rebelled against Córdoba and, failing, handed it to them. The Umayyad authority recaptured it in 799. However, Louis marched the entire army of his kingdom, including Gascons with their duke Sancho I of Gascony, Provençals under Leibulf, and Goths under Bera, over the Pyrenees and besieged it for two years, wintering there from 800 to 801, when it capitulated.[4] The sons were not given independence from central authority, however, and Charlemagne ingrained in them the concepts of empire and unity by sending them on military expeditions far from their home bases. Louis campaigned in the Italian Mezzogiorno against the Beneventans at least once.
Charlemagne crowns Louis the Pious
Louis was one of Charlemagne's three legitimate sons to survive infancy. He had a twin brother, Lothair who died during infancy. According to Frankish custom, Louis had expected to share his inheritance with his brothers, Charles the Younger, King of Neustria, and Pepin, King of Italy. In the Divisio Regnorum of 806, Charlemagne had slated Charles the Younger as his successor as emperor and chief king, ruling over the Frankish heartland of Neustria and Austrasia, while giving Pepin the Iron Crown of Lombardy, which Charlemagne possessed by conquest. To Louis's kingdom of Aquitaine, he added Septimania, Provence, and part of Burgundy. However, Charlemagne's other legitimate sons died – Pepin in 810 and Charles in 811 – and Louis alone remained to be crowned co-emperor with Charlemagne in 813. On his father's death in 814, he inherited the entire Frankish kingdom and all its possessions (with the sole exception of Italy, which remained within Louis's empire, but under the direct rule of Bernard, Pepin's son).
Emperor[edit]
While at his villa of Doué-la-Fontaine, Anjou, Louis received news of his father's death.[5] He rushed to Aachen and crowned himself emperor to shouts of Vivat Imperator Ludovicus by the attending nobles.[5]
Upon arriving at the imperial court in Aachen, one of Louis' first acts was to purge the palace of its "filth". He destroyed the old Germanic pagan tokens and texts which had been collected by Charlemagne. He further exiled members of the court he deemed morally "dissolute", including some of his own relatives.[6]
From the start of his reign, his coinage imitated his father Charlemagne's portrait, which gave it an image of imperial authority and prestige.[5] He quickly sent all of his unmarried sisters to nunneries, to avoid any possible entanglements from overly powerful brothers-in-law.[5] Sparing his illegitimate half-brothers, he forced his father's cousins, Adalard and Wala to be tonsured, placing them in Noirmoutier and Corbie, respectively, despite the latter's initial loyalty.[7]
His chief counsellors were Bernard, margrave of Septimania, and Ebbo, Archbishop of Reims. The latter, born a serf, was raised by Louis to that office, but betrayed him later. He retained some of his father's ministers, such as Elisachar, abbot of St. Maximin near Trier, and Hildebold, Archbishop of Cologne. Later he replaced Elisachar with Hildwin, abbot of many monasteries.
He also employed Benedict of Aniane (the Second Benedict), a Septimanian Visigoth and monastic founder, to help him reform the Frankish church. One of Benedict's primary reforms was to ensure that all religious houses in Louis' realm adhered to the Rule of Saint Benedict, named for its creator, Benedict of Nursia (480–550), the First Benedict.
In 816, Pope Stephen IV, who had succeeded Leo III, visited Reims and again crowned Louis (Sunday 5 October).
Denarius of Louis.
Ordinatio imperii[edit]
On Maundy Thursday 817 (9 April), Louis and his court were crossing a wooden gallery from the cathedral to the palace in Aachen when the gallery collapsed, killing many. Louis, having barely survived and feeling the imminent danger of death, began planning for his succession; three months later he issued an Ordinatio Imperii, an imperial decree that laid out plans for an orderly succession. In 815, he had already given his two eldest sons a share in the government, when he had sent his elder sons Lothair and Pepin to govern Bavaria and Aquitaine respectively, though without the royal titles. Now, he proceeded to divide the empire among his three sons:
Lothair was proclaimed and crowned co-emperor in Aachen by his father. He was promised the succession to most of the Frankish dominions (excluding the exceptions below), and would be the overlord of his brothers and cousin.
