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A day of very strong winds as Storm Eunice did its worst. I decided to work from home and only went out for a quick lunchtime walk. A brief shower brought out this rainbow.
More from Sunday at the Goodwood Revival. This guy had taken his tiny Austin 7 on a 12,000km adventure.
This Documenting Yes photograph is being made available for publication by news organizations and/or bloggers for online news/editorial purposes only. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used for commercial or party political purposes. For print, commercial or other use requests contact info@documentingyes.com
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Photo: Documenting Yes / Mhairi Law
Paimpont forest, also known as Brocéliande, is in the French commune of Paimpont, near the city of Rennes in Brittany. As Brocéliande it had a reputation in the Medieval imagination as a place of magic and mystery. It is the setting of a number of adventures in Arthurian legend, notably Chrétien de Troyes's Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, and locals claim the tree in which the Lady of the Lake supposedly imprisoned Merlin can still be seen today. Other legendary places said to lie within the forest include the Val sans Retour, the tomb of Merlin, the Fountain of Youth, and Hotié de Vivianne (castle of the Lady of the Lake). The medieval chronicler Wace visited the forest but left disappointed:
"...I went there in search of marvels; I saw the forest and the land and looked for marvels, but found none. I came back as a fool and went as a fool. I went as a fool and came back as a fool. I sought foolishness and considered myself a fool."
For those living close to Paimpont, the Arthurian legend is very strong. Many names in the legend can be translated into Breton or French, for example the name Lancelot translates as "wanderer" or "vagabond" in Breton. There is also a strong influence from the Druids, and all around Brittany are standing stones or alignments, the most famous of which are nearby at Carnac; a group of the alignments at Kerlescan are nicknamed "the soldiers of Arthur."
Paimpont is a forest of broadleaf trees, oaks and beeches mainly, with areas of conifers either inside after clear-felling or on the periphery as transition with the moor, for example towards the west in the sector of Tréhorenteuc and the Val-sans-Retour (= Valley of no Return) which was devastated by several fires in particular in 1976, a year of great drought. It occupies mainly the territory of the commune of Paimpont, but extends to bordering communes, mainly Guer and Beignon in the south, Saint-Péran in the northeast, and Concoret in north. The forest of Paimpont is the largest remnant of an ancient forest occupying Argoat, the interior region of Brittany. It was more often called the forest of Brécélien, but its ancient character and other qualities underlined by many authors decided on its name of "forest of Brocéliande," tallying of the adventures of the legend of the Round Table. This flattering designation was reinforced by the birth of the Pays de Brocéliande at the end of the 20th century, an institution intended to facilitate the development of the communes of the west of the département.
The relative altitude of the forested massif contributes to give it a climate close to the oceanic climate of the coasts of Finistere. This mode, where west and south-west winds carry of clouds and regular rain supports the vegetation, dominates. The surplus of water feeds the many brooks occupying the bottoms of small valleys before flowing into the river Aff, then the Vilaine, to the area around Redon in the south of the department. The highest point is at 256 m in the western part called Haute forêt. Altitude decreases regularly while offering viewpoints towards the department of Morbihan; viewpoints which one finds the equivalents in the north on the commune of Mauron, port of the Côtes-d'Armor. It is not far from there that the Paimpont Biological Station of the University of Rennes 1, built in 1966 and 1967, dominates the lake of Chatenay. The varied forest and its surroundings constitute a framework favorable to many training courses in which the Rennes 1 biology students as well as foreign researchers take part. These buildings can accommodate approximately 70 people, and researchers work all the year on subjects generally very far away from the local biotope such as behavior of primates, represented by Cercopithecus, whose cries are familiar for the area but surprising to the walker little accustomed to this exotic fauna. The first researchers lengthily studied the ecology of the Armorican moors, the grounds, and the hydrology.
The forest belongs mainly to owners who maintain it and exploit it for timber and hunting; only in the north-eastern part, a small part (10%) is "domanial" and is managed by the National Forestry Commission. This situation prevents freedom of movement in the forest even with the access to the borough and its pond. The owners, however, signed a convention authorizing, from April 1 to the end of September, the use of some hiking trails in the forest. Among the responsibilities of the forest guards are watching for behaviors that threaten the forest, its flora, and its fauna. For example, behaviors that pose the risk of fire, and those that endanger the game, like dogs running loose. The gathering of mushrooms is not absolutely prohibited, but it is only tolerated near the approved trails. Because of its importance before the French Revolution, the forest was the responsibility of a royal jurisdiction called the National Forestry Commission, as the traditional jurisdictions of the seigneurs did not occupying itself with forest management. The wood was excessively exploited for the power supply of the charcoal blast furnaces for the nearby industry, at least in the 17th and 18th centuries; the assignment of the trees of first choice to the navy was a marginal role.
An extract of the files of the correctional court of Montfort:
"Having left the forging mills of Paimpont on Monday morning, he passed by the workshop of the carpenter who was far away from the forging mills but in the middle of the forest, he drank there with Julien Auffray his cousin and foreman of the carpenters." (Foreman of the carpenters and sawyers on contract to the naval yards elsewhere). Auffray interrogation, 1826.
The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the legends that concern the Celtic and legendary history of Great Britain, especially those focused on King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. The 12th century French poet Jean Bodel created the name in the following lines of his epic Chanson de Saisnes:
Ne sont que III matières à nul homme atandant,
De France et de Bretaigne, et de Rome la grant.
The name distinguishes and relates the Matter of Britain from the mythological themes taken from classical antiquity, the "matter of Rome", and the tales of the paladins of Charlemagne and their wars with the Moors and Saracens, which constituted the "matter of France". While Arthur is the chief subject of the Matter of Britain, other lesser-known legendary history of Great Britain, including the stories of Brutus of Britain, Old King Cole, King Lear, and Gogmagog, is also included in the Matter of Britain: see Legendary Kings of the Britons.
Legendary history of Britain
It could be said that the legendary history of Britain was created in part to form a body of patriotic myth for the island. Several agendas thus can be seen in this body of literature.
The Historia Britonum, the earliest known source of the story of Brutus of Britain, may have been devised to create a distinguished genealogy for a number of Welsh princes in the 9th century. Traditionally attributed to Nennius, its actual compiler is unknown; it exists in several recensions. This tale went on to achieve greater currency because its inventor linked Brutus to the diaspora of heroes that followed the Trojan War, and thus provided raw material which later mythographers such as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Michael Drayton, and John Milton could draw upon, linking the settlement of Britain to the heroic age of Greek literature, for their several and diverse literary purposes. As such, this material could be used for patriotic mythmaking just as Virgil linked the mythical founding of Rome to the Trojan War in The Æneid. Geoffrey of Monmouth also introduced the fanciful claim that the Trinovantes, reported by Tacitus as dwelling in the area of London, had a name he interpreted as Troi-novant, "New Troy".
More speculative claims link Celtic mythology with several of the rulers and incidents compiled by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniæ. It has been suggested, for instance, that Leir of Britain, who later became Shakespeare's King Lear, was originally the Welsh sea-god Llŷr (see also the Irish sea-god Lir). Various Celtic deities have been identified with characters from Arthurian literature as well: Morgan le Fay was often thought to have originally been the Welsh goddess Modron (cf. the Irish goddess Mórrígan). Many of these identifications come from the speculative comparative religion of the late 19th century, and have been questioned in more recent years.
William Shakespeare seems to have been deeply interested in the legendary history of Britain, and to have been familiar with some of its more obscure byways. Shakespeare's plays contain several tales relating to these legendary kings, such as King Lear and Cymbeline. It has been suggested that Shakespeare's Welsh schoolmaster Thomas Jenkins introduced him to this material, and perhaps directed him to read Geoffrey of Monmouth[citation needed]. These tales also figure in Raphael Holinshed's The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which also appears in Shakespeare's sources for Macbeth. A Welsh schoolmaster appears as the character Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Other early authors also drew from the early Arthurian and pseudo-historical sources of the Matter of Britain. The Scots, for instance, formulated a mythical history in the Picts and the Dál Riata royal lines. While they do eventually become factual lines, unlike those of Geoffrey, their origins are vague and often incorporate both aspects of mythical British history and mythical Irish history. The story of Gabhran especially incorporates elements of both those histories.
The Arthurian cycle
"Parsifal before the Castle of the Grail" - inspired by Richard Wagner's Opera Parsifal - painted in Weimar Germany 1928 by Hans Werner Schmidt (1859-1950)
The Arthurian literary cycle is the best known part of the Matter of Britain. It has succeeded largely because it tells two interlocking stories that have intrigued many later authors. One concerns Camelot, usually envisioned as a doomed utopia of chivalric virtue, undone by the fatal flaws of Arthur and Sir Lancelot. The other concerns the quests of the various knights to achieve the Holy Grail; some succeed (Galahad, Percival), and others fail (Lancelot).
The medieval tale of Arthur and his knights is full of Christian themes; those themes involve the destruction of human plans for virtue by the moral failures of their characters, and the quest for an important Christian relic. Finally, the relationships between the characters invited treatment in the tradition of courtly love, such as Lancelot and Guinevere, or Tristan and Iseult. In more recent years, the trend has been to attempt to link the tales of King Arthur and his knights with Celtic mythology, usually in highly romanticized, early twentieth century reconstructed versions.
Additionally, it is possible to read the Arthurian literature in general, and that concerned with the Grail tradition in particular, as an allegory of human development and spiritual growth (a theme explored by mythologist Joseph Campbell amongst others).
Sources wikipedia
Drawing is a form of visual art in which a person uses various drawing instruments to mark paper or another two-dimensional medium. Instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, various kinds of erasers, markers, styluses, various metals (such as silverpoint) and electronic drawing.
A drawing instrument releases small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, may be used. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard or indeed almost anything. The medium has been a popular and fundamental means of public expression throughout human history. It is one of the simplest and most efficient means of communicating visual ideas.[1] The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities.
In addition to its more artistic forms, drawing is frequently used in commercial illustration, animation, architecture, engineering and technical drawing. A quick, freehand drawing, usually not intended as a finished work, is sometimes called a sketch. An artist who practices or works in technical drawing may be called a drafter, draftsman or a draughtsman.[2]
Drawing is one of the major forms of expression within the visual arts. It is generally concerned with the marking of lines and areas of tone onto paper/other material, where the accurate representation of the visual world is expressed upon a plane surface.[3] Traditional drawings were monochrome, or at least had little colour,[4] while modern colored-pencil drawings may approach or cross a boundary between drawing and painting. In Western terminology, drawing is distinct from painting, even though similar media often are employed in both tasks. Dry media, normally associated with drawing, such as chalk, may be used in pastel paintings. Drawing may be done with a liquid medium, applied with brushes or pens. Similar supports likewise can serve both: painting generally involves the application of liquid paint onto prepared canvas or panels, but sometimes an underdrawing is drawn first on that same support.
Madame Palmyre with Her Dog, 1897. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Galileo Galilei. Phases of the Moon. 1616.
Drawing is often exploratory, with considerable emphasis on observation, problem-solving and composition. Drawing is also regularly used in preparation for a painting, further obfuscating their distinction. Drawings created for these purposes are called studies.
There are several categories of drawing, including figure drawing, cartooning, doodling, free hand and shading. There are also many drawing methods, such as line drawing, stippling, shading, the surrealist method of entopic graphomania (in which dots are made at the sites of impurities in a blank sheet of paper, and lines are then made between the dots), and tracing (drawing on a translucent paper, such as tracing paper, around the outline of preexisting shapes that show through the paper).
A quick, unrefined drawing may be called a sketch.
In fields outside art, technical drawings or plans of buildings, machinery, circuitry and other things are often called "drawings" even when they have been transferred to another medium by printing.
History[edit]
Drawing as a Form of Communication Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression, with evidence for its existence preceding that of written communication.[5] It is believed that drawing was used as a specialised form of communication before the invent of the written language,[5][6] demonstrated by the production of cave and rock paintings created by Homo sapiens sapiens around 30,000 years ago.[7] These drawings, known as pictograms, depicted objects and abstract concepts.[8] The sketches and paintings produced in prehistoric times were eventually stylised and simplified, leading to the development of the written language as we know it today.
Drawing in the Arts Drawing is used to express one's creativity, and therefore has been prominent in the world of art. Throughout much of history, drawing was regarded as the foundation for artistic practise.[9] Initially, artists used and reused wooden tablets for the production of their drawings.[10] Following the widespread availability of paper in the 14th century, the use of drawing in the arts increased. At this point, drawing was commonly used as a tool for thought and investigation, acting as a study medium whilst artists were preparing for their final pieces of work.[11][12] In a period of artistic flourish, the Renaissance brought about drawings exhibiting realistic representational qualities,[13] where there was a lot of influence from geometry and philosophy.[14]
The invention of the first widely available form of photography led to a shift in the use of drawing in the arts.[15] Photography took over from drawing as a more superior method for accurately representing visual phenomena, and artists began to abandon traditional drawing practises.[16] Modernism in the arts encouraged "imaginative originality"[17] and artists' approach to drawing became more abstract.
Drawing Outside the Arts Although the use of drawing is extensive in the arts, its practice is not confined purely to this field. Before the widespread availability of paper, 12th century monks in European monasteries used intricate drawings to prepare illustrated, illuminated manuscripts on vellum and parchment. Drawing has also been used extensively in the field of science, as a method of discovery, understanding and explanation. In 1616, astronomer Galileo Galilei explained the changing phases of the moon through his observational telescopic drawings.[16] Additionally, in 1924, geophysicist Alfred Wegener used illustrations to visually demonstrate the origin of the continents.The medium is the means by which ink, pigment or color are delivered onto the drawing surface. Most drawing media are either dry (e.g. graphite, charcoal, pastels, Conté, silverpoint), or use a fluid solvent or carrier (marker, pen and ink). Watercolor pencils can be used dry like ordinary pencils, then moistened with a wet brush to get various painterly effects. Very rarely, artists have drawn with (usually decoded) invisible ink. Metalpoint drawing usually employs either of two metals: silver or lead.[20] More rarely used are gold, platinum, copper, brass, bronze, and tinpoint.
Paper comes in a variety of different sizes and qualities, ranging from newspaper grade up to high quality and relatively expensive paper sold as individual sheets.[21] Papers can vary in texture, hue, acidity, and strength when wet. Smooth paper is good for rendering fine detail, but a more "toothy" paper holds the drawing material better. Thus a coarser material is useful for producing deeper contrast.
Newsprint and typing paper may be useful for practice and rough sketches. Tracing paper is used to experiment over a half-finished drawing, and to transfer a design from one sheet to another. Cartridge paper is the basic type of drawing paper sold in pads. Bristol board and even heavier acid-free boards, frequently with smooth finishes, are used for drawing fine detail and do not distort when wet media (ink, washes) are applied. Vellum is extremely smooth and suitable for very fine detail. Coldpressed watercolor paper may be favored for ink drawing due to its texture.
Acid-free, archival quality paper keeps its color and texture far longer than wood pulp based paper such as newsprint, which turns yellow and become brittle much sooner.
The basic tools are a drawing board or table, pencil sharpener and eraser, and for ink drawing, blotting paper. Other tools used are circle compass, ruler, and set square. Fixative is used to prevent pencil and crayon marks from smudging. Drafting tape is used to secure paper to drawing surface, and also to mask an area to keep it free of accidental marks sprayed or spattered materials and washes. An easel or slanted table is used to keep the drawing surface in a suitable position, which is generally more horizontal than the position used in painting.
Technique[edit]
Raphael, study for what became the Alba Madonna, with other sketches
Almost all draftsmen use their hands and fingers to apply the media, with the exception of some handicapped individuals who draw with their mouth or feet.[22]
Prior to working on an image, the artist typically explores how various media work. They may try different drawing implements on practice sheets to determine value and texture, and how to apply the implement to produce various effects.
The artist's choice of drawing strokes affects the appearance of the image. Pen and ink drawings often use hatching—groups of parallel lines.[23] Cross-hatching uses hatching in two or more different directions to create a darker tone. Broken hatching, or lines with intermittent breaks, form lighter tones—and controlling the density of the breaks achieves a gradation of tone. Stippling, uses dots to produce tone, texture or shade. Different textures can be achieved depending on the method used to build tone.[24]
Drawings in dry media often use similar techniques, though pencils and drawing sticks can achieve continuous variations in tone. Typically a drawing is filled in based on which hand the artist favors. A right-handed artist draws from left to right to avoid smearing the image. Erasers can remove unwanted lines, lighten tones, and clean up stray marks. In a sketch or outline drawing, lines drawn often follow the contour of the subject, creating depth by looking like shadows cast from a light in the artist's position.
Sometimes the artist leaves a section of the image untouched while filling in the remainder. The shape of the area to preserve can be painted with masking fluid or cut out of a frisket and applied to the drawing surface, protecting the surface from stray marks until the mask is removed.
Another method to preserve a section of the image is to apply a spray-on fixative to the surface. This holds loose material more firmly to the sheet and prevents it from smearing. However the fixative spray typically uses chemicals that can harm the respiratory system, so it should be employed in a well-ventilated area such as outdoors.
Another technique is subtractive drawing in which the drawing surface is covered with graphite or charcoal and then erased to make the image.[25]
Tone[edit]
Line drawing in sanguine by Leonardo da Vinci
Shading is the technique of varying the tonal values on the paper to represent the shade of the material as well as the placement of the shadows. Careful attention to reflected light, shadows and highlights can result in a very realistic rendition of the image.
Blending uses an implement to soften or spread the original drawing strokes. Blending is most easily done with a medium that does not immediately fix itself, such as graphite, chalk, or charcoal, although freshly applied ink can be smudged, wet or dry, for some effects. For shading and blending, the artist can use a blending stump, tissue, a kneaded eraser, a fingertip, or any combination of them. A piece of chamois is useful for creating smooth textures, and for removing material to lighten the tone. Continuous tone can be achieved with graphite on a smooth surface without blending, but the technique is laborious, involving small circular or oval strokes with a somewhat blunt point.
Shading techniques that also introduce texture to the drawing include hatching and stippling. A number of other methods produce texture. In addition to the choice of paper, drawing material and technique affect texture. Texture can be made to appear more realistic when it is drawn next to a contrasting texture; a coarse texture is more obvious when placed next to a smoothly blended area. A similar effect can be achieved by drawing different tones close together. A light edge next to a dark background stands out to the eye, and almost appears to float above the surface.
Form and proportion[edit]
Pencil portrait by Ingres
Measuring the dimensions of a subject while blocking in the drawing is an important step in producing a realistic rendition of the subject. Tools such as a compass can be used to measure the angles of different sides. These angles can be reproduced on the drawing surface and then rechecked to make sure they are accurate. Another form of measurement is to compare the relative sizes of different parts of the subject with each other. A finger placed at a point along the drawing implement can be used to compare that dimension with other parts of the image. A ruler can be used both as a straightedge and a device to compute proportions.
When attempting to draw a complicated shape such as a human figure, it is helpful at first to represent the form with a set of primitive volumes. Almost any form can be represented by some combination of the cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone. Once these basic volumes have been assembled into a likeness, then the drawing can be refined into a more accurate and polished form. The lines of the primitive volumes are removed and replaced by the final likeness. Drawing the underlying construction is a fundamental skill for representational art, and is taught in many books and schools. Its correct application resolves most uncertainties about smaller details, and makes the final image look consistent.[26]
A more refined art of figure drawing relies upon the artist possessing a deep understanding of anatomy and the human proportions. A trained artist is familiar with the skeleton structure, joint location, muscle placement, tendon movement, and how the different parts work together during movement. This allows the artist to render more natural poses that do not appear artificially stiff. The artist is also familiar with how the proportions vary depending on the age of the subject, particularly when drawing a portrait.
Perspective[edit]
Linear perspective is a method of portraying objects on a flat surface so that the dimensions shrink with distance. Each set of parallel, straight edges of any object, whether a building or a table, follows lines that eventually converge at a vanishing point. Typically this convergence point is somewhere along the horizon, as buildings are built level with the flat surface. When multiple structures are aligned with each other, such as buildings along a street, the horizontal tops and bottoms of the structures typically converge at a vanishing point.
Two-point perspective drawing
When both the fronts and sides of a building are drawn, then the parallel lines forming a side converge at a second point along the horizon (which may be off the drawing paper.) This is a two-point perspective.[27] Converging the vertical lines to a third point above or below the horizon then produces a three-point perspective.
Depth can also be portrayed by several techniques in addition to the perspective approach above. Objects of similar size should appear ever smaller the further they are from the viewer. Thus the back wheel of a cart appears slightly smaller than the front wheel. Depth can be portrayed through the use of texture. As the texture of an object gets further away it becomes more compressed and busy, taking on an entirely different character than if it was close. Depth can also be portrayed by reducing the contrast in more distant objects, and by making their colors less saturated. This reproduces the effect of atmospheric haze, and cause the eye to focus primarily on objects drawn in the foreground.
Artistry[edit]
Chiaroscuro study drawing by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
The composition of the image is an important element in producing an interesting work of artistic merit. The artist plans element placement in the art to communicate ideas and feelings with the viewer. The composition can determine the focus of the art, and result in a harmonious whole that is aesthetically appealing and stimulating.
The illumination of the subject is also a key element in creating an artistic piece, and the interplay of light and shadow is a valuable method in the artist's toolbox. The placement of the light sources can make a considerable difference in the type of message that is being presented. Multiple light sources can wash out any wrinkles in a person's face, for instance, and give a more youthful appearance. In contrast, a single light source, such as harsh daylight, can serve to highlight any texture or interesting features.
When drawing an object or figure, the skilled artist pays attention to both the area within the silhouette and what lies outside. The exterior is termed the negative space, and can be as important in the representation as the figure. Objects placed in the background of the figure should appear properly placed wherever they can be viewed.
Drawing process in the Academic Study of a Male Torso by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1801, National Museum, Warsaw)
A study is a draft drawing that is made in preparation for a planned final image. Studies can be used to determine the appearances of specific parts of the completed image, or for experimenting with the best approach for accomplishing the end goal. However a well-crafted study can be a piece of art in its own right, and many hours of careful work can go into completing a study.
Process[edit]
Individuals display differences in their ability to produce visually accurate drawings.[28] A visually accurate drawing is described as being "recognized as a particular object at a particular time and in a particular space, rendered with little addition of visual detail that can not be seen in the object represented or with little deletion of visual detail”.[29]
Investigative studies have aimed to explain the reasons why some individuals draw better than others. One study posited four key abilities in the drawing process: perception of objects being drawn, ability to make good representational decisions, motor skills required for mark-making and the drawer's own perception of their drawing.[29] Following this hypothesis, several studies have sought to conclude which of these processes are most significant in affecting the accuracy of drawings.
Motor function Motor function is an important physical component in the 'Production Phase' of the drawing process.[30] It has been suggested that motor function plays a role in drawing ability, though its effects are not significant.[29]
Perception It has been suggested that an individual's ability to perceive an object they are drawing is the most important stage in the drawing process.[29] This suggestion is supported by the discovery of a robust relationship between perception and drawing ability.[31]
This evidence acted as the basis of Betty Edwards' how-to drawing book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.[32] Edwards aimed to teach her readers how to draw, based on the development of the reader's perceptual abilities.
Furthermore, the influential artist and art critic John Ruskin emphasised the importance of perception in the drawing process in his book The Elements of Drawing.[33] He stated that "For I am nearly convinced, that once we see keenly enough, there is very little difficult in drawing what we see".
Visual memory has also been shown to influence one's ability to create visually accurate drawings. Short-term memory plays an important part in drawing as one’s gaze shifts between the object they are drawing and the drawing itself.[34]
© BWM
Kohleria is a New World genus of the flowering plant family Gesneriaceae. The plants are generally tropical herbs or subshrubs with velvety stems and foliage and brightly colored flowers with spots or markings in contrasting colors. They are rhizomatous and commonly include a period of dormancy in their growth cycle.
Because of their colorful and exotically patterned flowers, as well as a general interest in the many tropical flowering plants that were being introduced for the first time from the Americas, kohlerias were very popular in England and Europe in the 19th Century.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Kilmainham Gaol is one of the largest unoccupied gaols in Europe, covering some of the most heroic and tragic events in Ireland's emergence as a modern nation from 1780s to the 1920s. Attractions include a major exhibition detailing the political and penal history of the prison and its restoration, though when we visited much of it was closed to visitors because of building works (Sep 2014 to Dec 2015). It is Located 3.5km from the centre of Dublin.
Extract from Wikipedia:
When it was first built in 1796, Kilmainham Gaol was called the 'New Gaol' to distinguish it from the old gaol it was intended to replace - a noisome dungeon, just a few hundred yards from the present site. It was officially called the County of Dublin Gaol, and was originally run by the Grand Jury for County Dublin.
Originally, public hangings took place at the front of the gaol. However, from the 1820s onward very few hangings, public or private, took place at Kilmainham. A small hanging cell was built in the gaol in 1891, on the first floor, between the West and East Wings.
There was no segregation of prisoners; men, women and children were incarcerated up to five in each cell. With only a single candle for light and heat, most of their time was spent in the cold and the dark. The candle had to last the prisoner for two weeks.
Children were sometimes arrested for petty theft, the youngest said to be a seven year-old child, while many of the adult prisoners were transported to Australia.
At Kilmainham the poor conditions in which women prisoners were kept provided the spur for the next stage of development. Remarkably, for an age that prided itself on a protective attitude for the 'weaker sex', the conditions for women prisoners were persistently worse than for men. As early as his 1809 report the Inspector had observed that male prisoners were supplied with iron bedsteads while females 'lay on straw on the flags in the cells and common halls.' Half a century later there was little improvement: the women's section, located in the West Wing, remained overcrowded.
Kilmainham Gaol was decommissioned as a prison by the Irish Free State government in 1924. Seen principally as a site of oppression and suffering, there was at this time no declared interest in its preservation as a monument to the struggle for national independence. The gaol's potential function as a location of national memory was also complicated by the fact that the first four republican prisoners executed by the Free State government during the Irish Civil War were shot in the prison yard.
The Irish Prison Board contemplated reopening it as a prison during the 1920s but all such plans were finally abandoned in 1929. In 1936 the government considered demolition but the cost of this was seen as prohibitive. Republican interest in the site began to develop from the late 1930s, most notably with the proposal by the National Graves Association, a republican organisation, to preserve the site as both a museum and memorial to the 1916 Easter Rising. However, with the advent of the Emergency the proposal was shelved for the duration of the war.
An architectural survey after World War II revealed that the gaol was in a ruinous condition. The Commissioners of Public Works proposed only the prison yard and those cell blocks deemed to be of national importance should be preserved and that the rest of the site should be demolished. This proposal was not acted upon.
From the late 1950s a grassroots movement for the preservation of Kilmainham Gaol began to develop. Lorcan C.G. Leonard, a young engineer, along with a small number of like-minded nationalists, formed the Kilmainham Jail Restoration Society in 1958. A scheme was devised whereby the prison would be restored and a museum built using voluntary labour and donated materials.
By 1962 the symbolically important prison yard where the leaders of the 1916 rising were executed had been cleared of rubble and weeds and the restoration of the Victorian section of the prison was nearing completion. The final restoration of the site was completed in 1971 when the prison chapel was re-opened to the public having been reroofed and refloored and its altar reconstructed.
An art gallery on the top floor exhibits paintings, sculptures and jewelry of prisoners incarcerated in prisons all over contemporary Ireland.
Kilmainham Gaol has aptly been described as the 'Irish Bastille'.
Vienna Volksoper
The Volksoper is after the Vienna State Opera, the second-largest opera house in Vienna. The program will include operettas, operas, musicals and ballet.
(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
Seen from the Volksoper Währingerstraße from
History
Founding and time as spoken theater
The Jubilee City Theatre woodcut from the Leipzig magazine of 19 January 1899
1897 Karl Lueger was appointed mayor of Vienna. The architectural thought - ie the redesign of Vienna - was the prevailing social, economic and political trend in this as ring road time known era. In the same year the emperor anniversary Municipal Theatre Association (Kaiserjubiläums-Stadttheater-Verein) was founded by committed citizens of the City of Vienna to set up with the objective of the 50th Jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph I in 1898 a theater for the performance of German speaking pieces in Waehring.
In addition to this club significantly involved was also the Christian Social dictrict leader of Währing Anton Baumann because the building until 1905 stood in the 18th District. The theater association commissioned the architect Alexander Graf with the implementation of the building, which together with the architect Franz Freiherr von Krauss built the Emperor's Jubilee City Theatre in just 10 months.
The total costs were estimated at 650,000 guilders before construction begins. This amount was financed through shares, which were sold like hot cakes. With some delay, the construction work was started in March, 1898. The high pressure of time led to a violation of the construction costs by approximately 25%, or 160,000 guilders. This missing amount was not subsidized by public authorities, but was imposed the director Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn in the form of a lease rate increase.
Another shadow over the opening on 14 December 1898 cast the fact that the emperor himself stayed away from the opening of the house, as his wife Elizabeth had been killed three months earlier. After this bad start of the theater followed after not yet five years in 1903, the first bankruptcy .
The musical theater from 1903 until the postwar years
The Jubilee City Theatre at the time of opening, 1898
On 1 September 1903, Rainer Simon took over the directorate. He for himself had completed his apprenticeship with famous singers such as Julius Stockhausen or composers like Engelbert Humperdinck. A clear goal in mind, although he would indeed continue the popular German speaking parts in the sense of its predecessor, but put the first steps towards musical theater. During the 1904/05 season - in which for the first time appeares in the subtitle Volksoper, too - Simons introduced the first comic operas. Due to the great public appeal, Simons already ventured 1906-1908 the leap to the big opera. From 1908 the venue operated only under the name Volksoper.
After many highly successful years, finally in 1925 the Volksoper massively had to fight with the effects of inflation. After some brief closures and various rescue attempts by the working groups Volksoper was closed on 5 July in 1928 and only on 5 November 1929 reopened as New Vienna Schauspielhaus. 1938 took over the city of Vienna the now Urban Vienna Volksoper (Städtische Wiener Volksoper) later renamed Opera House of the City of Vienna. Towards the end of the Second World War the Volksoper became, for several months, the second largest cinema of the city with 1,550 seats, since after 1 September 1944 for all theaters was ruling prohbition of theater performances and there were some Viennese cinemas already destroyed by air raids.
After the Second World War, the Volksoper served as temporary quarters for the destroyed Staatsoper. After the opening of the restored State Opera building in 1955, the People's Opera became again independent musical theater with operas, operettas and musicals. In the same year, the Volksoper was integrated into the Austrian Federal Theatre.
Recent history
Under the director Karl Dönch took place in 1973 a first major reconstruction of the theater house.
1979 Robert Jungbluth has initiated in his former role as Secretary General of the Federal Theatre Association for the Volksoper a guest performance in Japan. It was the first operetta which was performed in Japan. In 1984, followed an American tour.
September 1991 to June 1996, the Staatsoper and the Volksoper were under joint command. During this time singers were hired for both houses simultaneously. The season was, however, autonomous, since both platforms serve different priorities.
The People's Opera as stage house of the Austrian theater became with the Federal Law on the reorganization of the Federal Theatre (Federal Theatre Organisation Act) in 1998 a legally independent company. 1999 took place the establishment of the "Volksoper Wien GmbH" as a 100% subsidiary of the Federal Theatre Holding GmbH.
Since 1 September 2007 is the Volksoper Vienna conducted by Kammerschauspieler Robert Meyer as director and artistic director. Rainer Schubert acts as Deputy Director. At the same time Mag. Christoph Ladstätter was appointed Chief Financial Officer. Diethmar Strasser acts as artistic director of operations, and Gerrit Prießnitz is the musical director of studies.
Robert Meyer is pursuing a consistent policy of reform. Its goal is to position the Volksoper again as "the musical theater in Vienna" to enhance the operetta and to a wider audience.
Iron Curtain
An iron curtain of the Vienna Volksoper
On the Iron Curtain, the dedication of the house of the 50th anniversary of the reign of Franz Joseph I. By the two year figures 1848, on your left, and 1898, on your right, good recognisable. This was painted by Karl Schuller and Georg Janny.
The curtain is showing in the center front Vindobona. The man in the right half of the picture is supposed to symbolize the citizens of Vienna. By removal of the blindfold this one now should be able to see the beautiful muses, too.
Before the war, the curtain was cleared away and was then lost until it reappeared in the 1990s in the attic of the Theater an der Wien.
Facts and Figures
Spectators and house
Current seating plan of the Volksoper
At three different levels to visitors a total of 1261 seating and 72 standing places, and 2 wheelchair places are available. From September to June, there is, with few exceptions, every day a performance. The most important figures in recent years:
Season Performances Visitors avg seat utilization employees
2004/2005 [2 ] 287 293 695 75.41 % unknown
2005/2006 [3 ] 276 280 520 74.77 % 524
2006/2007 [ 4] 281 289 721 78.34 % 523
2007/2008 [ 5 ] 291 325 491 85.77 % 526
The for maintenance activities responsible federal-Holding has spent in the fiscal year 2006/2007 for a facade renovation of the historic building Volksoper EUR 1.1 million.
Specifications
Lighting and views to the orchestra pit at the Volksoper
The orchestra pit is equipped with two electrically powered lifting platforms. The load capacity is 500 kg/m² (front single podium, stage-sided double-decker panel) and is height adjustable from 0 to 2.65 feet below stage level.
The existing red velvet curtain head is hydraulically liftable and raff. The gathering speed is 0.15 to 3.0 m/s, the lifting speed is up to 2 m/s.
The sound curtain of aluminum frame also operates hydraulically. The additional capacity of 300 kg with a point load of 150 kg. The lifting speed as sound curtain is up to 0.8 m/s. The lifting speed as heavy truck is up to 0.5 m/s.
The hydraulically operated Schleierzug has a load capacity of 350 kg with a point load of 150 kg.
The stage area is 480 square meters with a maximum of 500 kg / m² load . The usable platform width is 17.2 meters and the depth of the stage from the front edge to the portal sliding gate are 19 meters.
Volksoper from the belt
The stage surface is made of a rotatable and raisable core disk having a diameter of 7.20 m in the middle, and a rotatable annular disc having an outer diameter of 15 meters of the core slices. Furthermore, there are three hand-operated, stationary personal meditations.
Organizational Structure
Since 1999, the Vienna Volksoper belongs to 100 % to the Federal Theatre holding just like the Staatsoper GmbH Vienna and Burgtheater GmbH. Another subsidiary is the theater GmbH which belongs to 51.1 % to the Federal Theatre Holding. The remaining 48.9% hold the three stage companies in equal parts (each 16.3%). Together with the Vienna State Opera, the Volksoper is subordinaded the independent consortium Ballet of the Vienna State Opera and Volksoper. Directors
Adam Müller- Guttenbrunn (1898-1903)
Rainer Simons (1903-1917)
Raoul Mader (1917-1919)
Felix Weingartner (1919-1924)
August Markowsky/Fritz Stiedry (1924 )
Hugo Gruder-Guntram/Leo Blech (1925 )
Frischler Hermann (1925-1928)
Jacob Feldhammer/Otto Preminger (1929-1931)
Leo Kraus (1931-1933)
Karl Funny-Prean/Jean Ernest (1934-1935)
Alexander Kovalevsky (1935-1938)
Anton Baumann (1938-1941)
Jölli Oskar (1941-1944)
Juch Hermann (1946-1955)
Salmhofer Franz (1955-1963)
Albert Moser (1963-1973)
Karl Dönch (1973-1986)
Eberhard Waechter (1987-1992, 1991-1992 also the director of the Vienna State Opera)
Ioan Holender (1992-1996, also the director of the Vienna State Opera)
Klaus Bachler (1996-1999)
Dominique Mentha (1999-2003)
Rudolf Berger (2003-2007)
Robert Meyer (from 2007)
Premieres
The Kuhreigen, Musical Theatre by Wilhelm Kienzl, 23 November 1911
Love chains, opera in three acts by Eugen d'Albert, 12th November 1912
The Testament, musical comedy by William Kienzl, on 6 December 1916
The lucky hand, drama with music by Arnold Schoenberg, on 14 October 1924
This is the first love affair, operetta by Eysler, 23 December 1934
On the green meadow, operetta by Jara Benes, on 9 October 1936
Spring Parade, operetta by Robert Stolz, on 5 March 1964
Felix. Or of someone who set out to learn to shudder, and jazz opera by Klaudia Kadlec (libretto ) and Max Nagl (music) after the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm on 23 June 2002
Honorary members
Klaus Bachler
Franz Bauer-Theussl
Rudolf Bibl
Adolf Dallapozza
Otto Fritz
Hans Grötzer
Karlheinz Haberland
Johannes Heesters (since 1984)
Michael Heltau (since 2004)
Robert Herzl (since 1998)
Ioan Holender
Renate Holm
Mirjana Irosch
Wolfgang Schultze
Dagmar Koller
Erich Kuchar
Guggi Löwinger
Sigrid Martikke
Peter Minich
Sonja Mottl Dönch
Helga Papouschek
Herbert Prikopa (since 1986)
Harald Serafin
Wicus Slabbert (since 2005)
Christiane Sorell
Helmut Süß
Paul Walter Rudolf Wasserlof
Includes:
Paul John Brilliance ABV 46%;
Floki Single Malt ABV 45%;
Scapegrace Anthem ABV 46%;
Glendalough Double Grain Single Grain ABV 42%;
Uncle Nearest 1884 ABV 46.5%;
Signature Single Malt ABV 46.4%;
Le Breuil Sherry Cask ABV 46%;
Boann Madeira Finish ABV 47%;
Indri Dru ABV 57.2%;
Cata Black Whiskey Rye ABV 45%;
Bearface Triple Oak ABV 42.5%;
Filliers 10 YO Single Malt ABV 43%;
Kyro Malt ABV 47.2%;
Spreewood Distillers Straight Rye ABV 45%;
Hellyers Road Distillery Double Cask Single Malt ABV 48.2%; New Riff Distilling Kentucky Straight Bourbon ABV 50%; Akashi Sherry Finish Blended Whisky ABV 40%;
The English Smokey ABV 43%;
Hearach ABV 46%;
Hav Single Malt ABV 48%;
Nova ABV 41%;
Kavalan LAN Single Malt Whisky ABV 43%;
Westward Whiskey Original ABV 45%;
Einar's Single Malt Whisky ABV 47%
Includes teams from Mitchell, Harrisburg, Watertown, Aberdeen Central. Permission granted for journalism outlets and educational purposes. Not for commercial use. Must be credited. Photo courtesy of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
©2021 SDPB
Contact sheet has 30 images, those not printed include tire in stream, oak tree and horseback rider, yucca, overturned car, long views of the flats leading to the barranca. Historically this area was known as the Salto, part of the Hunt Ranch. Long article in Vista section included arguments from Tom Maxwell and others that the area should be preserved as a public open space or park and bird refuge. (Copy of article in file) Getting Rare - Lichen (left) is a delicate form of vegetation and easily affected by smog. This type of plant is rare in smoggy areas where the pollution kills it. It grows plentifully in The Barranca. News Chronicle Collection. Photographer Tom Wyneken, 10-04-1970_1a, CTO_525.
We're happy to share this digital image on Flickr. Please note that this is a copyrighted image. For information regarding obtaining a reproduction of this image, please contact the Special Collections Librarian of the Thousand Oaks Library at specoll@tolibrary.org
The Goondiwindi War Memorial includes a 'Digger' statue erected in 1922 and a set of gates erected in 1949, as memorials to the First and Second World Wars respectively.
The Soldiers' Monument was originally erected in Herbert Street, with an iron fence surrounding the monument. The monument cost £1 800 and was unveiled in September 1922, by Sir Matthew Nathan, Governor of Queensland, who was in Goondiwindi to observe an eclipse of the sun.
In 1949 the monument was re-sited, presumably at the time the World War 2 Memorial Gates were constructed. More than £2 844 was spent on transferring the monument to the park site and erecting the gates. The gates were erected by the Goondiwindi War Memorial Committee, and were unveiled in April 1949 by Sir Thomas William Glasgow. At the completion of the ceremony the keys of the gates were handed to Alderman F Vetter, symbolic of the town accepting responsibility and custody of the memorial.
Description source:
View the original record at the Queensland State Archives:
Kilmainham Gaol is one of the largest unoccupied gaols in Europe, covering some of the most heroic and tragic events in Ireland's emergence as a modern nation from 1780s to the 1920s. Attractions include a major exhibition detailing the political and penal history of the prison and its restoration, though when we visited much of it was closed to visitors because of building works (Sep 2014 to Dec 2015). It is Located 3.5km from the centre of Dublin.
Extract from Wikipedia:
When it was first built in 1796, Kilmainham Gaol was called the 'New Gaol' to distinguish it from the old gaol it was intended to replace - a noisome dungeon, just a few hundred yards from the present site. It was officially called the County of Dublin Gaol, and was originally run by the Grand Jury for County Dublin.