Pepin was proclaimed King of Aquitaine, his territory including Gascony, the march around Toulouse, and the counties of Carcassonne, Autun, Avallon and Nevers.
Louis, the youngest son, was proclaimed King of Bavaria and the neighbouring marches.
If one of the subordinate kings died, he was to be succeeded by his sons. If he died childless, Lothair would inherit his kingdom. In the event of Lothair dying without sons, one of Louis the Pious' younger sons would be chosen to replace him by "the people". Above all, the Empire would not be divided: the Emperor would rule supreme over the subordinate kings, whose obedience to him was mandatory.
With this settlement, Louis tried to combine his sense for the Empire's unity, supported by the clergy, while at the same time providing positions for all of his sons. Instead of treating his sons equally in status and land, he elevated his first-born son Lothair above his younger brothers and gave him the largest part of the Empire as his share.
Louis the Pious doing penance at Attigny in 822
Bernard's rebellion and Louis's penance[edit]
The ordinatio imperii of Aachen left Bernard of Italy in an uncertain and subordinate position as king of Italy, and he began plotting to declare independence upon hearing of it. Louis immediately directed his army towards Italy, and betook himself to Chalon-sur-Saône. Intimidated by the emperor's swift action, Bernard met his uncle at Chalon, under invitation, and surrendered. He was taken to Aachen by Louis, who there had him tried and condemned to death for treason. Louis had the sentence commuted to blinding, which was duly carried out; Bernard did not survive the ordeal, however, dying after two days of agony. Others also suffered: Theodulf of Orléans, in eclipse since the death of Charlemagne, was accused of having supported the rebellion, and was thrown into a monastic prison, dying soon afterwards; it was rumored that he had been poisoned.[8] The fate of his nephew deeply marked Louis's conscience for the rest of his life.
In 822, as a deeply religious man, Louis performed penance for causing Bernard's death, at his palace of Attigny near Vouziers in the Ardennes, before Pope Paschal I, and a council of ecclesiastics and nobles of the realm that had been convened for the reconciliation of Louis with his three younger half-brothers, Hugo whom he soon made abbot of St-Quentin, Drogo whom he soon made Bishop of Metz, and Theodoric. This act of contrition, partly in emulation of Theodosius I, had the effect of greatly reducing his prestige as a Frankish ruler, for he also recited a list of minor offences about which no secular ruler of the time would have taken any notice. He also made the egregious error of releasing Wala and Adalard from their monastic confinements, placing the former in a position of power in the court of Lothair and the latter in a position in his own house.
Louis on a denarius from Sens, 818–823
Frontier wars[edit]
At the start of Louis's reign, the many tribes – Danes, Obotrites, Slovenes, Bretons, Basques – which inhabited his frontierlands were still in awe of the Frankish emperor's power and dared not stir up any trouble. In 816, however, the Sorbs rebelled and were quickly followed by Slavomir, chief of the Obotrites, who was captured and abandoned by his own people, being replaced by Ceadrag in 818. Soon, Ceadrag too had turned against the Franks and allied with the Danes, who were to become the greatest menace of the Franks in a short time.
A greater Slavic menace was gathering on the southeast. There, Ljudevit, duke of Pannonia, was harassing the border at the Drava and Sava rivers. The margrave of Friuli, Cadolah, was sent out against him, but he died on campaign and, in 820, his margarvate was invaded by Slovenes. In 821, an alliance was made with Borna, duke of the Dalmatia, and Liudewit was brought to heel. In 824 several Slav tribes in the north-western parts of Bulgaria acknowledged Louis's suzerainty and after he was reluctant to settle the matter peacefully with the Bulgarian ruler Omurtag, in 827 the Bulgarians attacked the Franks in Pannonia and regained their lands.