Originally, public hangings took place at the front of the gaol. However, from the 1820s onward very few hangings, public or private, took place at Kilmainham. A small hanging cell was built in the gaol in 1891, on the first floor, between the West and East Wings.
There was no segregation of prisoners; men, women and children were incarcerated up to five in each cell. With only a single candle for light and heat, most of their time was spent in the cold and the dark. The candle had to last the prisoner for two weeks.
Children were sometimes arrested for petty theft, the youngest said to be a seven year-old child, while many of the adult prisoners were transported to Australia.
At Kilmainham the poor conditions in which women prisoners were kept provided the spur for the next stage of development. Remarkably, for an age that prided itself on a protective attitude for the 'weaker sex', the conditions for women prisoners were persistently worse than for men. As early as his 1809 report the Inspector had observed that male prisoners were supplied with iron bedsteads while females 'lay on straw on the flags in the cells and common halls.' Half a century later there was little improvement: the women's section, located in the West Wing, remained overcrowded.
Kilmainham Gaol was decommissioned as a prison by the Irish Free State government in 1924. Seen principally as a site of oppression and suffering, there was at this time no declared interest in its preservation as a monument to the struggle for national independence. The gaol's potential function as a location of national memory was also complicated by the fact that the first four republican prisoners executed by the Free State government during the Irish Civil War were shot in the prison yard.
The Irish Prison Board contemplated reopening it as a prison during the 1920s but all such plans were finally abandoned in 1929. In 1936 the government considered demolition but the cost of this was seen as prohibitive. Republican interest in the site began to develop from the late 1930s, most notably with the proposal by the National Graves Association, a republican organisation, to preserve the site as both a museum and memorial to the 1916 Easter Rising. However, with the advent of the Emergency the proposal was shelved for the duration of the war.
An architectural survey after World War II revealed that the gaol was in a ruinous condition. The Commissioners of Public Works proposed only the prison yard and those cell blocks deemed to be of national importance should be preserved and that the rest of the site should be demolished. This proposal was not acted upon.
From the late 1950s a grassroots movement for the preservation of Kilmainham Gaol began to develop. Lorcan C.G. Leonard, a young engineer, along with a small number of like-minded nationalists, formed the Kilmainham Jail Restoration Society in 1958. A scheme was devised whereby the prison would be restored and a museum built using voluntary labour and donated materials.
By 1962 the symbolically important prison yard where the leaders of the 1916 rising were executed had been cleared of rubble and weeds and the restoration of the Victorian section of the prison was nearing completion. The final restoration of the site was completed in 1971 when the prison chapel was re-opened to the public having been reroofed and refloored and its altar reconstructed.
An art gallery on the top floor exhibits paintings, sculptures and jewelry of prisoners incarcerated in prisons all over contemporary Ireland.
Kilmainham Gaol has aptly been described as the 'Irish Bastille'.
There are three Ashfords, really. The modern newtown, Swindonesque newbuilds stretching into the countryside; the Victorian railway town, all neat rows of brick buit houses and the station, and then there is the old town, timber-framed houses along narrow lanes, with St Mary standing towering above all but the modern office blocks.
The west end church was given over to a Christmas Fayre, but is also used now as a concert venue, while under the tower westwards is still in use as a church, with many of its ancient features left alone by the Victorians.
-------------------------------------------
A stately church in a good position set away from the hustle and bustle of this cosmopolitan town. The very narrow tower of 1475 is not visually satisfactory when viewed from a distance but its odd proportions are hardly noticed when standing at its base. The church is very much the product of the families who have been associated with it over the centuries and who are commemorated by monuments within. They include the Fogges and the Smythes. The former is supposed to have wanted to create a college of priests here, but by the late fifteenth century such foundations were going out of fashion and the remodelling of the church undertaken by Sir John Fogge may have just been a philanthropic cause. Unusually, when the church was restored in 1860 the architect Ewan Christian kept the galleries (he usually swept them away), but Christ Church had yet to be built and the population of this growing town would have needed all the accommodation it could get. Even in 1851 1000 people had attended the church in a single sitting. The pulpit, designed by Pearson, was made in 1897.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Ashford+1
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THE TOWN AND PARISH OF ASHFORD
LIES the next adjoining to Hothfield eastward. It is called in Domesday both Estefort and Essetesford, and in other antient records, Eshetisford, taking its name from the river, which runs close to it, which, Lambarde says, ought not to be called the Stour, till it has passed this town, but Eshe or Eschet, a name which has been for a great length of time wholly forgotten; this river being known, even from its first rise at Lenham hither, by the name of the Stour only.
A small part only of this parish, on the east, south and west sides of it, containing the borough of Henwood, alias Hewit, lying on the eastern or further side of the river from the town, part of which extends into the parish of Wilsborough, and the whole of it within the liberty of the manor of Wye, and the borough of Rudlow, which adjoins to Kingsnoth and Great Chart, are in this hundred of Chart and Longbridge; such part of the borough of Rudlow as lies adjoining to Kingsnoth, is said to lie in in jugo de Beavor, or the yoke of Beavor, and is divided from the town and liberty by the river, near a place called Pollbay; in which yoke there is both a hamlet and a green or common, of the name of Beavor; the remainder of the parish having been long separated from it, and made a distinct liberty, or jurisdiction of itself, having a constable of its own, and distinguished by the name of the liberty of the town of Ashford.
ASHFORD, at the time of taking the general survey of Domesday, was part of the possessions of Hugo de Montfort, who had accompanied the Conqueror hither, and was afterwards rewarded with this estate, among many others in different counties; in which record it is thus entered, under the general title of his lands:
¶Maigno holds of Hugo (de Montfort) Estefort. Turgisus held it of earl Godwin, and it is taxed at one suling. The arable land is half a carucate. There is nevertheless in demesne one carucate, and two villeins having one carucate. There are two servants, and eight acres of meadow. In the time of king Edward the Confessor, it was worth twenty five shillings; when he received it, twenty shillings; now thirty shilling.
The same Hugo holds Essela. Three tenants held it of king Edward, and could go whither they would with their lands. It was taxed at three yokes. The arable land is one carucate and an half. There are now four villeins, with two borderers having one carucate, and six acres of meadow. The whole, in the reign of king Edward the Confessor, was worth twenty shillings, and afterwards fifteen shillings, now twenty shillings.
Maigno held another Essetisford of the same Hugo. Wirelm held it of king Edward. It was taxed at one suling. The arable land is four carucates. In demesne there are two, and two villeins, with fifteen borderers having three carucates. There is a church, and a priest, and three servants, and two mills of ten shillings and two pence. In the time of king Edward the Confessor it was worth seventy shillings, and afterwards sixty shillings, now one hundred shillings.
Robert de Montfort, grandson of Hugh abovementioned, favouring the title of Robert Curthose, in opposition to king Henry I. to avoid being called in question upon that account, obtained leave to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, leaving his possessions to the king; by which means this manor came into the hands of the crown. Soon after which it seems to have come into the possession of a family, who took their name from it. William de Asshetesford appears by the register of Horton priory to have been lord of it, and to have been succeeded by another of the same name. After which the family of Criol became owners of it, by whom it was held by knight's service of the king, in capite, by ward to Dover castle, and the repair of a tower in that castle, called the Ashford tower. (fn. 1) Simon de Criol, in the 27th and 28th year of Henry III. obtained a charter of free warren for this manor, whose son William de Criol passed it away to Roger de Leyborne, for Stocton, in Huntingdonshire, and Rumford, in Essex. William de Leyborne his son, in the 7th year of king Edward I. claimed and was allowed the privilege of a market here, before the justices itinerant. He died possessed of this manor in the 3d year of Edward II. leaving his grand-daughter Juliana, daughter of Thomas de Leyborne, who died in his father's life-time, heir both to her grandfather and father's possessions, from the greatness of which she was stiled the Infanta of Kent, (fn. 2) though thrice married, yet she died s. p. by either of her husbands, all of whom she survived, and died in the 41st year of Edward III. Upon which this manor, among the rest of her estates, escheated to the crown, and continued there till king Richard II. vested it, among others, in feoffees, for the performance of certain religious bequests by the will of king Edward III. then lately deceased; and they, in compliance with it, soon afterwards, with the king's licence, purchased this manor, with those of Wall, and Esture, of the crown, towards the endowment of St. Stephen's chapel, in the king's palace of Westminster, all which was confirmed by king Henry IV. and VI. and by king Edward IV. in their first years; the latter of whom, in his 7th year, granted to them a fair in this town yearly, on the feast of St. John Port Latin, together with all liberties, and to have a steward to hold the court of it, &c. In which situation they continued till the 1st year of Edward VI. when this collegiate chapel was, with all its possessions, surrendered into the king's hands, where these manors did not continue long; for that king, in his 3d year, granted the manor of Esshetford, with that of Wall, and the manor of Esture, to Sir Anthony Aucher, of Otterden, to hold in capite; and he, in the 2d and 3d of Philip and Mary, sold them to Sir Andrew Judde, of London, whose daughter and at length heir Alice, afterwards carried them in marriage to Thomas Smith, esq. of Westenhanger, commonly called the Customer, who died possessed of them in 1591, and lies buried in the south cross of this church, having had several sons and daughters, of, whom Sir John Smythe, of Ostenhanger, the eldest, succeeded him here, and was sheriff anno 42 Elizabeth. Sir Thomas Smith, the second son, was of Bidborough and Sutton at Hone, and ambassador to Russia, of whom and his descendants, notice has been taken in the former volumes of this history; (fn. 3) and Henry, the third son, was of Corsham, in Wiltshire, whence this family originally descended, and Sir Richard Smith, the fourth, was of Leeds castle. Sir John Smythe, above-mentioned, died in 1609, and lies buried in the same vault as his father in this church, leaving one son Sir Thomas Smythe, of Westenhanger, K. B. who was in 1628 created Viscount Strangford, of Ireland, whose grandson Philip, viscount Strangford, dying about 1709, Henry Roper, lord Teynham, who had married Catherine his eldest daughter, by his will, became possessed of the manors of Ashford, Wall, and Esture. By her, who died in 1711, he had two sons, Philip and Henry, successively lords Teynham; notwithstanding which, having the uncontrolled power in these manors vested in him, he, on his marriage with Anne, second daughter and coheir of Thomas Lennard, earl of Sussex, and widow of Richard Barrett Lennard, esq. afterwards baroness Dacre, settled them on her and her issue by him in tail male. He died in 1623, and left her surviving, and possessed of these manors for her life. She afterwards married the hon. Robert Moore, and died in 1755. She had by lord Teynham two sons, Charles and Richard-Henry, (fn. 4) Charles Roper, the eldest son, died in 1754 intestate, leaving two sons, Trevor-Charles and Henry, who on their mother's death became entitled to these manors, as coheirs in gavelkind, a recovery having been suffered of them, limiting them after her death to Charles Roper their father, in tail male; but being infants, and there being many incumbrances on these estates, a bill was exhibited in chancery, and an act procured anno 29 George II. for the sale of them; and accordingly these manors were sold, under the direction of that court, in 1765, to the Rev. Francis Hender Foote, of Bishopsborne, who in 1768 parted with the manor of Wall, alias Court at Wall, to John Toke, esq. of Great Chart, whose son Nicholas Roundell Toke, is the present possessor of it; but he died possessed of the manors of Ashford and Esture in 1773, and was succeeded in them by his eldest son John Foote, esq. now of Bishopsborne, the present owner of them. There are several copyhold lands held of the manor of Ashford. A court leet and court baron is regularly held for it.
THE TOWN OF ASHFORD stands most pleasant and healthy, on the knoll of a hill, of a gentle ascent on every side, the high road from Hythe to Maidstone passing through it, from which, in the middle of the town, the high road branches off through a pleasant country towards Canterbury. The houses are mostly modern and well-built, and the high-street, which has been lately new paved, is of considerable width. The markethouse stands in the centre of it, and the church and school on the south side of it, the beautiful tower of the former being a conspicuous object to the adjoining country. It is a small, but neat and chearful town, and many of the inhabitants of a genteel rank in life. Near the market place, is the house of the late Dr. Isaac Rutton, a physician of long and extensive practice in these parts, being the eldest son of Matthias Rutton, gent of this town, by Sarah his wife, daughter of Sir N. Toke, of Godinton. He died in 1792, bearing for his arms, Parted per fess, azure, and or, three unicorns heads, couped at the neck, counterchanged; since which, his eldest son, Isaac Rutton, esq. now of Ospringeplace, has sold this house to Mr. John Basil Duckworth, in whom it is now vested. In the midst of it is a large handsome house, built in 1759, by John Mascall, gent. who resided in it, and died possessed of it in 1769, and was buried in Boughton Aluph church, bearing for his arms, Barry of two, or, and azure, three inescutcheons, ermine; and his only son, Robert Mascall, esq. now of Ashford, who married the daughter of Jeremiah Curteis, esq. is the present owner, and resides in it. At the east end of the town is a seat, called Brooke-place, formerly possessed by the family of Woodward, who were always stiled, in antient deeds, gentlemen, and bore for their arms, Argent, a chevron, sable, between three grasshoppers, or; the last of them, Mr. John Woodward, gent. rebuilt this seat, and died possessed of it in 1757; of whose heirs it was purchased by Martha, widow of Moyle Breton, esq. of Kennington, whose two sons, the Rev. Moyle Breton, and Mr. Whitfield Breton, gent. alienated it to Josias Pattenson, esq. the second son of Mr. Josias Pattenson, of Biddenden, by Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Felix Kadwell, esq. of Rolvenden; he married Mary, daughter of Mr. Henry Dering, gent. of this parish, and widow of Mr. John Mascall above-mentioned, by whom he has no issue, and he is the present owner of this seat, and resides in it. There have been barracks erected lately here, which at present contain 4000 soldiers. The market is held on a Saturday weekly, for the sale of corn, which is now but little used; and a market for the sale of all sorts of fat and lean stock on the first and third Tuesday in every month, which has been of great use to prevent monopolies. Two fairs are annually held now, by the alteration of the stile, on May 17, and Sept. 9, and another on Oct. 24; besides which, there is an annual fair for wool on August 2, not many years since instituted and encouraged by the principal gentry and landholders, which promises to prove of the greatest utility and benefit to the fair sale of it. That branch of the river Stour which rises at Lenham, runs along the southern part of this parish, and having turned a corn mill belonging to the lord of this manor, continues its course close at the east end of the town, where there is a stone bridge of four arches, repaired at the expence of the county, and so on northwards towards Wye and Canterbury. On the south side of the river in this parish, next to Kingsnoth, within the borough of Rudlow, is the yoke of Beavor, with the hamlet and farm of that name, possessed in very early times, as appears by the register of Horton priory, by a family of that name, one of whom, John Beavor, was possessed of it in the reign of Henry II. and was descended from one of the same furname, who attended the Conqueror in his expedition hither. The parish contains about 2000 acres of land, and three hundred and twenty houses, the whole rental of it being 4000l. per annum; the inhabitants are 2000, of which about one hundred are diffenters. The highways throughout it, which not many years ago were exceeding bad, have been by the unanimity of the inhabitants, which has shewn itself remarkable in all their public improvements, a rare instance in parochial undertakings, and by the great attention to the repairs of them, especially in such parts as were near their own houses, are now excellent. The lands round it are much upon a gravelly soil, though towards the east and south there are some rich fertile pastures, intermixed with arable land, and several plantations of hops; but toward the west, the soil is in general sand, having much quarrystone mixed with it, where there is a great deal of coppice wood, quite to Potter's corner, at the boundary of this parish.
The church, which is dedicated to St. Mary, is a large handsome building, consisting of three isles, with a transept, and three chancels, with the tower in the middle, which is losty and well proportioned, having four pinnacles at the top of it. There are eight bells in it, a set of chimes, and a clock. In the high chancel, on the north side, is the college John Fogge, the founder of the college here, who died in 1490, and his two wives, the brasses of their figures gone; but part of the inscription remains. And formerly, in Weever's time, there hung up in this chancel six atchievements, of those of this family whose burials had been attended by the heralds at arms, and with other ceremonies suitable to their degrees. Underneath the chancel is a large vault, full of the remains of the family. On the pavement in the middle, is a very antient curious gravestone, having on it the figure in brass of a woman, holding in her left hand a banner, with the arms of Ferrers, Six masctes, three and three, in pale; which, with a small part of the inscription round the edge, is all that is remaining; but there was formerly in brass, in her right hand, another banner, with the arms of Valoyns; over her head those of France and England quarterly; and under her feet a shield, being a cross, impaling three chevronels, the whole within a bordure, guttee de sang, and round the edge this inscription, Ici gift Elizabeth Comite D' athels la file sign de Ferrers . . . dieu asoil, qe morust le 22 jour d'octob. can de grace MCCCLXXV. Weever says, she was wife to David de Strabolgie, the fourth of that name, earl of Athol, in Scotland, and daughter of Henry, lord Ferrers, of Groby; and being secondly married to John Malmayns, of this county, died here in this town. Though by a pedigree of the family of Brograve, she is said to marry T. Fogge, esq. of Ashford; if so, he might perhaps have been her third husband. Near her is a memorial for William Whitfield, gent. obt. 1739. The north chancel belonged to Repton manor. In the vault underneath lay three of the family of Tuston, sometime since removed to Rainham, and it has been granted to the Husseys; Thomas Hussey, esq. of this town, died in 1779, and was buried in it. In the south chancel are memorials for the Pattensons, Whitfields, and Apsleys, of this place; and one for Henry Dering, gent. of Shelve, obt. 1752, and Hester his wife; arms, A saltier, a crescent for difference, impaling, on a chevron, between three persons, three crosses, formee; and another memorial for Thomasine, wife of John Handfield, obt. 1704. In the north cross are several antient stones, their brasses all gone, excepting a shield, with the arms of Fogge on one. At the end is a monument for John Norwood, gent. and Mary his wife, of this town, who lie with their children in the vault underneath. The south cross is parted off lengthways, for the family of Smith, lords of Ashford manor, who lie in a vault underneath. In it are three superb monuments, which, not many years since, were beautified and restored to their original state, by the late chief baron Smythe, a descendant of this family. One is for Thomas Smith, esq. of Westenhanger, in 1591; the second for Sir John Smythe, of Ostenhanger, his son, and Elizabeth his wife; and the third for Sir Richard Smyth, of Leeds castle, in 1628: all which have been already mentioned before. Their figures, at full length and proportion, are lying on, each of them, with their several coats of arms and quarterings blazoned. In the other part of this cross, is a memorial for Baptist Pigott, A. M. son of Baptist Pigott, of Dartford, and schoolmaster here, obt. 1657, and at the end of it, is the archbishop's consistory court. In the south isle is a memorial for Thomas Curteis, gent. obt. 1718, and Elizabeth his wife; arms, Curteis impaling Carter. Under the tower is one for Samuel Warren, vicar here forty-eight years, obt. 1720. The three isles were new pewed and handsomely paved in 1745. There are five galleries, and an handsome branch for candles in the middled isle; the whole kept in an excellent state of repair and neatness. There was formerly much curtious painted glass in the windows, particularly the figures of one of the family of Valoyns, his two wives and children, with their arms. In the south window of the cross isle, and in other windows, the figures, kneeling, of king Edward III. the black prince, Richard, duke of Gloucester, the lord Hastings. Sir William Haute, the lord Scales, Richard, earl Rivers, and the dutchess of Bedford his wife, Sir John Fogge, Sir John Peche, Richard Horne, Roger Manstone, and—Guildford, most of which were in the great west window, each habited in their surcoats of arms, not the least traces of which, or of any other coloured glass, are remaining throughout this church. Sir John Goldstone, parson of Ivechurch, as appears by his will in 1503, was buried in the choir of this church, and gave several costly ornaments and vestments for the use of it.
More from the Historic Masters Festival, Brands Hatch. These head-on shots from Druids were all shot through the wire fence.
The "Black Diamond" Corset includes the head of the normal snake and RLV
VENDOR BLACK DIAMOND
Black Diamond this outfit and exclusive for the Darkness Monthly event, includes corset with RLV functionality, bra, shorts, harness, shoes, gloves bento.for Maitreya Belleza Slink, only for this event and a discount of 20%.
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zen%20Soul/213/33/24
ltmoda : maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Nori/52/183/24
Postcard
The Fay Thomas Collection includes family archives relating to the Thomas family. Moses Thomas (1825-1878) was a significant figure in the history of the area now known as the City of Whittlesea, Victoria, Australia. Thomas and Ann and their family lived at "Mayfield", Mernda, Victoria.
Miss Lily Thomas (1871-1946), Thomas and Ann’s fourth daughter lived there all her life. She collected postcards which her family and friends sent her on a very regular basis. It was an easy and enjoyable way to keep in touch. Production of postcards blossomed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Lily’s collection encompasses the so-called Golden Age (1890-1915) with many postmarked 1906-1907. Some were sent to other members of the family.
The collection document the natural landscape as well as the built environment—buildings, gardens, parks, and tourist sites. Topographical Postcards showing street scenes and general views from Australian and international locations, some of which are artistic views. Popular postcard manufacturers such as Tuck’s Postcards are included in the collection.
Decorative cards, many embellished with floral motives (as a nod to the receiver Lily?) and embossing. Greeting cards are common for Christmas, New Year, Easter and of course birthdays.
Regular senders can be identified from Kyneton and the Great Ocean Road area, Victoria and there is a siginifant collection from Scotland (but not sent from there).
YPRL hold digital copies of the Papers of the Moses Thomas Family held at State Library Victoria
Copyright for these images is Public domain but a credit to the Fay Thomas Collection and YPRL would be appreciated.
Enquiries: Yarra Plenty Regional Library
E.K.Yap, the MPA & MPAS multi-award winning photographer, has created many iconic masterpieces and photographed covers & campaigns for influential publications & luxury brands. His projects include Patek Philippe, Breguet, Chopard, Bvlgari, Cartier, Chanel & Franck Muller to name a few.
With his wide-ranging experience in art as a creative director in the advertising & publishing industry, he consistently achieves the best results with his precision skill, specialising in luxury projects particularly jewellery, timepiece, product, interior, portrait & fashion.
PHILOSOPHY
“I'm passionate in capturing more than just a beautiful image, I like to craft an inspiring masterpiece with soul & meaning”
AWARD
Advertising/Advertorial/ Editorial - MPA Far East
Architecture/ Cityscape/ Interior - MPA Far East
Illustrative & Creative - MPA Far East
Fashion - MPA Far East
Still Life - MPA Far East
Best Cover - MPAS
PROJECT
A. Lange & Söhne/ Audemars Piguet/ Azimuth/ Aston Martin/ ABN Ambro/ Arium Collection/ Arcatel/ Anlene/ Aqua Culture/ Adidas/ Aries Gold/ Bvlgari/ Breguet/ Bottega Veneta/ Boucheron/ Blancpain/ Breitling/ Baker Furniture/ BBDO/ Borobudur/ Bonhams/ Berggren Jewellery/ Cartier/ Chanel/ Chopard/ CitiGold/ Carat Club/ CapitaLand/ CLIO/ CEL Development/ Coty/ Confetti by Mui/ Canon/ Dolce & Gabbana/ Distillery/ D Editors/ Dell/ Franck Muller/ Flower Diamonds/ Fujitsu/ Fuchsia Lane/ Farm Best/ Ferrari/ Girard-Perregaux/ Genting/ Green Chapter/ Gucci/ Geyer/ Harry Winston/ Hassell Studio/ Hilton Hotel/ Heeton/ Hublot/ Hassell Studio/ HDB/ Hermès/ I.D.Department/ IWC/ Image Bank/ ICI Duluxe/ Inoue Japan/ Jobstreet/ Jaeger-LeCoultre/ Johnny Walker/ JOID/ Kwanpen/ Krieit Associate/ KrisShop/ KFC/ K-Suites/ Louis Moinet/ Levi’s/ Lalique/ Luminox/ Lloyd’s Asia/ Ladurée/ Lush Radio/ Louis Vuitton/ Leonard Drake/ Livita/ Lifelink/ Manolo Blahnik/ Montblanc/ Mediacorp/ MCL Land/ Mirinda/ Marc Anthony/ Maxis Mobile/ Novetel Hotel/ NTU/ National Geographic/ Omega/ Patek Philippe/ Piaget/ Philips/ Playboy/ Prada/ Pepsi/ Pure Earth/ Richard Mille/ Rolex/ Roger Dubuis/ Resort World Sentosa/ Richemont/ Reebonz/ SkysShop/ Singland/ Splendor/ Sarcar/ Sinn/ Shangri-La Hotel/ SIA/ Shelton/ Sally Hansen/ Skin Science/ StarAsia/ Skin79/ Sally Hansen/ Sports Toto/ Spritzer/ 7-Up/ The Mill/ Tag Heuer/ Tiffany/ Transware/ The Hour Glass/ Tudor/ TV3/ Universal Studio/ Ulysse Nardin/ UOI/ UOB/ Vihari Jewels/ Vacheron Constantin/ Van Cleef & Arpels/ Wild Rice/ Zenith
EDITORIAL
August Man/ Affluent/August Women/ Appetite/ Adore/ Awesome/ Business Time/ Baccarat/ Business Craft/ Crown/ CitaBella/ Esquire/ ELLE/ Fiori/ Golf Vacations/ Harper’s Bazaar/ Inspire Travel/ Jewels & Time/ Jewellery Craft/ L’Official/ Luxury Guide/ Luxury Insider/ Luxx Jewellery/ Legacy of Singapore/ Men’s Folio/ Man Stuff/ OASiS/ Prestige/ Prestige Lifestyle/ Pen Craft/ PC World/ PC Magazine/ Robb Report/ RWS Invites/ Solitaire/ Style/ Tatler/ Tatler Wedding/ Tatler Home/ Time Craft/ TiCTalk/ World of Watches
Hazel Johnson's Bell 47 parked at ranch.
8x10 black-and-white photograph. Image from a scrapbook album belonging to Hazel Smothers, whose aviation highlights include copiloting her plane to 1st place in her class at the 1969 Powder Puff Derby air race, and flying search and rescue missions for the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department in her pink Bell 47 helicopter.
San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive
For over 50 years the San Diego Air & Space Museum (SDASM) www.sandiegoairandspace.org , has preserved the aviation heritage of San Diego and the world, through a unique collection documenting the history of aviation from the dawn of flight to space exploration. Established in 1961, SDASM is one of the largest aviation museums in the nation, housing the third largest aerospace library and archives. The Museum showcases the history of and contributions to society provided by the development and advancement of air and space technology. The Museum experience provides a means for the public to gain a greater understanding of current and projected aerospace efforts that play such a key role in the national economy, our position in a technical and competitive world, and mankind's future exploration. CollectionThe Museum's Library & Archives houses one of the most significant collections of aerospace-related research materials in the world. Materials in the Library & Archives collections exist in a variety of formats, including books, periodicals, films and videos, manuals, drawings, and more. Many of these collections may be searched on the Museum's online catalog, 207.67.203.79/s92006staff/opac Aerocat , and a portion of the Museum's extensive photograph collection, consisting of over 2 million images, is available on www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives at Flickr.com. In addition, several hundred digitized films and videos can be found on the Museum's www.youtube.com/user/sdasmarchives at YouTube.com channel.Image RequestsTo request images or videos for purchase please visit the SDASM website and then contact us at 619-234-8291 x125, or dseracini@sdasm.org. The Museum charges licensing fees for commercial use of these images, which helps fund ongoing efforts to care for our collection.
Information about the works in the Balboa Park Commons is still being researched and made available for public viewing. Much of this data exists in paper records at the Museum. For more information about this work, please email Dseracini@sdasm.org and include the Item ID# of the record in the body of your email.
***SOLD SOLD SOLD SOLD***
£420gbp ($550usd)
Which Includes Worldwide shipping with Tracking, from the U.K
(Insurance is extra if you want it)
~Up for Sale/Trade is my Fairyland Tan Minifee Chloe.
She has a gorgeous face-up by Rakeru Sensei and comes on the Active-Line body, with cutie legs and small chest.
~She will come Nude and Bald. No wigs, eyes or clothes.
~She never came to me with a CoA from her first owner, but she has her original FL box and will come in that, and I can provide some sort of proof of legitimacy if needed <3
~She's in wonderful condition and poses beautifully.
She does have some tiny chipping to the tan colour around her right ankle (The actual resin is Not chipped, just the colour - Please see photo)
...And her Over-All Tan colour is not quite as pink as it was before, but it's not really very noticeable and it doesn't show in photos...Hence my lower asking price.
No other marks/damage that I can see, and I have thoroughly checked her all over <3
***Prefer a Quick Sale A.S.A.P, But I can take a short layaway with a Deposit.
(Flexible - Can be discussed)
***No Holds without a Deposit (Non-Refundable)
***No Splits
***I will Only consider Offers if you can pay in Full
***I will look at a Trade/Part Trade for another Minifee. Preferably Tanned skin, but will look at NS too. Happy to look at Moe-line, but would prefer Active-line or Fairy-line. I'd prefer a faceup, eyes and maybe a wig/extras. But not necessary. I'll happily look at any sculpt, but I may be fussy <3
Other dolls i'm looking for...
~A Reborn Baby Doll - Willing to look at any, but I will be fussy.
(Prefer Full legs & arms, and prefer with a tummy/back plate and rooted hair. Ideally preemie or Newborn size, but happy to look at anything)
~Littlefee Ante Elf version (NS or TS)
~Realfee Pano with Human & Fantasy Parts (NS or TS)
~Pukifee Zoe (NS or TS)
~Camellia Dynasty Sage (Open to Colours and Markings e.t.c),
~SOOM NappyChoo Dalang.
~AileenDoll Violet, Pico Baby Lapis or Pico Baby Rot
(All Ideally with egg, blanket & pacifier!)
~AileenDoll Rot ver.2
~Wings & Connector Parts from the Fairyland R-Line Hippogriff event (Any colour!)
...I may also consider other dolls/parts, especially Fairyland dolls from Pukifee to Minifee Size (maybe F60...but depends on the price you want)
Offers welcome! :)
All dolls must come with their original box and come with CoA or some kind of Proof of Authenticity (if offering a Legit).
I require tracking and full insurance for both parties when shipping (unless I know you and have dealt with you before).
Please message me if interested in Adopting her or if you have any serious enquiries. Thanks so much <3
Includes 3 Versions of each bear type, vanilla, cuffed, and blindfolded!
Taxi: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Puddles/129/129/25
Animation Example: www.flickr.com/photos/154104917@N03/53535926099/in/datepo...
Set include both - bikini top and panties. It is size Medium ( top will fit perfectly for full B, C or D cup). Top and bottom are adjustable.
It is made from mercerized 100 % cotton yarn. It is very comfortable.
A soggy afternoon at Cowdray Polo for the Gold Cup Final. As a major social event, many were dressed up, despite the weather.
eNewsletter 209: 35 Woods Trail by Bernadette Capellaro
It’s warm in Southern California, and that’s exactly the feeling Andy and Liz sought to maintain inside their new Tuscan-style home as they embarked on a modern interior makeover. After all, the couple had two small children and a dog to consider. Empty and austere simply wasn’t a good fit for the young family whose interests include photography, art and lots of Lego’s.
Andy, an engineer, became intrigued with Cantoni after driving past the Irvine location on his daily commute. It wasn’t long before he and Liz decided to venture into the Los Angeles showroom, and that’s where they met Bernadette. By all accounts, the trio made for great collaboration, and the project that began in February 2012 is still a work in progress today.
“We were impressed by Bernadette,” says Andy. “We liked her and her work, and she won us over.”
The project began with pictures sent and an in-home walk-through where measurements were taken. The couple knew they wanted furnishings for the living, dining and family rooms, as well as the media room and a study. They were open to art and accent pieces, and hoped to incorporate natural elements into the mix. Bernadette set to work.
“It was fun touring our LA showroom and listening to Liz and Andy discuss their likes and dislikes. One thing was for sure,” she adds, “the Laguna Sectional was going in their theater room even if we needed to knock out a wall!”
Phase I of the job is complete (as you can see from the stunning images), but instead of parting ways, Andy and Liz decided to have Bernadette help re-imagine the master bedroom and kitchen, next. The ongoing nature of this project illustrates a trend we see with most of our clients: we build trusted, long-term relationships. It’s not about the transaction, but about great design, the design process, and the ability of our talented staff to help clients create the lifestyles they want.
As always, there’s plenty to love about the products seen in our feature stories. To help you shop the look, we’re introducing a Featured Products page via a link to the images in each story. We’ve also redesigned our site to make sourcing and finding that just-right piece a breeze.
To shop the look: cantoni.com/shop/35-woods-trail
To view contact information and a bio on Cantoni LA designer Bernadette Capellaro, or to view more of her remarkable work: cantoni.com/modern-furniture-showroom/cantoni-los-angeles...
The palanquin is a class of wheelless vehicles, a type of human-powered transport, for the transport of persons. Examples of litter vehicles include lectica (ancient Rome), kiệu [轎] (Vietnam), sedan chair (Britain), litera (Spain), palanquin (France, India, Ghana), jiao (China), liteira (Portugal), wo (วอ, Chinese style known as kiao เกี้ยว) (Thailand), gama (Korea), koshi, ren and kago [駕籠] (Japan) and tahtırevan (Turkey).
Smaller litters may take the form of open chairs or beds carried by two or more carriers, some being enclosed for protection from the elements. Larger litters, for example those of the Chinese emperors, may resemble small rooms upon a platform borne upon the shoulders of a dozen or more people. To most efficiently carry a litter, porters will attempt to transfer the load to their shoulders, either by placing the carrying poles upon their shoulders, or the use of a yoke to transfer the load from the carrying poles to the shoulder.
DEFINITIONS
A simple litter, often called a king carrier, consists of a sling attached along its length to poles or stretched inside a frame. The poles or frame are carried by porters in front and behind. Such simple litters are common on battlefields and emergency situations, where terrain prohibits wheeled vehicles from carrying away the dead and wounded.
Litters can also be created by the expedient of the lashing of poles to a chair. Such litters, consisting of a simple cane chair with maybe an umbrella to ward off the elements and two stout bamboo poles, may still be found in Chinese mountain resorts such as the Huangshan Mountains to carry tourists along scenic paths and to viewing positions inaccessible by other means of transport.
A more luxurious version consists of a bed or couch, sometimes enclosed by curtains, for the passenger or passengers to lie on. These are carried by at least two porters in equal numbers in front and behind, using wooden rails that pass through brackets on the sides of the couch. The largest and heaviest types would be carried by draught animals.
Another form, commonly called a sedan chair, consists of a chair or windowed cabin suitable for a single occupant, also carried by at least two porters in front and behind, using wooden rails that pass through brackets on the sides of the chair. These porters were known in London as "chairmen". These have been very rare since the 19th century, but such enclosed portable litters have been used as an elite form of transport for centuries, especially in cultures where women are kept secluded.
Sedan chairs, in use until the 19th century, were accompanied at night by link-boys who carried torches. Where possible, the link boys escorted the fares to the chairmen, the passengers then being delivered to the door of their lodgings. Several houses in Bath, Somerset, England still have the link extinguishers on the exteriors, shaped like outsized candle snuffers. In the 1970s, entrepreneur and Bathwick resident, John Cuningham, revived the sedan chair service business for a brief amount of time.
ANTIQUITY
In pharaonic Egypt and many oriental realms such as China, the ruler and divinities (in the form of an idol) were often transported in a litter in public, frequently in procession, as during state ceremonial or religious festivals.
The ancient Hebrews fashioned the Ark of the Covenant to resemble and function as a litter for the ten commandments and presence of God.
In Ancient Rome, a litter called lectica or "sella" often carried members of the imperial family, as well as other dignitaries and other members of the rich elite, when not mounted on horseback.
The habit must have proven quite persistent, for the Third Council of Braga in 675 AD saw the need to order that bishops, when carrying the relics of martyrs in procession, must walk to the church, and not be carried in a chair, or litter, by deacons clothed in white.
In the Catholic Church, Popes were carried the same way in Sedia gestatoria, which was replaced later by the Popemobile.
IN ASIA
CHINA
In Han China the elite travelled in light bamboo seats supported on a carrier's back like a backpack. In the Northern Wei Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties, wooden carriages on poles appear in painted landscape scrolls.
A commoner used a wooden or bamboo civil litter (Chinese: 民轎; pinyin: min2 jiao4), while the mandarin class used an official litter (Chinese: 官轎; pinyin: guan1 jiao4) enclosed in silk curtains.
The chair with perhaps the greatest importance was the bridal chair. A traditional bride is carried to her wedding ceremony by a "shoulder carriage" (Chinese: 肩輿; pinyin: jiān yú), usually hired. These were lacquered in an auspicious shade of red, richly ornamented and gilded, and were equipped with red silk curtains to screen the bride from onlookers.
Sedan chairs were once the only public conveyance in Hong Kong, filling the role of cabs. Chair stands were found at all hotels, wharves, and major crossroads. Public chairs were licensed, and charged according to tariffs which would be displayed inside. Private chairs were an important marker of a person's status. Civil officers' status was denoted by the number of bearers attached to his chair. Before Hong Kong's Peak Tram went into service in 1888, wealthy residents of The Peak were carried on sedan chairs by coolies up the steep paths to their residence including Sir Richard MacDonnell's (former Governor of Hong Kong) summer home, where they could take advantage of the cooler climate. Since 1975 an annual sedan chair race has been held to benefit the Matilda International Hospital and commemorate the practice of earlier days.
KOREA
In Korea, royalty and aristocrats were carried in wooden litters called gama. Gamas were primarily used by royalty and government officials. There were six types of gama, each assigned to different government official rankings. In traditional weddings, the bride and groom are carried to the ceremony in separate gamas. Because of the difficulties posed by the mountainous terrain of the Korean peninsula and the lack of paved roads, gamas were preferred over wheeled vehicles.
JAPAN
As the population of Japan increased, less and less land was available as grazing for the upkeep of horses. With the availability of horses restricted to martial uses, human powered transport became more important and prevalent.
Kago (Kanji: 駕籠, Hiragana: かご) were often used in Japan to transport the non-samurai citizen. Norimono were used by the warrior class and nobility, most famously during the Tokugawa period when regional samurai were required to spend a part of the year in Edo (Tokyo) with their families, resulting in yearly migrations of the rich and powerful (Sankin-kōtai) to and from the capital along the central backbone road of Japan.
Somewhat similar in appearance to kago are the portable shrines that are used to carry the "god-body" (goshintai), the central totemic core normally found in the most sacred area of Shinto Shrines, on a tour to and from a shrine during some religious festivals.
THAILAND
In Thailand, the royalty were also carried in wooden litters called wo ("พระวอ" Phra Wo, literally, "Royal Sedan") for large ceremonies. Wos were elaborately decorated litters that were delicately carved and colored by gold leaves. Stained glass is also used to decorate the litters. Presently, Royal Wos and carriages are only used for royal ceremonies in Thailand. They are exhibited in the Bangkok National Museum.
INDONESIA
In traditional Javanese society, the generic palanquin or joli was a wicker chair with a canopy, attached to two poles, and borne on men's shoulders, and was available for hire to any paying customer. As a status marker, gilded throne-like palanquins, or jempana, were originally reserved solely for royalty, and later co-opted by the Dutch, as a status marker: the more elaborate the palanquin, the higher the status of the owner. The joli was transported either by hired help, by nobles' peasants, or by slaves.
Historically, the palanquin of a Javanese king (raja), prince (pangeran), lord (raden mas) or other noble (bangsawan) was known as a jempana; a more throne-like version was called a pangkem. It was always part of a large military procession, with a yellow (the Javanese colour for royalty) square canopy. The ceremonial parasol (payung) was held above the palanquin, which was carried by a bearer behind and flanked by the most loyal bodyguards, usually about 12 men, with pikes, sabres, lances, muskets, keris and a variety of disguised blades. In contrast, the canopy of the Sumatran palanquin was oval-shaped and draped in white cloth; this was reflective of greater cultural permeation by Islam. Occasionally, a weapon or heirloom, such as an important keris or tombak, was given its own palanquin. In Hindu culture in Bali today, the tradition of using palanquins for auspicious statues, weapons or heirlooms continues, for funerals especially; in more elaborate rituals, a palanquin is used to bear the body, and is subsequently cremated along with the departed.
INDIA
A palanquin, also known as palkhi, is a covered sedan chair (or litter) carried on four poles. It derives from the Sanskrit word for a bed or couch, pa:lanka.
Palanquins are mentioned in literature as early as the Ramayana (c. 250BC).
Palanquins began to fall out of use after rickshaws (on wheels, more practical) were introduced in the 1930s.
The doli (also transliterated from Hindi as dhooly or dhoolie) is a cot or frame, suspended by the four corners from a bamboo pole. Two or four men would carry it. In the time of the British in India, dhooly-bearers were used to carry the wounded from the battlefield and transport them.
Today in numerous areas of India including at the Hindu pilgrimage site of Amarnath Temple in Kashmir, palanquins can be hired to carry the customer up steep hills.