On the far southern edge of his great realm, Louis had to control the Lombard princes of Benevento whom Charlemagne had never subjugated. He extracted promises from Princes Grimoald IV and Sico, but to no effect.
On the southwestern frontier, problems commenced early when c. 812, Louis the Pious crossed the western Pyrenees 'to settle matters' in Pamplona. The expedition made its way back north, where it narrowly escaped an ambush attempt arranged by the Basques in the pass of Roncevaux thanks to the precautions he took, i.e. hostages. Séguin, duke of Gascony, was then deposed by Louis in 816, possibly for failing to suppress or collaborating with the Basque revolt south of the western Pyrenees, so sparking off a Basque uprising that was duly put down by the Frankish emperor in Dax. Seguin was replaced by Lupus III, who was dispossessed in 818 by the emperor. In 820 an assembly at Quierzy-sur-Oise decided to send an expedition against the Cordoban caliphate (827). The counts in charge of the army, Hugh, count of Tours, and Matfrid, count of Orléans, were slow in acting and the expedition came to naught.
First civil war[edit]
In 818, as Louis was returning from a campaign to Brittany, he was greeted by news of the death of his wife, Ermengarde. Ermengarde was the daughter of Ingerman, the duke of Hesbaye. Louis had been close to his wife, who had been involved in policymaking. It was rumoured that she had played a part in her nephew's death and Louis himself believed her own death was divine retribution for that event. It took many months for his courtiers and advisors to convince him to remarry, but eventually he did, in 820, to Judith, daughter of Welf, count of Altdorf. In 823 Judith gave birth to a son, who was named Charles.
The birth of this son damaged the Partition of Aachen, as Louis's attempts to provide for his fourth son met with stiff resistance from his older sons, and the last two decades of his reign were marked by civil war.
At Worms in 829, Louis gave Alemannia to Charles, with the title of king or duke (historians differ on this), thus enraging his son and co-emperor Lothair,[9] whose promised share was thereby diminished. An insurrection was soon at hand.
With the urging of the vengeful Wala and the cooperation of his brothers, Lothair accused Judith of having committed adultery with Bernard of Septimania, even suggesting Bernard to be the true father of Charles. Ebbo and Hildwin abandoned the emperor at that point, Bernard having risen to greater heights than either of them. Agobard, Archbishop of Lyon, and Jesse, bishop of Amiens, too, opposed the redivision of the empire and lent their episcopal prestige to the rebels.
In 830, at Wala's insistence that Bernard of Septimania was plotting against him, Pepin of Aquitaine led an army of Gascons, with the support of the Neustrian magnates, all the way to Paris. At Verberie, Louis the German joined him. At that time, the emperor returned from another campaign in Brittany to find his empire at war with itself. He marched as far as Compiègne, an ancient royal town, before being surrounded by Pepin's forces and captured. Judith was incarcerated at Poitiers and Bernard fled to Barcelona.
Then Lothair finally set out with a large Lombard army, but Louis had promised his sons Louis the German and Pepin of Aquitaine greater shares of the inheritance, prompting them to shift loyalties in favour of their father. When Lothair tried to call a general council of the realm in Nijmegen, in the heart of Austrasia, the Austrasians and Rhinelanders came with a following of armed retainers, and the disloyal sons were forced to free their father and bow at his feet (831). Lothair was pardoned, but disgraced and banished to Italy.
Pepin returned to Aquitaine and Judith – after being forced to humiliate herself with a solemn oath of innocence – to Louis's court. Only Wala was severely dealt with, making his way to a secluded monastery on the shores of Lake Geneva. Although Hilduin, abbot of Saint Denis, was exiled to Paderborn and Elisachar and Matfrid were deprived of their honours north of the Alps; they did not lose their freedom.[citation needed]
Second civil war[edit]
The next revolt occurred a mere two years later, in 832. The disaffected Pepin was summoned to his father's court, where he was so poorly received he left against his father's orders. Immediately, fearing that Pepin would be stirred up to revolt by his nobles and desiring to reform his morals, Louis the Pious summoned all his forces to meet in Aquitaine in preparation of an uprising, but Louis the German garnered an army of Slav allies and conquered Swabia before the emperor could react. Once again the elder Louis divided his vast realm. At Jonac, he declared Charles king of Aquitaine and deprived Pepin (he was less harsh with the younger Louis), restoring the whole rest of the empire to Lothair, not yet involved in the civil war. Lothair was, however, interested in usurping his father's authority. His ministers had been in contact with Pepin and may have convinced him and Louis the German to rebel, promising him Alemannia, the kingdom of Charles.