IN AFRICA
GHANA
In Southern Ghana the Akan and the Ga-Dangme carry their chiefs and kings in palanquins when they appear in their state durbars. When used in such occasions these palanquins may be seen as a substitutes of a state coach in Europe or a horse used in Northern Ghana. The chiefs of the Ga (mantsemei) in the Greater Accra Region (Ghana) use also figurative palanquins which are built after a chief's family symbol or totem. But these day the figurative palanquins are very seldom used. They are related with the figurative coffins which have become very popular among the Ga in the last 50 years. Since these figurative coffins were shown 1989 in the exhibition "Les magicians de la terre" in the Centre Pompidou in Paris they were shown in many art museums around the world.
ANGOLA
From at least the 15th century until the 19th century, litters of varying types known as tipoye were used in the Kingdom of Kongo as a mode of transportation for the elites. Seat-style litters with a single pole along the back of the chair carried by two men (usually slaves) were topped with an umbrella. Lounge-style litters in the shape of a bed were used to move one to two people with porter at each corner. Due to the tropical climate, horse were not native to the area nor could they survive very ong once introduced by the Portuguese. Human portage was the only mode of transportation in the region and became highly adept with missionary accounts claiming the litter transporters could move at speeds 'as fast as post horses at the gallop'.
IN THE WEST
EUROPE
Portuguese and Spanish navigators and colonistics encountered litters of various sorts in India, Mexico, and Peru. They were imported into Spain and spread into France and then Britain. All the names for these devices are ultimately derived from the root sed- in Latin sedere, "sit," which gave rise to seda ("seat") and its diminutive sedula ("little seat"), the latter of which was contracted to sella, the traditional Latin name for a carried chair.The carried chair met instant success in Europe, whose city streets were often a literal mess of mud and refuse: Where cities and towns did not enjoy the presence of sewage systems left over from Imperial Roman days, it was common to empty chamber pots and discard kitchen refuse from windows down into the adjacent streets. Affluent and well-to-do citizens often found it hazardous and impractical to negotiate those avenues, and sedan chairs allowed them to remain prim and spotless while the carrying valets had to contend with the mud and the filth.In Europe, Henry VIII of England was carried around in a sedan chair — it took four strong chairmen to carry him towards the end of his life — but the expression "sedan chair" was not used in print until 1615. It does not seem to take its name from the city of Sedan. Trevor Fawcett notes (see link) that British travellers Fynes Moryson (in 1594) and John Evelyn (in 1644-5) remarked on the seggioli of Naples and Genoa, which were chairs for public hire slung from poles and carried on the shoulders of two porters.From the mid-17th century, visitors taking the waters at Bath would be conveyed in a chair enclosed in baize curtains, especially if they had taken a heated bath and were going straight to bed to sweat. The curtains kept off a possibly fatal draft. These were not the proper sedan chairs "to carry the better sort of people in visits, or if sick or infirmed" (Celia Fiennes). In the 17th and 18th centuries, the chairs stood in the main hall of a well-appointed city residence, where a lady could enter and be carried to her destination without setting foot in a filthy street. The neoclassical sedan chair made for Queen Charlotte remains at Buckingham Palace.
By the mid-17th century, sedans for hire were a common mode of transportation. In London, "chairs" were available for hire in 1634, each assigned a number and the chairmen licensed because the operation was a monopoly of a courtier of Charles I. Sedan chairs could pass in streets too narrow for a carriage and were meant to alleviate the crush of coaches in London streets, an early instance of traffic congestion. A similar system was later used in Scotland. In 1738, a fare system was established for Scottish sedans, and the regulations covering chairmen in Bath are reminiscent of the modern Taxi Commission's rules. A trip within a city cost six pence and a day's rental was four shillings. A sedan was even used as an ambulance in Scotland's Royal Infirmary.
Chairmen moved at a good clip. In Bath they had the right-of-way and pedestrians hearing "By your leave" behind them knew to flatten themselves against walls or railings as the chairmen hustled through. There were often disastrous accidents, upset chairs, and broken glass-paned windows.
Sedan chairs were also used by the wealthy in the cities of colonial America. Benjamin Franklin used a sedan chair late in the 18th century.
COLONIAL PRACTICE
In various colonies, litters of various types were maintained under native traditions, but often adopted by the white colonials as a new ruling and/or socio-economic elite, either for practical reasons (often comfortable modern transport was unavailable, e.g. for lack of decent roads) and/or as a status symbol. During the 17-18th centuries, palanquins (see above) were very popular among European traders in Bengal, so much so that in 1758 an order was issued prohibiting their purchase by certain lower-ranking employees.
THE END OF A TRADITION
In Great Britain, in the early 19th century, the public sedan chair began to fall out of use, perhaps because streets were better paved or perhaps because of the rise of the more comfortable, companionable and affordable hackney carriage. In Glasgow, the decline of the sedan chair is illustrated by licensing records which show twenty-seven sedan chairs in 1800, eighteen in 1817, and ten in 1828. During that same period the number of registered hackney carriages in Glasgow rose to one hundred and fifty.
THE TRAVELING SILLA OF LATIN AMERICA
A similar but simpler palanquin was used by the elite in parts of 18th- and 19th-century Latin America. Often simply called a silla (Spanish for seat or chair), it consisted of a simple wooden chair with an attached tumpline. The occupant sat in the chair, which was then affixed to the back of a single porter, with the tumpline supported by his head. The occupant thus faced backwards during travel. This style of palanquin was probably due to the steep terrain and rough or narrow roads unsuitable to European-style sedan chairs. Travellers by silla usually employed a number of porters, who would alternate carrying the occupant.
A chair borne on the back of a porter, almost identical to the silla, is used in the mountains of China for ferrying older tourists and visitors up and down the mountain paths. One of these mountains where the silla is still used is the Huangshan Mountains of Anhui province in Eastern China.
WIKIPEDIA
The Ajanta Caves (Ajiṇṭhā leni; Marathi: अजिंठा लेणी) in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, India are about 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 or 650 CE. The caves include paintings and sculptures described by the government Archaeological Survey of India as "the finest surviving examples of Indian art, particularly painting", which are masterpieces of Buddhist religious art, with figures of the Buddha and depictions of the Jataka tales. The caves were built in two phases starting around the 2nd century BCE, with the second group of caves built around 400–650 CE according to older accounts, or all in a brief period of 460 to 480 according to the recent proposals of Walter M. Spink. The site is a protected monument in the care of the Archaeological Survey of India, and since 1983, the Ajanta Caves have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The caves are located in the Indian state of Maharashtra, near Jalgaon and just outside the village of Ajinṭhā 20°31′56″N 75°44′44″E), about 59 kilometres from Jalgaon railway station on the Delhi – Mumbai line and Howrah-Nagpur-Mumbai line of the Central Railway zone, and 104 kilometres from the city of Aurangabad. They are 100 kilometres from the Ellora Caves, which contain Hindu and Jain temples as well as Buddhist caves, the last dating from a period similar to Ajanta. The Ajanta caves are cut into the side of a cliff that is on the south side of a U-shaped gorge on the small river Waghur, and although they are now along and above a modern pathway running across the cliff they were originally reached by individual stairs or ladders from the side of the river 35 to 110 feet below.
The area was previously heavily forested, and after the site ceased to be used the caves were covered by jungle until accidentally rediscovered in 1819 by a British officer on a hunting party. They are Buddhist monastic buildings, apparently representing a number of distinct "monasteries" or colleges. The caves are numbered 1 to 28 according to their place along the path, beginning at the entrance. Several are unfinished and some barely begun and others are small shrines, included in the traditional numbering as e.g. "9A"; "Cave 15A" was still hidden under rubble when the numbering was done. Further round the gorge are a number of waterfalls, which when the river is high are audible from outside the caves.
The caves form the largest corpus of early Indian wall-painting; other survivals from the area of modern India are very few, though they are related to 5th-century paintings at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka. The elaborate architectural carving in many caves is also very rare, and the style of the many figure sculptures is highly local, found only at a few nearby contemporary sites, although the Ajanta tradition can be related to the later Hindu Ellora Caves and other sites.
HISTORY
Like the other ancient Buddhist monasteries, Ajanta had a large emphasis on teaching, and was divided into several different caves for living, education and worship, under a central direction. Monks were probably assigned to specific caves for living. The layout reflects this organizational structure, with most of the caves only connected through the exterior. The 7th-century travelling Chinese scholar Xuanzang informs us that Dignaga, a celebrated Buddhist philosopher and controversialist, author of well-known books on logic, lived at Ajanta in the 5th century. In its prime the settlement would have accommodated several hundred teachers and pupils. Many monks who had finished their first training may have returned to Ajanta during the monsoon season from an itinerant lifestyle.
The caves are generally agreed to have been made in two distinct periods, separated by several centuries.
CAVES OF THE FIRST (SATAVAHANA) PERIOD
The earliest group of caves consists of caves 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15A. According to Walter Spink, they were made during the period 100 BCE to 100 CE, probably under the patronage of the Satavahana dynasty (230 BCE – c. 220 CE) who ruled the region. Other datings prefer the period 300 BCE to 100 BCE, though the grouping of the earlier caves is generally agreed. More early caves may have vanished through later excavations. Of these, caves 9 and 10 are stupa halls of chaitya-griha form, and caves 12, 13, and 15A are vihāras (see the architecture section below for descriptions of these types). The first phase is still often called the Hinayāna phase, as it originated when, using traditional terminology, the Hinayāna or Lesser Vehicle tradition of Buddhism was dominant, when the Buddha was revered symbolically. However the use of the term Hinayana for this period of Buddhism is now deprecated by historians; equally the caves of the second period are now mostly dated too early to be properly called Mahayana, and do not yet show the full expanded cast of supernatural beings characteristic of that phase of Buddhist art. The first Satavahana period caves lacked figurative sculpture, emphasizing the stupa instead, and in the caves of the second period the overwhelming majority of images represent the Buddha alone, or narrative scenes of his lives.
Spink believes that some time after the Satavahana period caves were made the site was abandoned for a considerable period until the mid-5th century, probably because the region had turned mainly Hindu
CAVES OF THE LATER OR VAKATAKA PERIOD
The second phase began in the 5th century. For a long time it was thought that the later caves were made over a long period from the 4th to the 7th centuries CE, but in recent decades a series of studies by the leading expert on the caves, Walter M. Spink, have argued that most of the work took place over the very brief period from 460 to 480 CE, during the reign of Emperor Harishena of the Vakataka dynasty. This view has been criticized by some scholars, but is now broadly accepted by most authors of general books on Indian art, for example Huntington and Harle.
The second phase is still often called the Mahāyāna or Greater Vehicle phase, but scholars now tend to avoid this nomenclature because of the problems that have surfaced regarding our understanding of Mahāyāna.
Some 20 cave temples were simultaneously created, for the most part viharas with a sanctuary at the back. The most elaborate caves were produced in this period, which included some "modernization" of earlier caves. Spink claims that it is possible to establish dating for this period with a very high level of precision; a fuller account of his chronology is given below. Although debate continues, Spink's ideas are increasingly widely accepted, at least in their broad conclusions. The Archaeological Survey of India website still presents the traditional dating: "The second phase of paintings started around 5th – 6th centuries A.D. and continued for the next two centuries". Caves of the second period are 1–8, 11, 14–29, some possibly extensions of earlier caves. Caves 19, 26, and 29 are chaitya-grihas, the rest viharas.
According to Spink, the Ajanta Caves appear to have been abandoned by wealthy patrons shortly after the fall of Harishena, in about 480 CE. They were then gradually abandoned and forgotten. During the intervening centuries, the jungle grew back and the caves were hidden, unvisited and undisturbed, although the local population were aware of at least some of them.
REDISCOVERY
On 28 April 1819, a British officer for the Madras Presidency, John Smith, of the 28th Cavalry, while hunting tiger, accidentally discovered the entrance to Cave No. 10 deep within the tangled undergrowth. There were local people already using the caves for prayers with a small fire, when he arrived. Exploring that first cave, long since a home to nothing more than birds and bats and a lair for other larger animals, Captain Smith vandalized the wall by scratching his name and the date, April 1819. Since he stood on a five-foot high pile of rubble collected over the years, the inscription is well above the eye-level gaze of an adult today. A paper on the caves by William Erskine was read to the Bombay Literary Society in 1822. Within a few decades, the caves became famous for their exotic setting, impressive architecture, and above all their exceptional, all but unique paintings. A number of large projects to copy the paintings were made in the century after rediscovery, covered below. In 1848 the Royal Asiatic Society established the "Bombay Cave Temple Commission" to clear, tidy and record the most important rock-cut sites in the Bombay Presidency, with John Wilson, as president. In 1861 this became the nucleus of the new Archaeological Survey of India. Until the Nizam of Hyderabad built the modern path between the caves, among other efforts to make the site easy to visit, a trip to Ajanta was a considerable adventure, and contemporary accounts dwell with relish on the dangers from falls off narrow ledges, animals and the Bhil people, who were armed with bows and arrows and had a fearsome reputation.
Today, fairly easily combined with Ellora in a single trip, the caves are the most popular tourist destination in Mahrashtra, and are often crowded at holiday times, increasing the threat to the caves, especially the paintings. In 2012, the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation announced plans to add to the ASI visitor centre at the entrance complete replicas of caves 1, 2, 16 & 17 to reduce crowding in the originals, and enable visitors to receive a better visual idea of the paintings, which are dimly-lit and hard to read in the caves. Figures for the year to March 2010 showed a total of 390,000 visitors to the site, divided into 362,000 domestic and 27,000 foreign. The trends over the previous few years show a considerable growth in domestic visitors, but a decline in foreign ones; the year to 2010 was the first in which foreign visitors to Ellora exceeded those to Ajanta.
PAINTINGS
Mural paintings survive from both the earlier and later groups of caves. Several fragments of murals preserved from the earlier caves (Caves 9 and 11) are effectively unique survivals of court-led painting in India from this period, and "show that by Sātavāhana times, if not earlier, the Indian painter had mastered an easy and fluent naturalistic style, dealing with large groups of people in a manner comparable to the reliefs of the Sāñcī toraņa crossbars".
Four of the later caves have large and relatively well-preserved mural paintings which "have come to represent Indian mural painting to the non-specialist", and fall into two stylistic groups, with the most famous in Caves 16 and 17, and apparently later paintings in Caves 1 and 2. The latter group were thought to be a century or more later than the others, but the revised chronology proposed by Spink would place them much closer to the earlier group, perhaps contemporary with it in a more progressive style, or one reflecting a team from a different region. The paintings are in "dry fresco", painted on top of a dry plaster surface rather than into wet plaster.
All the paintings appear to be the work of painters at least as used to decorating palaces as temples, and show a familiarity with and interest in details of the life of a wealthy court. We know from literary sources that painting was widely practised and appreciated in the courts of the Gupta period. Unlike much Indian painting, compositions are not laid out in horizontal compartments like a frieze, but show large scenes spreading in all directions from a single figure or group at the centre. The ceilings are also painted with sophisticated and elaborate decorative motifs, many derived from sculpture. The paintings in cave 1, which according to Spink was commissioned by Harisena himself, concentrate on those Jataka tales which show previous lives of the Buddha as a king, rather than as an animal or human commoner, and so show settings from contemporary palace life.
In general the later caves seem to have been painted on finished areas as excavating work continued elsewhere in the cave, as shown in caves 2 and 16 in particular. According to Spink's account of the chronology of the caves, the abandonment of work in 478 after a brief busy period accounts for the absence of painting in caves such as 4 and 17, the later being plastered in preparation for paintings that were never done.
COPIES
The paintings have deteriorated significantly since they were rediscovered, and a number of 19th-century copies and drawings are important for a complete understanding of the works. However, the earliest projects to copy the paintings were plagued by bad fortune. In 1846, Major Robert Gill, an Army officer from Madras presidency and a painter, was appointed by the Royal Asiatic Society to replicate the frescoes on the cave walls to exhibit these paintings in England. Gill worked on his painting at the site from 1844 to 1863 (though he continued to be based there until his death in 1875, writing books and photographing) and made 27 copies of large sections of murals, but all but four were destroyed in a fire at the Crystal Palace in London in 1866, where they were on display.
Another attempt was made in 1872 when the Bombay Presidency commissioned John Griffiths, then principal of the Bombay School of Art, to work with his students to make new copies, again for shipping to England. They worked on this for thirteen years and some 300 canvases were produced, many of which were displayed at the Imperial Institute on Exhibition Road in London, one of the forerunners of the Victoria and Albert Museum. But in 1885 another fire destroyed over a hundred paintings that were in storage. The V&A still has 166 paintings surviving from both sets, though none have been on permanent display since 1955. The largest are some 3 × 6 metres. A conservation project was undertaken on about half of them in 2006, also involving the University of Northumbria. Griffith and his students had unfortunately painted many of the paintings with "cheap varnish" in order to make them easier to see, which has added to the deterioration of the originals, as has, according to Spink and others, recent cleaning by the ASI.
A further set of copies were made between 1909 and 1911 by Christiana Herringham (Lady Herringham) and a group of students from the Calcutta School of Art that included the future Indian Modernist painter Nandalal Bose. The copies were published in full colour as the first publication of London's fledgling India Society. More than the earlier copies, these aimed to fill in holes and damage to recreate the original condition rather than record the state of the paintings as she was seeing them. According to one writer, unlike the paintings created by her predecessors Griffiths and Gill, whose copies were influenced by British Victorian styles of painting, those of the Herringham expedition preferred an 'Indian Renascence' aesthetic of the type pioneered by Abanindranath Tagore.
Early photographic surveys were made by Robert Gill, who learnt to use a camera from about 1856, and whose photos, including some using stereoscopy, were used in books by him and Fergusson (many are available online from the British Library), then Victor Goloubew in 1911 and E.L. Vassey, who took the photos in the four volume study of the caves by Ghulam Yazdani (published 1930–1955).
ARCHITECTURE
The monasteries mostly consist of vihara halls for prayer and living, which are typically rectangular with small square dormitory cells cut into the walls, and by the second period a shrine or sanctuary at the rear centred on a large statue of the Buddha, also carved from the living rock. This change reflects the movement from Hinayana to Mahāyāna Buddhism. The other type of main hall is the narrower and higher chaitya hall with a stupa as the focus at the far end, and a narrow aisle around the walls, behind a range of pillars placed close together. Other plainer rooms were for sleeping and other activities. Some of the caves have elaborate carved entrances, some with large windows over the door to admit light. There is often a colonnaded porch or verandah, with another space inside the doors running the width of the cave.
The central square space of the interior of the viharas is defined by square columns forming a more or less square open area. Outside this are long rectangular aisles on each side, forming a kind of cloister. Along the side and rear walls are a number of small cells entered by a narrow doorway; these are roughly square, and have small niches on their back walls. Originally they had wooden doors. The centre of the rear wall has a larger shrine-room behind, containing a large Buddha statue. The viharas of the earlier period are much simpler, and lack shrines. Spink in fact places the change to a design with a shrine to the middle of the second period, with many caves being adapted to add a shrine in mid-excavation, or after the original phase.
The plan of Cave 1 shows one of the largest viharas, but is fairly typical of the later group. Many others, such as Cave 16, lack the vestibule to the shrine, which leads straight off the main hall. Cave 6 is two viharas, one above the other, connected by internal stairs, with sanctuaries on both levels.
The four completed chaitya halls are caves 9 and 10 from the early period, and caves 19 and 26 from the later period of construction. All follow the typical form found elsewhere, with high ceilings and a central "nave" leading to the stupa, which is near the back, but allows walking behind it, as walking around stupas was (and remains) a common element of Buddhist worship (pradakshina). The later two have high ribbed roofs, which reflect timber forms, and the earlier two are thought to have used actual timber ribs, which have now perished. The two later halls have a rather unusual arrangement (also found in Cave 10 at Ellora) where the stupa is fronted by a large relief sculpture of the Buddha, standing in Cave 19 and seated in Cave 26. Cave 29 is a late and very incomplete chaitya hall.
The form of columns in the work of the first period is very plain and un-embellished, with both chaitya halls using simple octagonal columns, which were painted with figures. In the second period columns were far more varied and inventive, often changing profile over their height, and with elaborate carved capitals, often spreading wide. Many columns are carved over all their surface, some fluted and others carved with decoration all over, as in cave 1.
The flood basalt rock of the cliff, part of the Deccan Traps formed by successive volcanic eruptions at the end of the Cretaceous, is layered horizontally, and somewhat variable in quality, so the excavators had to amend their plans in places, and in places there have been collapses in the intervening centuries, as with the lost portico to cave 1. Excavation began by cutting a narrow tunnel at roof level, which was expanded downwards and outwards; the half-built vihara cave 24 shows the method. Spink believes that for the first caves of the second period the excavators had to relearn skills and techniques that had been lost in the centuries since the first period, which were then transmitted to be used at later rock-cut sites in the region, such as Ellora, and the Elephanta, Bagh, Badami and Aurangabad Caves.
The caves from the first period seem to have been paid for by a number of different patrons, with several inscriptions recording the donation of particular portions of a single cave, but according to Spink the later caves were each commissioned as a complete unit by a single patron from the local rulers or their court elites. After the death of Harisena smaller donors got their chance to add small "shrinelets" between the caves or add statues to existing caves, and some two hundred of these "intrusive" additions were made in sculpture, with a further number of intrusive paintings, up to three hundred in cave 10 alone.
A grand gateway to the site, at the apex of the gorge's horsehoe between caves 15 and 16, was approached from the river, and is decorated with elephants on either side and a nāga, or protective snake deity.
ICONOGRAPHY OF THE CAVES
In the pre-Christian era, the Buddha was represented symbolically, in the form of the stupa. Thus, halls were made with stupas to venerate the Buddha. In later periods the images of the Buddha started to be made in coins, relic caskets, relief or loose sculptural forms, etc. However, it took a while for the human representation of the Buddha to appear in Buddhist art. One of the earliest evidences of the Buddha's human representations are found at Buddhist archaeological sites, such as Goli, Nagarjunakonda, and Amaravati. The monasteries of those sites were built in less durable media, such as wood, brick, and stone. As far as the genre of rock-cut architecture is concerned it took many centuries for the Buddha image to be depicted. Nobody knows for sure at which rock-cut cave site the first image of the Buddha was depicted. Current research indicates that Buddha images in a portable form, made of wood or stone, were introduced, for the first time, at Kanheri, to be followed soon at Ajanta Cave 8 (Dhavalikar, Jadhav, Spink, Singh). While the Kanheri example dates to 4th or 5th century CE, the Ajanta example has been dated to c. 462–478 CE (Spink). None of the rock-cut monasteries prior to these dates, and other than these examples, show any Buddha image although hundreds of rock-cut caves were made throughout India during the first few centuries CE. And, in those caves, it is the stupa that is the object of veneration, not the image. Images of the Buddha are not found in Buddhist sailagrhas (rock-cut complexes) until the times of the Kanheri (4th–5th century CE) and Ajanta examples (c. 462–478 CE).
The caves of the second period, now all dated to the 5th century, were typically described as "Mahayana", but do not show the features associated with later Mahayana Buddhism. Although the beginnings of Mahāyāna teachings go back to the 1st century there is little art and archaeological evidence to suggest that it became a mainstream cult for several centuries. In Mahayana it is not Gautama Buddha but the Bodhisattva who is important, including "deity" Bodhisattva like Manjushri and Tara, as well as aspects of the Buddha such as Aksobhya, and Amitabha. Except for a few Bodhisattva, these are not depicted at Ajanta, where the Buddha remains the dominant figure. Even the Bodhisattva images of Ajanta are never central objects of worship, but are always shown as attendants of the Buddha in the shrine. If a Bodhisattva is shown in isolation, as in the Astabhaya scenes, these were done in the very last years of activities at Ajanta, and are mostly 'intrusive' in nature, meaning that they were not planned by the original patrons, and were added by new donors after the original patrons had suddenly abandoned the region in the wake of Emperor Harisena's death.
The contrast between iconic and aniconic representations, that is, the stupa on one hand and the image of the Buddha on the other, is now being seen as a construct of the modern scholar rather than a reality of the past. The second phase of Ajanta shows that the stupa and image coincided together. If the entire corpus of the art of Ajanta including sculpture, iconography, architecture, epigraphy, and painting are analysed afresh it will become clear that there was no duality between the symbolic and human forms of the Buddha, as far as the 5th-century phase of Ajanta is concerned. That is why most current scholars tend to avoid the terms 'Hinayana' and 'Mahayana' in the context of Ajanta. They now prefer to call the second phase by the ruling dynasty, as the Vākāţaka phase.
CAVES
CAVE 1
Cave 1 was built on the eastern end of the horse-shoe shaped scarp, and is now the first cave the visitor encounters. This would when first made have been a less prominent position, right at the end of the row. According to Spink, it is one of the latest caves to have been excavated, when the best sites had been taken, and was never fully inaugurated for worship by the dedication of the Buddha image in the central shrine. This is shown by the absence of sooty deposits from butter lamps on the base of the shrine image, and the lack of damage to the paintings that would have been happened if the garland-hooks around the shrine had been in use for any period of time. Although there is no epigraphic evidence, Spink believes that the Vākāţaka Emperor Harishena was the benefactor of the work, and this is reflected in the emphasis on imagery of royalty in the cave, with those Jakata tales being selected that tell of those previous lives of the Buddha in which he was royal.
The cliff has a more steep slope here than at other caves, so to achieve a tall grand facade it was necessary to cut far back into the slope, giving a large courtyard in front of the facade. There was originally a columned portico in front of the present facade, which can be seen "half-intact in the 1880s" in pictures of the site, but this fell down completely and the remains, despite containing fine carving, were carelessly thrown down the slope into the river, from where they have been lost, presumably carried away in monsoon torrents.
This cave has one of the most elaborate carved façades, with relief sculptures on entablature and ridges, and most surfaces embellished with decorative carving. There are scenes carved from the life of the Buddha as well as a number of decorative motifs. A two pillared portico, visible in the 19th-century photographs, has since perished. The cave has a front-court with cells fronted by pillared vestibules on either side. These have a high plinth level. The cave has a porch with simple cells on both ends. The absence of pillared vestibules on the ends suggest that the porch was not excavated in the latest phase of Ajanta when pillared vestibules had become a necessity and norm. Most areas of the porch were once covered with murals, of which many fragments remain, especially on the ceiling. There are three doorways: a central doorway and two side doorways. Two square windows were carved between the doorways to brighten the interiors.
Each wall of the hall inside is nearly 12 m long and 6.1 m high. Twelve pillars make a square colonnade inside supporting the ceiling, and creating spacious aisles along the walls. There is a shrine carved on the rear wall to house an impressive seated image of the Buddha, his hands being in the dharmachakrapravartana mudra. There are four cells on each of the left, rear, and the right walls, though due to rock fault there are none at the ends of the rear aisle. The walls are covered with paintings in a fair state of preservation, though the full scheme was never completed. The scenes depicted are mostly didactic, devotional, and ornamental, with scenes from the Jataka stories of the Buddha's former existences as a bodhisattva), the life of the Gautama Buddha, and those of his veneration. The two most famous individual painted images at Ajanta are the two over-life size figures of the protective bodhisattvas Padmapani and Vajrapani on either side of the entrance to the Buddha shrine on the wall of the rear aisle (see illustrations above). According to Spink, the original dating of the paintings to about 625 arose largely or entirely because James Fegusson, a 19th-century architectural historian, had decided that a scene showing an ambassador being received, with figures in Persian dress, represented a recorded embassy to Persia (from a Hindu monarch at that) around that date.
CAVE 2
Cave 2, adjacent to Cave 1, is known for the paintings that have been preserved on its walls, ceilings, and pillars. It looks similar to Cave 1 and is in a better state of preservation.
Cave 2 has a porch quite different from Cave one. Even the façade carvings seem to be different. The cave is supported by robust pillars, ornamented with designs. The front porch consists of cells supported by pillared vestibules on both ends. The cells on the previously "wasted areas" were needed to meet the greater housing requirements in later years. Porch-end cells became a trend in all later Vakataka excavations. The simple single cells on porch-ends were converted into CPVs or were planned to provide more room, symmetry, and beauty.
The paintings on the ceilings and walls of this porch have been widely published. They depict the Jataka tales that are stories of the Buddha's life in former existences as Bodhisattva. Just as the stories illustrated in cave 1 emphasize kingship, those in cave 2 show many "noble and powerful" women in prominent roles, leading to suggestions that the patron was an unknown woman. The porch's rear wall has a doorway in the center, which allows entrance to the hall. On either side of the door is a square-shaped window to brighten the interior.
The hall has four colonnades which are supporting the ceiling and surrounding a square in the center of the hall. Each arm or colonnade of the square is parallel to the respective walls of the hall, making an aisle in between. The colonnades have rock-beams above and below them. The capitals are carved and painted with various decorative themes that include ornamental, human, animal, vegetative, and semi-divine forms.
Paintings appear on almost every surface of the cave except for the floor. At various places the art work has become eroded due to decay and human interference. Therefore, many areas of the painted walls, ceilings, and pillars are fragmentary. The painted narratives of the Jataka tales are depicted only on the walls, which demanded the special attention of the devotee. They are didactic in nature, meant to inform the community about the Buddha's teachings and life through successive rebirths. Their placement on the walls required the devotee to walk through the aisles and 'read' the narratives depicted in various episodes. The narrative episodes are depicted one after another although not in a linear order. Their identification has been a core area of research since the site's rediscovery in 1819. Dieter Schlingloff's identifications have updated our knowledge on the subject.
CAVE 4
The Archeological Survey of India board outside the caves gives the following detail about cave 4: "This is the largest monastery planned on a grandiose scale but was never finished. An inscription on the pedestal of the buddha's image mentions that it was a gift from a person named Mathura and paleographically belongs to 6th century A.D. It consists of a verandah, a hypostylar hall, sanctum with an antechamber and a series of unfinished cells. The rear wall of the verandah contains the panel of Litany of Avalokiteśvara".
The sanctuary houses a colossal image of the Buddha in preaching pose flanked by bodhisattvas and celestial nymphs hovering above.
CAVES 9-10
Caves 9 and 10 are the two chaitya halls from the first period of construction, though both were also undergoing an uncompleted reworking at the end of the second period. Cave 10 was perhaps originally of the 1st century BCE, and cave 9 about a hundred years later. The small "shrinelets" called caves 9A to 9D and 10A also date from the second period, and were commissioned by individuals.
The paintings in cave 10 include some surviving from the early period, many from an incomplete programme of modernization in the second period, and a very large number of smaller late intrusive images, nearly all Buddhas and many with donor inscriptions from individuals. These mostly avoided over-painting the "official" programme and after the best positions were used up are tucked away in less prominent positions not yet painted; the total of these (including those now lost) was probably over 300, and the hands of many different artists are visible.
OTHER CAVES
Cave 3 is merely a start of an excavation; according to Spink it was begun right at the end of the final period of work and soon abandoned. Caves 5 and 6 are viharas, the latter on two floors, that were late works of which only the lower floor of cave 6 was ever finished. The upper floor of cave 6 has many private votive sculptures, and a shrine Buddha, but is otherwise unfinished. Cave 7 has a grand facade with two porticos but, perhaps because of faults in the rock, which posed problems in many caves, was never taken very deep into the cliff, and consists only of the two porticos and a shrine room with antechamber, with no central hall. Some cells were fitted in.
Cave 8 was long thought to date to the first period of construction, but Spink sees it as perhaps the earliest cave from the second period, its shrine an "afterthought". The statue may have been loose rather than carved from the living rock, as it has now vanished. The cave was painted, but only traces remain.
SPINK´S DETAILED CHRONOLOGY
Walter M. Spink has over recent decades developed a very precise and circumstantial chronology for the second period of work on the site, which unlike earlier scholars, he places entirely in the 5th century. This is based on evidence such as the inscriptions and artistic style, combined with the many uncompleted elements of the caves. He believes the earlier group of caves, which like other scholars he dates only approximately, to the period "between 100 BCE – 100 CE", were at some later point completely abandoned and remained so "for over three centuries", as the local population had turned mainly Hindu. This changed with the accession of the Emperor Harishena of the Vakataka Dynasty, who reigned from 460 to his death in 477. Harisena extended the Central Indian Vakataka Empire to include a stretch of the east coast of India; the Gupta Empire ruled northern India at the same period, and the Pallava dynasty much of the south.
According to Spink, Harisena encouraged a group of associates, including his prime minister Varahadeva and Upendragupta, the sub-king in whose territory Ajanta was, to dig out new caves, which were individually commissioned, some containing inscriptions recording the donation. This activity began in 462 but was mostly suspended in 468 because of threats from the neighbouring Asmaka kings. Work continued on only caves 1, Harisena's own commission, and 17–20, commissioned by Upendragupta. In 472 the situation was such that work was suspended completely, in a period that Spink calls "the Hiatus", which lasted until about 475, by which time the Asmakas had replaced Upendragupta as the local rulers.
Work was then resumed, but again disrupted by Harisena's death in 477, soon after which major excavation ceased, except at cave 26, which the Asmakas were sponsoring themselves. The Asmakas launched a revolt against Harisena's son, which brought about the end of the Vakataka Dynasty. In the years 478–480 major excavation by important patrons was replaced by a rash of "intrusions" – statues added to existing caves, and small shrines dotted about where there was space between them. These were commissioned by less powerful individuals, some monks, who had not previously been able to make additions to the large excavations of the rulers and courtiers. They were added to the facades, the return sides of the entrances, and to walls inside the caves. According to Spink, "After 480, not a single image was ever made again at the site", and as Hinduism again dominated the region, the site was again abandoned, this time for over a millennium.
Spink does not use "circa" in his dates, but says that "one should allow a margin of error of one year or perhaps even two in all cases".
IMPACT ON MODERN INDIAN PAINTINGS
The Ajanta paintings, or more likely the general style they come from, influenced painting in Tibet and Sri Lanka.
The rediscovery of ancient Indian paintings at Ajanta provided Indian artists examples from ancient India to follow. Nandlal Bose experimented with techniques to follow the ancient style which allowed him to develop his unique style. Abanindranath Tagore also used the Ajanta paintings for inspiration.
WIKIPEDIA
Low wide video view that includes a view through the screened gate of a cotton module builder (stompers), as a basket-type cotton picker harvesters pulling up and unload cotton bolls into the builder that uses a hydraulic ram and tramper beam to compress the cotton into modules, 32 feet long, 7 1/2 feet wide, and 9 1/2 feet tall, then the stomper is raised and pulled away, simultaneously pulling a protective tarp over the top, following the end of each day, a vacuum is used to pick up all the fallen cotton and added to a module during the Ernie Schirmer Farms cotton harvest, in Batesville, TX, on August 22, 2020. For more information about the cotton harvest, the Schirmer family, and their farms, please go to flic.kr/s/aHsmPYgNPx
From 10 AM to 10 PM, harvesters are driven across the circular (pivot irrigated) fields. The harvesters use specialized harvester heads that twist and pull the soft, cotton boll from the plant; and then the cotton bolls are vacuumed up into a large open-air bin. When full, operators return to the mobile industrial area to unload cotton into 'stompers' (module builders). Stompers use a hydraulic ram and tramper beam to compress the cotton into modules, 32 feet long, 7 1/2 feet wide, and 9 1/2 feet tall. Once complete, the stomper is raised and pulled away, simultaneously pulling a protective tarp over the top. Once covered tight, the modules become the property of the cotton gin.
The Schirmer family have owned and operated farms in the south-central Texas region for six generations, since 1875.
In the harvesters are Ernie Schirmer Farms (Batesville) Operations Manager Brandon Schirmer (in grey shirt and dark brimmed cap, 6th generation), and farm owner and father Ernie Schirmer (dark shirt and orange cap, 5th generation), Jerry Berstraeten, with son Brett; at the same time, Ernie's wife Terri (yellow shirt and tan cap), cousin Cali Erfurth (pink t-shirt), Derek Reininger (grey t-shirt and tan cap) and a fellow farmowner Carl Santleben (western hat) operate the stompers.
For more information about the Schirmer family and their farms, please go to flic.kr/s/aHsmPYgNPx
USDA Photo and Media by Lance Cheung.
Stourhead (/ˈstɑːˌhɛd/[1]) is a 1,072-hectare (2,650-acre) estate[2] at the source of the River Stour near Mere, Wiltshire, England. The estate includes a Palladian mansion, the village of Stourton, gardens, farmland, and woodland. Stourhead is part owned with the National Trust since 1946.
Contents [hide]
1History
2Gardens
2.1Architects
2.2"The Genius of the Place"
3Prints
4Trivia
5Gallery
6References
7External links
History[edit]
The Stourton family, the Barons of Stourton, had lived in the Stourhead estate for 500 years[3] until they sold it to Sir Thomas Meres in 1714.[4] His son, John Meres, sold it to Henry Hoare I, son of wealthy banker Sir Richard Hoare in 1717.[5] The original manor house was demolished and a new house, one of the first of its kind, was designed by Colen Campbell and built by Nathaniel Ireson between 1721 and 1725.[6] Over the next 200 years the Hoare family collected many heirlooms, including a large library and art collection. In 1902 the house was gutted by fire but many of the heirlooms were saved, and the house was rebuilt in a near identical style.[7]
The last Hoare family member to own the property, Henry Hugh Arthur Hoare, gave the house and gardens to the National Trust in 1946, one year before his death; his sole heir and son, Captain "Harry" Henry Colt Arthur Hoare, of the Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry, had died of wounds received at the Battle of Mughar Ridge on 13 November 1917 in World War I.[7] The last Hoare family member to be born at the house was Edward Hoare on 11 October 1949.
Gardens[edit]
Architects[edit]
Although the main design for the estate at Stourhead was created by Colen Campbell, there were various other architects involved in its evolution through the years. William Benson, Henry Hoare's brother-in-law, was in part responsible for the building of the estate in 1719.[8] Francis Cartwright, a master builder and architect, was established as a "competent provincial designer in the Palladian manner."[9] He worked on Stourhead between the years of 1749–1755. Cartwright was a known carver, presumably of materials such as wood and stone. It is assumed that his contribution to Stourhead was in this capacity. Nathaniel Ireson is the master builder credited for much of the work on the Estate. It is this work that established his career, in 1720.[10]
The original estate remained intact, though changes and additions were made over time. Henry Flitcroft built three temples and a tower on the property. The Temple of Ceres was added in 1744, followed by the Temple of Hercules in 1754 and the Temple of Apollo in 1765. That same year he designed Alfred's Tower, but it wasn't built until 1772.[11] In 1806, the mason and surveyor John Carter added an ornamental cottage to the grounds; at the request of Sir Richard Colt Hoare.[12] The architect William Wilkins created a Grecian style lodge in 1816; for Sir R. Colt Hoare.[12]
In 1840, over a century after the initial buildings were constructed, Charles Parker was hired by Sir Hugh Hoare to make changes to the estate. A portico was added to the main house, along with other alterations. The design of the additions was in keeping with original plans.[13]
"The Genius of the Place"[edit]
The lake at Stourhead is artificially created. Following a path around the lake is meant to evoke a journey similar to that of Aeneas's descent in to the underworld.[14] In addition to Greek mythology, the layout is evocative of the "genius of the place", a concept made famous by Alexander Pope. Buildings and monuments are erected in remembrance of family and local history. Henry Hoare was a collector of art– one of his pieces was Claude Lorrain's Aeneas at Delos, which is thought to have inspired the pictorial design of the gardens.[14] Passages telling of Aeneas's journey are quoted in the temples surrounding the lake.
Monuments are used to frame one another; for example the Pantheon designed by Flitcroft entices the visitor over, but once reached, views from the opposite shore of the lake beckon.[15] The use of the sunken path allows the landscape to continue on into neighbouring landscapes, allowing the viewer to contemplate all the surrounding panorama. The Pantheon was thought to be the most important visual feature of the gardens. It appears in many pieces of artwork owned by Hoare, depicting Aeneas's travels.[16] The plantings in the garden were arranged in a manner that would evoke different moods, drawing visitors through realms of thought.[15] According to Henry Hoare, 'The greens should be ranged together in large masses as the shades are in painting: to contrast the dark masses with the light ones, and to relieve each dark mass itself with little sprinklings of lighter greens here and there.'[17]
View taken from the Grotto, of the lake in autumn colours
Stourhead's lake and foliage as seen from a high hill vantage point
The gardens were designed by Henry Hoare II and laid out between 1741 and 1780 in a classical 18th-century design set around a large lake, achieved by damming a small stream. The inspiration behind their creation were the painters Claude Lorrain, Poussin, and, in particular, Gaspard Dughet, who painted Utopian-type views of Italian landscapes. It is similar in style to the landscape gardens at Stowe.