Soon Lothair, with the support of Pope Gregory IV, whom he had confirmed in office without his father's support, joined the revolt in 833. While Louis was at Worms gathering a new force, Lothair marched north. Louis marched south. The armies met on the plains of the Rothfeld. There, Gregory met the emperor and may have tried to sow dissension amongst his ranks. Soon much of Louis's army had evaporated before his eyes, and he ordered his few remaining followers to go, because "it would be a pity if any man lost his life or limb on my account." The resigned emperor was taken to Saint-Médard de Soissons, his son Charles to Prüm, and the queen to Tortona. The despicable show of disloyalty and disingenuousness earned the site the name Field of Lies, or Lügenfeld, or Campus Mendacii, ubi plurimorum fidelitas exstincta est.[10]
Louis on a sesquisolidus, essentially Roman in design.[11]
On 13 November 833, Ebbo, with Agobard of Lyon, presided over a synod at the Church of Saint Medard in Soissons which saw Louis undertake public penance for the second time in his reign. The penitential ritual that was undertaken began when Louis arrived at the church and confessed multiple times to the crimes levied against him. The crimes had been historic and recent, with accusations of oath breaking, violation of the public peace and inability to control his adulterous wife, Judith of Bavaria.[12] Afterwards, he threw his sword belt at the base of the altar and received judgement through the imposition of the hands of the bishops.[13] Louis was to live the rest of his life as a penitent, never to hold office again.[14] The penance divided the aristocracy. The anonymous biographer of the Vita Hludovici criticized the whole affair on the basis that God does not judge twice for sins committed and confessed.[15] Lothair's allies were generously compensated. Ebbo himself received the monastery of St Vaast whilst Pepin was allowed to keep the lands reclaimed from his father.
Men like Rabanus Maurus, Louis' younger half-brothers Drogo and Hugh, and Emma, Judith's sister and Louis the German's new wife, worked on the younger Louis to make peace with his father, for the sake of unity of the empire. The humiliation to which Louis was then subjected at Notre Dame in Compiègne turned the loyal barons of Austrasia and Saxony against Lothair, and the usurper fled to Burgundy, skirmishing with loyalists near Chalon-sur-Saône. Louis was restored the next year, on 1 March 834.
On Lothair's return to Italy, Wala, Jesse, and Matfrid, formerly count of Orléans, died of a pestilence. On 2 February 835 at the palace Thionville, Louis presided over a general council to deal with the events of the previous year. Known as the Synod of Thionville, Louis himself was reinvested with his ancestral garb and the crown, symbols of Carolingian rulership. Furthermore, the penance of 833 was officially reversed and Archbishop Ebbo officially resigned after confessing to a capital crime, whilst Agobard of Lyon and Bartholmew, Archbishop of Narbonne were also deposed.[16] Later that year Lothair fell ill; once again the events turned in Louis favour.
In 836, however, the family made peace and Louis restored Pepin and Louis, deprived Lothair of all save Italy, and gave it to Charles in a new division, given at the diet of Crémieu. At about that time, the Vikings terrorized and sacked Utrecht and Antwerp. In 837, they went up the Rhine as far as Nijmegen, and their king, Rorik, demanded the wergild of some of his followers killed on previous expeditions before Louis the Pious mustered a massive force and marched against them. They fled, but it would not be the last time they harried the northern coasts. In 838, they even claimed sovereignty over Frisia, but a treaty was confirmed between them and the Franks in 839. Louis the Pious ordered the construction of a North Sea fleet and the sending of missi dominici into Frisia to establish Frankish sovereignty there.
Third civil war[edit]
In 837, Louis crowned Charles king over all of Alemannia and Burgundy and gave him a portion of his brother Louis' land. Louis the German promptly rose in revolt, and the emperor redivided his realm again at Quierzy-sur-Oise, giving all of the young king of Bavaria's lands, save Bavaria itself, to Charles. Emperor Louis did not stop there, however. His devotion to Charles knew no bounds. When Pepin died in 838, Louis declared Charles the new king of Aquitaine. The nobles, however, elected Pepin's son Pepin II. When Louis threatened invasion, the third great civil war of his reign broke out. In the spring of 839, Louis the German invaded Swabia, Pepin II and his Gascon subjects fought all the way to the Loire, and the Danes returned to ravage the Frisian coast (sacking Dorestad for a second time).
Lothair, for the first time in a long time, allied with his father and pledged support at Worms in exchange for a redivision of the inheritance. At a final placitum held at Worms on 20 May, Louis gave Bavaria to Louis the German and disinherited Pepin II, leaving the entire remainder of the empire to be divided roughly into an eastern part and a western. Lothair was given the choice of which partition he would inherit and he chose the eastern, including Italy, leaving the western for Charles. The emperor quickly subjugated Aquitaine and had Charles recognised by the nobles and clergy at Clermont-en-Auvergne in 840. Louis then, in a final flash of glory, rushed into Bavaria and forced the younger Louis into the Ostmark. The empire now settled as he had declared it at Worms, he returned in July to Frankfurt am Main, where he disbanded the army. The final civil war of his reign was over.[citation needed]
Death[edit]
Louis fell ill soon after his final victorious campaigns and went to his summer hunting lodge on an island in the Rhine, by his palace at Ingelheim. He died 20 June 840 in the presence of many bishops and clerics and in the arms of his half-brother Drogo, though Charles and Judith were absent in Poitiers. Soon dispute plunged the surviving brothers into a civil war that was only settled in 843 by the Treaty of Verdun, which split the Frankish realm into three parts, to become the kernels of France and Germany, with Burgundy and the Low Countries between them. The dispute over the kingship of Aquitaine was not fully settled until 860.[citation needed]
Louis was buried in the Abbey of Saint-Arnould in Metz.[17]
Marriage and issue[edit]
By his first wife, Ermengarde of Hesbaye (married c. 794)[18], he had three sons and three daughters:
Lothair (795–855), king of Middle Francia
Pepin (797–838), king of Aquitaine
Adelaide (b. c. 799)
Rotrude (b. 800)
Hildegard (or Matilda) (b. c. 802)
Louis the German (c. 806–876), king of East Francia
By his second wife, Judith of Bavaria, he had a daughter and a son:
Gisela, married Eberhard of Friuli
Charles the Bald, king of West Francia
By Theodelinde of Sens[citation needed], he had two illegitimate children:
Arnulf of Sens
Alpais
Notes[edit]
^ Latin: Ludovicus or Hludowicus Pius, German: Ludwig der Fromme, French: Louis le Pieux or Louis le Débonnaire, Italian: Luigi il Pio or Ludovico il Pio, Spanish: Luis el Piadoso or Ludovico Pío.
^ Einhard gives the name of his birthplace as Cassanoilum. In addition to Chasseneuil near Poitiers, scholars have suggested that Louis may have been born at Casseneuil (Lot et Garonne) or at Casseuil on the Garonne near La Réole, where the Dropt flows into the Garonne.
^ Pierre Riche, The Carolingians: The Family who Forged Europe, transl. Michael Idomir Allen, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 116.
^ Pierre Riche, The Carolingians:The Family who Forged Europe, 94.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Church Architecture and Liturgy in the Carolingian Era, Michael S. Driscoll, A Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages, ed. Ian Levy, Gary Macy, Kristen Van Ausdall, (Brill, 2012), 194.