Included in the garden are a number of temples inspired by scenes of the Grand Tour of Europe. On one hill overlooking the gardens there stands an obelisk and King Alfred's Tower, a 50-metre-tall, brick folly designed by Henry Flitcroft in 1772; on another hill the temple of Apollo provides a vantage point to survey the magnificent rhododendrons, water, cascades and temples. The large medieval Bristol High Cross was moved from Bristol to the gardens. Amongst the hills surrounding the site there are also two Iron Age hill forts: Whitesheet Hill and Park Hill Camp. The gardens are home to a large collection of trees and shrubs from around the world.
Richard Colt Hoare, the grandson of Henry Hoare II, inherited Stourhead in 1783.[7] He added the library wing to the mansion,[7] and in the garden was responsible for the building of the boathouse and the removal of several features that were not in keeping with the classical and gothic styles (including a Turkish Tent). He also considerably enhanced the planting – the Temple of Apollo rises from a wooded slope that was planted in Colt Hoare's time. With the antiquarian passion of the times, he had 400 ancient burial mounds dug up to inform his pioneering History of Ancient Wiltshire.
Research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) includes development of materials and batteries for stationary energy storage applications, as well battery testing, as shown in this photo. With growing national and international interest in clean, sustainable energy, stationary energy storage will be vital to adding renewables (wind and solar power, etc.) to the power grid, and perhaps even to making the smart grid a reality.
In this photo: PNNL Scientist Daiwon Choi
For more information, visit www.pnl.gov/news
Terms of Use: Our images are freely and publicly available for use with the credit line, "Courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory." Please use provided caption information for use in appropriate context.
The palanquin is a class of wheelless vehicles, a type of human-powered transport, for the transport of persons. Examples of litter vehicles include lectica (ancient Rome), kiệu [轎] (Vietnam), sedan chair (Britain), litera (Spain), palanquin (France, India, Ghana), jiao (China), liteira (Portugal), wo (วอ, Chinese style known as kiao เกี้ยว) (Thailand), gama (Korea), koshi, ren and kago [駕籠] (Japan) and tahtırevan (Turkey).
Smaller litters may take the form of open chairs or beds carried by two or more carriers, some being enclosed for protection from the elements. Larger litters, for example those of the Chinese emperors, may resemble small rooms upon a platform borne upon the shoulders of a dozen or more people. To most efficiently carry a litter, porters will attempt to transfer the load to their shoulders, either by placing the carrying poles upon their shoulders, or the use of a yoke to transfer the load from the carrying poles to the shoulder.
DEFINITIONS
A simple litter, often called a king carrier, consists of a sling attached along its length to poles or stretched inside a frame. The poles or frame are carried by porters in front and behind. Such simple litters are common on battlefields and emergency situations, where terrain prohibits wheeled vehicles from carrying away the dead and wounded.
Litters can also be created by the expedient of the lashing of poles to a chair. Such litters, consisting of a simple cane chair with maybe an umbrella to ward off the elements and two stout bamboo poles, may still be found in Chinese mountain resorts such as the Huangshan Mountains to carry tourists along scenic paths and to viewing positions inaccessible by other means of transport.
A more luxurious version consists of a bed or couch, sometimes enclosed by curtains, for the passenger or passengers to lie on. These are carried by at least two porters in equal numbers in front and behind, using wooden rails that pass through brackets on the sides of the couch. The largest and heaviest types would be carried by draught animals.
Another form, commonly called a sedan chair, consists of a chair or windowed cabin suitable for a single occupant, also carried by at least two porters in front and behind, using wooden rails that pass through brackets on the sides of the chair. These porters were known in London as "chairmen". These have been very rare since the 19th century, but such enclosed portable litters have been used as an elite form of transport for centuries, especially in cultures where women are kept secluded.
Sedan chairs, in use until the 19th century, were accompanied at night by link-boys who carried torches. Where possible, the link boys escorted the fares to the chairmen, the passengers then being delivered to the door of their lodgings. Several houses in Bath, Somerset, England still have the link extinguishers on the exteriors, shaped like outsized candle snuffers. In the 1970s, entrepreneur and Bathwick resident, John Cuningham, revived the sedan chair service business for a brief amount of time.
ANTIQUITY
In pharaonic Egypt and many oriental realms such as China, the ruler and divinities (in the form of an idol) were often transported in a litter in public, frequently in procession, as during state ceremonial or religious festivals.
The ancient Hebrews fashioned the Ark of the Covenant to resemble and function as a litter for the ten commandments and presence of God.
In Ancient Rome, a litter called lectica or "sella" often carried members of the imperial family, as well as other dignitaries and other members of the rich elite, when not mounted on horseback.
The habit must have proven quite persistent, for the Third Council of Braga in 675 AD saw the need to order that bishops, when carrying the relics of martyrs in procession, must walk to the church, and not be carried in a chair, or litter, by deacons clothed in white.
In the Catholic Church, Popes were carried the same way in Sedia gestatoria, which was replaced later by the Popemobile.
IN ASIA
CHINA
In Han China the elite travelled in light bamboo seats supported on a carrier's back like a backpack. In the Northern Wei Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties, wooden carriages on poles appear in painted landscape scrolls.
A commoner used a wooden or bamboo civil litter (Chinese: 民轎; pinyin: min2 jiao4), while the mandarin class used an official litter (Chinese: 官轎; pinyin: guan1 jiao4) enclosed in silk curtains.
The chair with perhaps the greatest importance was the bridal chair. A traditional bride is carried to her wedding ceremony by a "shoulder carriage" (Chinese: 肩輿; pinyin: jiān yú), usually hired. These were lacquered in an auspicious shade of red, richly ornamented and gilded, and were equipped with red silk curtains to screen the bride from onlookers.
Sedan chairs were once the only public conveyance in Hong Kong, filling the role of cabs. Chair stands were found at all hotels, wharves, and major crossroads. Public chairs were licensed, and charged according to tariffs which would be displayed inside. Private chairs were an important marker of a person's status. Civil officers' status was denoted by the number of bearers attached to his chair. Before Hong Kong's Peak Tram went into service in 1888, wealthy residents of The Peak were carried on sedan chairs by coolies up the steep paths to their residence including Sir Richard MacDonnell's (former Governor of Hong Kong) summer home, where they could take advantage of the cooler climate. Since 1975 an annual sedan chair race has been held to benefit the Matilda International Hospital and commemorate the practice of earlier days.
KOREA
In Korea, royalty and aristocrats were carried in wooden litters called gama. Gamas were primarily used by royalty and government officials. There were six types of gama, each assigned to different government official rankings. In traditional weddings, the bride and groom are carried to the ceremony in separate gamas. Because of the difficulties posed by the mountainous terrain of the Korean peninsula and the lack of paved roads, gamas were preferred over wheeled vehicles.
JAPAN
As the population of Japan increased, less and less land was available as grazing for the upkeep of horses. With the availability of horses restricted to martial uses, human powered transport became more important and prevalent.
Kago (Kanji: 駕籠, Hiragana: かご) were often used in Japan to transport the non-samurai citizen. Norimono were used by the warrior class and nobility, most famously during the Tokugawa period when regional samurai were required to spend a part of the year in Edo (Tokyo) with their families, resulting in yearly migrations of the rich and powerful (Sankin-kōtai) to and from the capital along the central backbone road of Japan.
Somewhat similar in appearance to kago are the portable shrines that are used to carry the "god-body" (goshintai), the central totemic core normally found in the most sacred area of Shinto Shrines, on a tour to and from a shrine during some religious festivals.
THAILAND
In Thailand, the royalty were also carried in wooden litters called wo ("พระวอ" Phra Wo, literally, "Royal Sedan") for large ceremonies. Wos were elaborately decorated litters that were delicately carved and colored by gold leaves. Stained glass is also used to decorate the litters. Presently, Royal Wos and carriages are only used for royal ceremonies in Thailand. They are exhibited in the Bangkok National Museum.
INDONESIA
In traditional Javanese society, the generic palanquin or joli was a wicker chair with a canopy, attached to two poles, and borne on men's shoulders, and was available for hire to any paying customer. As a status marker, gilded throne-like palanquins, or jempana, were originally reserved solely for royalty, and later co-opted by the Dutch, as a status marker: the more elaborate the palanquin, the higher the status of the owner. The joli was transported either by hired help, by nobles' peasants, or by slaves.
Historically, the palanquin of a Javanese king (raja), prince (pangeran), lord (raden mas) or other noble (bangsawan) was known as a jempana; a more throne-like version was called a pangkem. It was always part of a large military procession, with a yellow (the Javanese colour for royalty) square canopy. The ceremonial parasol (payung) was held above the palanquin, which was carried by a bearer behind and flanked by the most loyal bodyguards, usually about 12 men, with pikes, sabres, lances, muskets, keris and a variety of disguised blades. In contrast, the canopy of the Sumatran palanquin was oval-shaped and draped in white cloth; this was reflective of greater cultural permeation by Islam. Occasionally, a weapon or heirloom, such as an important keris or tombak, was given its own palanquin. In Hindu culture in Bali today, the tradition of using palanquins for auspicious statues, weapons or heirlooms continues, for funerals especially; in more elaborate rituals, a palanquin is used to bear the body, and is subsequently cremated along with the departed.
INDIA
A palanquin, also known as palkhi, is a covered sedan chair (or litter) carried on four poles. It derives from the Sanskrit word for a bed or couch, pa:lanka.
Palanquins are mentioned in literature as early as the Ramayana (c. 250BC).
Palanquins began to fall out of use after rickshaws (on wheels, more practical) were introduced in the 1930s.
The doli (also transliterated from Hindi as dhooly or dhoolie) is a cot or frame, suspended by the four corners from a bamboo pole. Two or four men would carry it. In the time of the British in India, dhooly-bearers were used to carry the wounded from the battlefield and transport them.
Today in numerous areas of India including at the Hindu pilgrimage site of Amarnath Temple in Kashmir, palanquins can be hired to carry the customer up steep hills.
IN AFRICA
GHANA
In Southern Ghana the Akan and the Ga-Dangme carry their chiefs and kings in palanquins when they appear in their state durbars. When used in such occasions these palanquins may be seen as a substitutes of a state coach in Europe or a horse used in Northern Ghana. The chiefs of the Ga (mantsemei) in the Greater Accra Region (Ghana) use also figurative palanquins which are built after a chief's family symbol or totem. But these day the figurative palanquins are very seldom used. They are related with the figurative coffins which have become very popular among the Ga in the last 50 years. Since these figurative coffins were shown 1989 in the exhibition "Les magicians de la terre" in the Centre Pompidou in Paris they were shown in many art museums around the world.
ANGOLA
From at least the 15th century until the 19th century, litters of varying types known as tipoye were used in the Kingdom of Kongo as a mode of transportation for the elites. Seat-style litters with a single pole along the back of the chair carried by two men (usually slaves) were topped with an umbrella. Lounge-style litters in the shape of a bed were used to move one to two people with porter at each corner. Due to the tropical climate, horse were not native to the area nor could they survive very ong once introduced by the Portuguese. Human portage was the only mode of transportation in the region and became highly adept with missionary accounts claiming the litter transporters could move at speeds 'as fast as post horses at the gallop'.
IN THE WEST
EUROPE
Portuguese and Spanish navigators and colonistics encountered litters of various sorts in India, Mexico, and Peru. They were imported into Spain and spread into France and then Britain. All the names for these devices are ultimately derived from the root sed- in Latin sedere, "sit," which gave rise to seda ("seat") and its diminutive sedula ("little seat"), the latter of which was contracted to sella, the traditional Latin name for a carried chair.The carried chair met instant success in Europe, whose city streets were often a literal mess of mud and refuse: Where cities and towns did not enjoy the presence of sewage systems left over from Imperial Roman days, it was common to empty chamber pots and discard kitchen refuse from windows down into the adjacent streets. Affluent and well-to-do citizens often found it hazardous and impractical to negotiate those avenues, and sedan chairs allowed them to remain prim and spotless while the carrying valets had to contend with the mud and the filth.In Europe, Henry VIII of England was carried around in a sedan chair — it took four strong chairmen to carry him towards the end of his life — but the expression "sedan chair" was not used in print until 1615. It does not seem to take its name from the city of Sedan. Trevor Fawcett notes (see link) that British travellers Fynes Moryson (in 1594) and John Evelyn (in 1644-5) remarked on the seggioli of Naples and Genoa, which were chairs for public hire slung from poles and carried on the shoulders of two porters.From the mid-17th century, visitors taking the waters at Bath would be conveyed in a chair enclosed in baize curtains, especially if they had taken a heated bath and were going straight to bed to sweat. The curtains kept off a possibly fatal draft. These were not the proper sedan chairs "to carry the better sort of people in visits, or if sick or infirmed" (Celia Fiennes). In the 17th and 18th centuries, the chairs stood in the main hall of a well-appointed city residence, where a lady could enter and be carried to her destination without setting foot in a filthy street. The neoclassical sedan chair made for Queen Charlotte remains at Buckingham Palace.
By the mid-17th century, sedans for hire were a common mode of transportation. In London, "chairs" were available for hire in 1634, each assigned a number and the chairmen licensed because the operation was a monopoly of a courtier of Charles I. Sedan chairs could pass in streets too narrow for a carriage and were meant to alleviate the crush of coaches in London streets, an early instance of traffic congestion. A similar system was later used in Scotland. In 1738, a fare system was established for Scottish sedans, and the regulations covering chairmen in Bath are reminiscent of the modern Taxi Commission's rules. A trip within a city cost six pence and a day's rental was four shillings. A sedan was even used as an ambulance in Scotland's Royal Infirmary.
Chairmen moved at a good clip. In Bath they had the right-of-way and pedestrians hearing "By your leave" behind them knew to flatten themselves against walls or railings as the chairmen hustled through. There were often disastrous accidents, upset chairs, and broken glass-paned windows.
Sedan chairs were also used by the wealthy in the cities of colonial America. Benjamin Franklin used a sedan chair late in the 18th century.
COLONIAL PRACTICE
In various colonies, litters of various types were maintained under native traditions, but often adopted by the white colonials as a new ruling and/or socio-economic elite, either for practical reasons (often comfortable modern transport was unavailable, e.g. for lack of decent roads) and/or as a status symbol. During the 17-18th centuries, palanquins (see above) were very popular among European traders in Bengal, so much so that in 1758 an order was issued prohibiting their purchase by certain lower-ranking employees.
THE END OF A TRADITION
In Great Britain, in the early 19th century, the public sedan chair began to fall out of use, perhaps because streets were better paved or perhaps because of the rise of the more comfortable, companionable and affordable hackney carriage. In Glasgow, the decline of the sedan chair is illustrated by licensing records which show twenty-seven sedan chairs in 1800, eighteen in 1817, and ten in 1828. During that same period the number of registered hackney carriages in Glasgow rose to one hundred and fifty.
THE TRAVELING SILLA OF LATIN AMERICA
A similar but simpler palanquin was used by the elite in parts of 18th- and 19th-century Latin America. Often simply called a silla (Spanish for seat or chair), it consisted of a simple wooden chair with an attached tumpline. The occupant sat in the chair, which was then affixed to the back of a single porter, with the tumpline supported by his head. The occupant thus faced backwards during travel. This style of palanquin was probably due to the steep terrain and rough or narrow roads unsuitable to European-style sedan chairs. Travellers by silla usually employed a number of porters, who would alternate carrying the occupant.
A chair borne on the back of a porter, almost identical to the silla, is used in the mountains of China for ferrying older tourists and visitors up and down the mountain paths. One of these mountains where the silla is still used is the Huangshan Mountains of Anhui province in Eastern China.
WIKIPEDIA
A fungus (pl.: fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one of the traditional eukaryotic kingdoms, along with Animalia, Plantae and either Protista or Protozoa and Chromista.
A characteristic that places fungi in a different kingdom from plants, bacteria, and some protists is chitin in their cell walls. Fungi, like animals, are heterotrophs; they acquire their food by absorbing dissolved molecules, typically by secreting digestive enzymes into their environment. Fungi do not photosynthesize. Growth is their means of mobility, except for spores (a few of which are flagellated), which may travel through the air or water. Fungi are the principal decomposers in ecological systems. These and other differences place fungi in a single group of related organisms, named the Eumycota (true fungi or Eumycetes), that share a common ancestor (i.e. they form a monophyletic group), an interpretation that is also strongly supported by molecular phylogenetics. This fungal group is distinct from the structurally similar myxomycetes (slime molds) and oomycetes (water molds). The discipline of biology devoted to the study of fungi is known as mycology (from the Greek μύκης mykes, mushroom). In the past mycology was regarded as a branch of botany, although it is now known that fungi are genetically more closely related to animals than to plants.
Abundant worldwide, most fungi are inconspicuous because of the small size of their structures, and their cryptic lifestyles in soil or on dead matter. Fungi include symbionts of plants, animals, or other fungi and also parasites. They may become noticeable when fruiting, either as mushrooms or as molds. Fungi perform an essential role in the decomposition of organic matter and have fundamental roles in nutrient cycling and exchange in the environment. They have long been used as a direct source of human food, in the form of mushrooms and truffles; as a leavening agent for bread; and in the fermentation of various food products, such as wine, beer, and soy sauce. Since the 1940s, fungi have been used for the production of antibiotics, and, more recently, various enzymes produced by fungi are used industrially and in detergents. Fungi are also used as biological pesticides to control weeds, plant diseases, and insect pests. Many species produce bioactive compounds called mycotoxins, such as alkaloids and polyketides, that are toxic to animals, including humans. The fruiting structures of a few species contain psychotropic compounds and are consumed recreationally or in traditional spiritual ceremonies. Fungi can break down manufactured materials and buildings, and become significant pathogens of humans and other animals. Losses of crops due to fungal diseases (e.g., rice blast disease) or food spoilage can have a large impact on human food supplies and local economies.
The fungus kingdom encompasses an enormous diversity of taxa with varied ecologies, life cycle strategies, and morphologies ranging from unicellular aquatic chytrids to large mushrooms. However, little is known of the true biodiversity of the fungus kingdom, which has been estimated at 2.2 million to 3.8 million species. Of these, only about 148,000 have been described, with over 8,000 species known to be detrimental to plants and at least 300 that can be pathogenic to humans. Ever since the pioneering 18th and 19th century taxonomical works of Carl Linnaeus, Christiaan Hendrik Persoon, and Elias Magnus Fries, fungi have been classified according to their morphology (e.g., characteristics such as spore color or microscopic features) or physiology. Advances in molecular genetics have opened the way for DNA analysis to be incorporated into taxonomy, which has sometimes challenged the historical groupings based on morphology and other traits. Phylogenetic studies published in the first decade of the 21st century have helped reshape the classification within the fungi kingdom, which is divided into one subkingdom, seven phyla, and ten subphyla.
Etymology
The English word fungus is directly adopted from the Latin fungus (mushroom), used in the writings of Horace and Pliny. This in turn is derived from the Greek word sphongos (σφόγγος 'sponge'), which refers to the macroscopic structures and morphology of mushrooms and molds; the root is also used in other languages, such as the German Schwamm ('sponge') and Schimmel ('mold').
The word mycology is derived from the Greek mykes (μύκης 'mushroom') and logos (λόγος 'discourse'). It denotes the scientific study of fungi. The Latin adjectival form of "mycology" (mycologicæ) appeared as early as 1796 in a book on the subject by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon. The word appeared in English as early as 1824 in a book by Robert Kaye Greville. In 1836 the English naturalist Miles Joseph Berkeley's publication The English Flora of Sir James Edward Smith, Vol. 5. also refers to mycology as the study of fungi.
A group of all the fungi present in a particular region is known as mycobiota (plural noun, no singular). The term mycota is often used for this purpose, but many authors use it as a synonym of Fungi. The word funga has been proposed as a less ambiguous term morphologically similar to fauna and flora. The Species Survival Commission (SSC) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in August 2021 asked that the phrase fauna and flora be replaced by fauna, flora, and funga.
Characteristics
Fungal hyphae cells
Hyphal wall
Septum
Mitochondrion
Vacuole
Ergosterol crystal
Ribosome
Nucleus
Endoplasmic reticulum
Lipid body
Plasma membrane
Spitzenkörper
Golgi apparatus
Fungal cell cycle showing Dikaryons typical of Higher Fungi
Before the introduction of molecular methods for phylogenetic analysis, taxonomists considered fungi to be members of the plant kingdom because of similarities in lifestyle: both fungi and plants are mainly immobile, and have similarities in general morphology and growth habitat. Although inaccurate, the common misconception that fungi are plants persists among the general public due to their historical classification, as well as several similarities. Like plants, fungi often grow in soil and, in the case of mushrooms, form conspicuous fruit bodies, which sometimes resemble plants such as mosses. The fungi are now considered a separate kingdom, distinct from both plants and animals, from which they appear to have diverged around one billion years ago (around the start of the Neoproterozoic Era). Some morphological, biochemical, and genetic features are shared with other organisms, while others are unique to the fungi, clearly separating them from the other kingdoms:
With other eukaryotes: Fungal cells contain membrane-bound nuclei with chromosomes that contain DNA with noncoding regions called introns and coding regions called exons. Fungi have membrane-bound cytoplasmic organelles such as mitochondria, sterol-containing membranes, and ribosomes of the 80S type. They have a characteristic range of soluble carbohydrates and storage compounds, including sugar alcohols (e.g., mannitol), disaccharides, (e.g., trehalose), and polysaccharides (e.g., glycogen, which is also found in animals).