^ Booker, Courtney M (2012). Past Convictions: The Penance of Louis the Pious and the Decline of the Carolingians. ISBN 978-0-8122-0138-3. Retrieved 28 May 2017. – via Questia (subscription required)
^ Church Architecture and Liturgy in the Carolingian Era, Michael S. Driscoll, A Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages, 195.
^ The Frankish Kingdoms, 814-898:the West, Janet L. Nelson, The New Cambridge Medieval History, 700–900, Vol. II, ed. Rosamond McKitterick, (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 114.
^ Paired gold medallions of father and son had been struck on the occasion of the synod of Paris (825) that asserted Frankish claims as emperor, recently denigrated by the Byzantines; see Karl F. Morrison, "The Gold Medallions of Louis the Pious and Lothaire I and the Synod of Paris (825)" Speculum 36.4 (October 1961:592–599).
^ [1].
^ Medieval European Coinage by Philip Grierson, Mark Blackburn, Lucia Travaini, p.329 [2]
^ Mayke De Jong, "Power and Humility in Carolingian society: the Public Penance of Louis the Pious", Early Medieval Europe 1 (1992). p. 29.
^ Agobard, "Personal Attestation to the Penance of Louis the Pious" in Lievan Van Acker (ed.) Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis , trans. Courtney M. Booker (Turnhout, 1981). p. 324.
^ Mayke De Jong, The Penitential State: Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious, 814-840 (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 1- 3.
^ The Astronomer, The Life of Emperor Louis, trans. Thomas F.X. Noble (Pennsylvania, 2009), p. 282.
^ The Annals of Saint Bertin, trans. Janet L. Nelson (Manchester, 1991), pp. 32- 33.
^ Metz, Steven Fanning, Medieval France:An Encyclopedia, Ed. William W. Kibler and Grover A. Zinn, (Routledge, 1995), p. 615.
^ McKitterick 2008, p. 93.
Sources[edit]
Vita Hludovici Imperatoris , the main source for his reign, written c. 840 by an unknown author usually called "the Astronomer"
Gesta Hludowici Imperatoris by Thegan of Trier on-line Latin text
Further reading[edit]
Booker, Courtney M. Past Convictions: The Penance of Louis the Pious and the Decline of the Carolingians, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8122-4168-6
De Jong, Mayke. The Penitential State: Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious, 814–840. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Depreux, Philippe. Prosopographie de l'entourage de Louis le Pieux (781–840). Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1997. A useful prosopographical overview of Louis' household, court and other subordinates.
Eichler, Daniel. Fränkische Reichsversammlungen unter Ludwig dem Frommen. Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2007 (Monumenta Germaniae Historica Studien und Texte, 45).
Ganshof, François-Louis The Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy. 1971.
Godman, Peter, and Roger Collins (eds.). Charlemagne's Heir: New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (814–840). Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press, 1990.
Oman, Charles. The Dark Ages 476–918. London, 1914."
[This page was last edited on 26 April 2019, at 07:37 (UTC).]
Digital files can be uploaded to the bitcoin blockchain, to be propagated with every transaction, and critically, in the current implantation, they can not be removed by anyone. As an early proof of principle, a picture was permanently inserted in 2011.
Now imagine that illegal content is inserted by someone (presumably from a geography where it is not illegal by international jurisdiction). From that point on, every participant will be trafficking in that illegal content, knowingly once the word gets out. So, the question becomes: what kind of content would motivate enforcement of the law, and/or public rejection of the system? DMCA and munition (encryption code) export violations are not quite motivating enough. Perhaps child porn or denigrating cartoons of Allah would do the trick in certain cultures. Anyone using bitcoin would be trafficking in these steganographically encoded images.
What am I missing? (And clearly, some people would not care about any of this; my question is whether this easy act would cripple mainstream adoption)
Meanwhile, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Bitcoin!
Today is six years from the first block.
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
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Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
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State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
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Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.