With animals: Fungi lack chloroplasts and are heterotrophic organisms and so require preformed organic compounds as energy sources.
With plants: Fungi have a cell wall and vacuoles. They reproduce by both sexual and asexual means, and like basal plant groups (such as ferns and mosses) produce spores. Similar to mosses and algae, fungi typically have haploid nuclei.
With euglenoids and bacteria: Higher fungi, euglenoids, and some bacteria produce the amino acid L-lysine in specific biosynthesis steps, called the α-aminoadipate pathway.
The cells of most fungi grow as tubular, elongated, and thread-like (filamentous) structures called hyphae, which may contain multiple nuclei and extend by growing at their tips. Each tip contains a set of aggregated vesicles—cellular structures consisting of proteins, lipids, and other organic molecules—called the Spitzenkörper. Both fungi and oomycetes grow as filamentous hyphal cells. In contrast, similar-looking organisms, such as filamentous green algae, grow by repeated cell division within a chain of cells. There are also single-celled fungi (yeasts) that do not form hyphae, and some fungi have both hyphal and yeast forms.
In common with some plant and animal species, more than one hundred fungal species display bioluminescence.
Unique features:
Some species grow as unicellular yeasts that reproduce by budding or fission. Dimorphic fungi can switch between a yeast phase and a hyphal phase in response to environmental conditions.
The fungal cell wall is made of a chitin-glucan complex; while glucans are also found in plants and chitin in the exoskeleton of arthropods, fungi are the only organisms that combine these two structural molecules in their cell wall. Unlike those of plants and oomycetes, fungal cell walls do not contain cellulose.
A whitish fan or funnel-shaped mushroom growing at the base of a tree.
Omphalotus nidiformis, a bioluminescent mushroom
Most fungi lack an efficient system for the long-distance transport of water and nutrients, such as the xylem and phloem in many plants. To overcome this limitation, some fungi, such as Armillaria, form rhizomorphs, which resemble and perform functions similar to the roots of plants. As eukaryotes, fungi possess a biosynthetic pathway for producing terpenes that uses mevalonic acid and pyrophosphate as chemical building blocks. Plants and some other organisms have an additional terpene biosynthesis pathway in their chloroplasts, a structure that fungi and animals do not have. Fungi produce several secondary metabolites that are similar or identical in structure to those made by plants. Many of the plant and fungal enzymes that make these compounds differ from each other in sequence and other characteristics, which indicates separate origins and convergent evolution of these enzymes in the fungi and plants.
Diversity
Fungi have a worldwide distribution, and grow in a wide range of habitats, including extreme environments such as deserts or areas with high salt concentrations or ionizing radiation, as well as in deep sea sediments. Some can survive the intense UV and cosmic radiation encountered during space travel. Most grow in terrestrial environments, though several species live partly or solely in aquatic habitats, such as the chytrid fungi Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and B. salamandrivorans, parasites that have been responsible for a worldwide decline in amphibian populations. These organisms spend part of their life cycle as a motile zoospore, enabling them to propel itself through water and enter their amphibian host. Other examples of aquatic fungi include those living in hydrothermal areas of the ocean.
As of 2020, around 148,000 species of fungi have been described by taxonomists, but the global biodiversity of the fungus kingdom is not fully understood. A 2017 estimate suggests there may be between 2.2 and 3.8 million species The number of new fungi species discovered yearly has increased from 1,000 to 1,500 per year about 10 years ago, to about 2000 with a peak of more than 2,500 species in 2016. In the year 2019, 1882 new species of fungi were described, and it was estimated that more than 90% of fungi remain unknown The following year, 2905 new species were described—the highest annual record of new fungus names. In mycology, species have historically been distinguished by a variety of methods and concepts. Classification based on morphological characteristics, such as the size and shape of spores or fruiting structures, has traditionally dominated fungal taxonomy. Species may also be distinguished by their biochemical and physiological characteristics, such as their ability to metabolize certain biochemicals, or their reaction to chemical tests. The biological species concept discriminates species based on their ability to mate. The application of molecular tools, such as DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis, to study diversity has greatly enhanced the resolution and added robustness to estimates of genetic diversity within various taxonomic groups.
Mycology
Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the systematic study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy, and their use to humans as a source of medicine, food, and psychotropic substances consumed for religious purposes, as well as their dangers, such as poisoning or infection. The field of phytopathology, the study of plant diseases, is closely related because many plant pathogens are fungi.
The use of fungi by humans dates back to prehistory; Ötzi the Iceman, a well-preserved mummy of a 5,300-year-old Neolithic man found frozen in the Austrian Alps, carried two species of polypore mushrooms that may have been used as tinder (Fomes fomentarius), or for medicinal purposes (Piptoporus betulinus). Ancient peoples have used fungi as food sources—often unknowingly—for millennia, in the preparation of leavened bread and fermented juices. Some of the oldest written records contain references to the destruction of crops that were probably caused by pathogenic fungi.
History
Mycology became a systematic science after the development of the microscope in the 17th century. Although fungal spores were first observed by Giambattista della Porta in 1588, the seminal work in the development of mycology is considered to be the publication of Pier Antonio Micheli's 1729 work Nova plantarum genera. Micheli not only observed spores but also showed that, under the proper conditions, they could be induced into growing into the same species of fungi from which they originated. Extending the use of the binomial system of nomenclature introduced by Carl Linnaeus in his Species plantarum (1753), the Dutch Christiaan Hendrik Persoon (1761–1836) established the first classification of mushrooms with such skill as to be considered a founder of modern mycology. Later, Elias Magnus Fries (1794–1878) further elaborated the classification of fungi, using spore color and microscopic characteristics, methods still used by taxonomists today. Other notable early contributors to mycology in the 17th–19th and early 20th centuries include Miles Joseph Berkeley, August Carl Joseph Corda, Anton de Bary, the brothers Louis René and Charles Tulasne, Arthur H. R. Buller, Curtis G. Lloyd, and Pier Andrea Saccardo. In the 20th and 21st centuries, advances in biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, biotechnology, DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis has provided new insights into fungal relationships and biodiversity, and has challenged traditional morphology-based groupings in fungal taxonomy.
Morphology
Microscopic structures
Monochrome micrograph showing Penicillium hyphae as long, transparent, tube-like structures a few micrometres across. Conidiophores branch out laterally from the hyphae, terminating in bundles of phialides on which spherical condidiophores are arranged like beads on a string. Septa are faintly visible as dark lines crossing the hyphae.
An environmental isolate of Penicillium
Hypha
Conidiophore
Phialide
Conidia
Septa
Most fungi grow as hyphae, which are cylindrical, thread-like structures 2–10 µm in diameter and up to several centimeters in length. Hyphae grow at their tips (apices); new hyphae are typically formed by emergence of new tips along existing hyphae by a process called branching, or occasionally growing hyphal tips fork, giving rise to two parallel-growing hyphae. Hyphae also sometimes fuse when they come into contact, a process called hyphal fusion (or anastomosis). These growth processes lead to the development of a mycelium, an interconnected network of hyphae. Hyphae can be either septate or coenocytic. Septate hyphae are divided into compartments separated by cross walls (internal cell walls, called septa, that are formed at right angles to the cell wall giving the hypha its shape), with each compartment containing one or more nuclei; coenocytic hyphae are not compartmentalized. Septa have pores that allow cytoplasm, organelles, and sometimes nuclei to pass through; an example is the dolipore septum in fungi of the phylum Basidiomycota. Coenocytic hyphae are in essence multinucleate supercells.
Many species have developed specialized hyphal structures for nutrient uptake from living hosts; examples include haustoria in plant-parasitic species of most fungal phyla,[63] and arbuscules of several mycorrhizal fungi, which penetrate into the host cells to consume nutrients.
Although fungi are opisthokonts—a grouping of evolutionarily related organisms broadly characterized by a single posterior flagellum—all phyla except for the chytrids have lost their posterior flagella. Fungi are unusual among the eukaryotes in having a cell wall that, in addition to glucans (e.g., β-1,3-glucan) and other typical components, also contains the biopolymer chitin.
Macroscopic structures
Fungal mycelia can become visible to the naked eye, for example, on various surfaces and substrates, such as damp walls and spoiled food, where they are commonly called molds. Mycelia grown on solid agar media in laboratory petri dishes are usually referred to as colonies. These colonies can exhibit growth shapes and colors (due to spores or pigmentation) that can be used as diagnostic features in the identification of species or groups. Some individual fungal colonies can reach extraordinary dimensions and ages as in the case of a clonal colony of Armillaria solidipes, which extends over an area of more than 900 ha (3.5 square miles), with an estimated age of nearly 9,000 years.
The apothecium—a specialized structure important in sexual reproduction in the ascomycetes—is a cup-shaped fruit body that is often macroscopic and holds the hymenium, a layer of tissue containing the spore-bearing cells. The fruit bodies of the basidiomycetes (basidiocarps) and some ascomycetes can sometimes grow very large, and many are well known as mushrooms.
Growth and physiology
Time-lapse photography sequence of a peach becoming progressively discolored and disfigured
Mold growth covering a decaying peach. The frames were taken approximately 12 hours apart over a period of six days.
The growth of fungi as hyphae on or in solid substrates or as single cells in aquatic environments is adapted for the efficient extraction of nutrients, because these growth forms have high surface area to volume ratios. Hyphae are specifically adapted for growth on solid surfaces, and to invade substrates and tissues. They can exert large penetrative mechanical forces; for example, many plant pathogens, including Magnaporthe grisea, form a structure called an appressorium that evolved to puncture plant tissues.[71] The pressure generated by the appressorium, directed against the plant epidermis, can exceed 8 megapascals (1,200 psi).[71] The filamentous fungus Paecilomyces lilacinus uses a similar structure to penetrate the eggs of nematodes.
The mechanical pressure exerted by the appressorium is generated from physiological processes that increase intracellular turgor by producing osmolytes such as glycerol. Adaptations such as these are complemented by hydrolytic enzymes secreted into the environment to digest large organic molecules—such as polysaccharides, proteins, and lipids—into smaller molecules that may then be absorbed as nutrients. The vast majority of filamentous fungi grow in a polar fashion (extending in one direction) by elongation at the tip (apex) of the hypha. Other forms of fungal growth include intercalary extension (longitudinal expansion of hyphal compartments that are below the apex) as in the case of some endophytic fungi, or growth by volume expansion during the development of mushroom stipes and other large organs. Growth of fungi as multicellular structures consisting of somatic and reproductive cells—a feature independently evolved in animals and plants—has several functions, including the development of fruit bodies for dissemination of sexual spores (see above) and biofilms for substrate colonization and intercellular communication.
Fungi are traditionally considered heterotrophs, organisms that rely solely on carbon fixed by other organisms for metabolism. Fungi have evolved a high degree of metabolic versatility that allows them to use a diverse range of organic substrates for growth, including simple compounds such as nitrate, ammonia, acetate, or ethanol. In some species the pigment melanin may play a role in extracting energy from ionizing radiation, such as gamma radiation. This form of "radiotrophic" growth has been described for only a few species, the effects on growth rates are small, and the underlying biophysical and biochemical processes are not well known. This process might bear similarity to CO2 fixation via visible light, but instead uses ionizing radiation as a source of energy.
Reproduction
Two thickly stemmed brownish mushrooms with scales on the upper surface, growing out of a tree trunk
Polyporus squamosus
Fungal reproduction is complex, reflecting the differences in lifestyles and genetic makeup within this diverse kingdom of organisms. It is estimated that a third of all fungi reproduce using more than one method of propagation; for example, reproduction may occur in two well-differentiated stages within the life cycle of a species, the teleomorph (sexual reproduction) and the anamorph (asexual reproduction). Environmental conditions trigger genetically determined developmental states that lead to the creation of specialized structures for sexual or asexual reproduction. These structures aid reproduction by efficiently dispersing spores or spore-containing propagules.
Asexual reproduction
Asexual reproduction occurs via vegetative spores (conidia) or through mycelial fragmentation. Mycelial fragmentation occurs when a fungal mycelium separates into pieces, and each component grows into a separate mycelium. Mycelial fragmentation and vegetative spores maintain clonal populations adapted to a specific niche, and allow more rapid dispersal than sexual reproduction. The "Fungi imperfecti" (fungi lacking the perfect or sexual stage) or Deuteromycota comprise all the species that lack an observable sexual cycle. Deuteromycota (alternatively known as Deuteromycetes, conidial fungi, or mitosporic fungi) is not an accepted taxonomic clade and is now taken to mean simply fungi that lack a known sexual stage.
Sexual reproduction
See also: Mating in fungi and Sexual selection in fungi
Sexual reproduction with meiosis has been directly observed in all fungal phyla except Glomeromycota (genetic analysis suggests meiosis in Glomeromycota as well). It differs in many aspects from sexual reproduction in animals or plants. Differences also exist between fungal groups and can be used to discriminate species by morphological differences in sexual structures and reproductive strategies. Mating experiments between fungal isolates may identify species on the basis of biological species concepts. The major fungal groupings have initially been delineated based on the morphology of their sexual structures and spores; for example, the spore-containing structures, asci and basidia, can be used in the identification of ascomycetes and basidiomycetes, respectively. Fungi employ two mating systems: heterothallic species allow mating only between individuals of the opposite mating type, whereas homothallic species can mate, and sexually reproduce, with any other individual or itself.
Most fungi have both a haploid and a diploid stage in their life cycles. In sexually reproducing fungi, compatible individuals may combine by fusing their hyphae together into an interconnected network; this process, anastomosis, is required for the initiation of the sexual cycle. Many ascomycetes and basidiomycetes go through a dikaryotic stage, in which the nuclei inherited from the two parents do not combine immediately after cell fusion, but remain separate in the hyphal cells (see heterokaryosis).
In ascomycetes, dikaryotic hyphae of the hymenium (the spore-bearing tissue layer) form a characteristic hook (crozier) at the hyphal septum. During cell division, the formation of the hook ensures proper distribution of the newly divided nuclei into the apical and basal hyphal compartments. An ascus (plural asci) is then formed, in which karyogamy (nuclear fusion) occurs. Asci are embedded in an ascocarp, or fruiting body. Karyogamy in the asci is followed immediately by meiosis and the production of ascospores. After dispersal, the ascospores may germinate and form a new haploid mycelium.
Sexual reproduction in basidiomycetes is similar to that of the ascomycetes. Compatible haploid hyphae fuse to produce a dikaryotic mycelium. However, the dikaryotic phase is more extensive in the basidiomycetes, often also present in the vegetatively growing mycelium. A specialized anatomical structure, called a clamp connection, is formed at each hyphal septum. As with the structurally similar hook in the ascomycetes, the clamp connection in the basidiomycetes is required for controlled transfer of nuclei during cell division, to maintain the dikaryotic stage with two genetically different nuclei in each hyphal compartment. A basidiocarp is formed in which club-like structures known as basidia generate haploid basidiospores after karyogamy and meiosis. The most commonly known basidiocarps are mushrooms, but they may also take other forms (see Morphology section).
In fungi formerly classified as Zygomycota, haploid hyphae of two individuals fuse, forming a gametangium, a specialized cell structure that becomes a fertile gamete-producing cell. The gametangium develops into a zygospore, a thick-walled spore formed by the union of gametes. When the zygospore germinates, it undergoes meiosis, generating new haploid hyphae, which may then form asexual sporangiospores. These sporangiospores allow the fungus to rapidly disperse and germinate into new genetically identical haploid fungal mycelia.
Spore dispersal
The spores of most of the researched species of fungi are transported by wind. Such species often produce dry or hydrophobic spores that do not absorb water and are readily scattered by raindrops, for example. In other species, both asexual and sexual spores or sporangiospores are often actively dispersed by forcible ejection from their reproductive structures. This ejection ensures exit of the spores from the reproductive structures as well as traveling through the air over long distances.
Specialized mechanical and physiological mechanisms, as well as spore surface structures (such as hydrophobins), enable efficient spore ejection. For example, the structure of the spore-bearing cells in some ascomycete species is such that the buildup of substances affecting cell volume and fluid balance enables the explosive discharge of spores into the air. The forcible discharge of single spores termed ballistospores involves formation of a small drop of water (Buller's drop), which upon contact with the spore leads to its projectile release with an initial acceleration of more than 10,000 g; the net result is that the spore is ejected 0.01–0.02 cm, sufficient distance for it to fall through the gills or pores into the air below. Other fungi, like the puffballs, rely on alternative mechanisms for spore release, such as external mechanical forces. The hydnoid fungi (tooth fungi) produce spores on pendant, tooth-like or spine-like projections. The bird's nest fungi use the force of falling water drops to liberate the spores from cup-shaped fruiting bodies. Another strategy is seen in the stinkhorns, a group of fungi with lively colors and putrid odor that attract insects to disperse their spores.
Homothallism
In homothallic sexual reproduction, two haploid nuclei derived from the same individual fuse to form a zygote that can then undergo meiosis. Homothallic fungi include species with an Aspergillus-like asexual stage (anamorphs) occurring in numerous different genera, several species of the ascomycete genus Cochliobolus, and the ascomycete Pneumocystis jirovecii. The earliest mode of sexual reproduction among eukaryotes was likely homothallism, that is, self-fertile unisexual reproduction.
Other sexual processes
Besides regular sexual reproduction with meiosis, certain fungi, such as those in the genera Penicillium and Aspergillus, may exchange genetic material via parasexual processes, initiated by anastomosis between hyphae and plasmogamy of fungal cells. The frequency and relative importance of parasexual events is unclear and may be lower than other sexual processes. It is known to play a role in intraspecific hybridization and is likely required for hybridization between species, which has been associated with major events in fungal evolution.
Evolution
In contrast to plants and animals, the early fossil record of the fungi is meager. Factors that likely contribute to the under-representation of fungal species among fossils include the nature of fungal fruiting bodies, which are soft, fleshy, and easily degradable tissues and the microscopic dimensions of most fungal structures, which therefore are not readily evident. Fungal fossils are difficult to distinguish from those of other microbes, and are most easily identified when they resemble extant fungi. Often recovered from a permineralized plant or animal host, these samples are typically studied by making thin-section preparations that can be examined with light microscopy or transmission electron microscopy. Researchers study compression fossils by dissolving the surrounding matrix with acid and then using light or scanning electron microscopy to examine surface details.
The earliest fossils possessing features typical of fungi date to the Paleoproterozoic era, some 2,400 million years ago (Ma); these multicellular benthic organisms had filamentous structures capable of anastomosis. Other studies (2009) estimate the arrival of fungal organisms at about 760–1060 Ma on the basis of comparisons of the rate of evolution in closely related groups. The oldest fossilizied mycelium to be identified from its molecular composition is between 715 and 810 million years old. For much of the Paleozoic Era (542–251 Ma), the fungi appear to have been aquatic and consisted of organisms similar to the extant chytrids in having flagellum-bearing spores. The evolutionary adaptation from an aquatic to a terrestrial lifestyle necessitated a diversification of ecological strategies for obtaining nutrients, including parasitism, saprobism, and the development of mutualistic relationships such as mycorrhiza and lichenization. Studies suggest that the ancestral ecological state of the Ascomycota was saprobism, and that independent lichenization events have occurred multiple times.
In May 2019, scientists reported the discovery of a fossilized fungus, named Ourasphaira giraldae, in the Canadian Arctic, that may have grown on land a billion years ago, well before plants were living on land. Pyritized fungus-like microfossils preserved in the basal Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation (~635 Ma) have been reported in South China. Earlier, it had been presumed that the fungi colonized the land during the Cambrian (542–488.3 Ma), also long before land plants. Fossilized hyphae and spores recovered from the Ordovician of Wisconsin (460 Ma) resemble modern-day Glomerales, and existed at a time when the land flora likely consisted of only non-vascular bryophyte-like plants. Prototaxites, which was probably a fungus or lichen, would have been the tallest organism of the late Silurian and early Devonian. Fungal fossils do not become common and uncontroversial until the early Devonian (416–359.2 Ma), when they occur abundantly in the Rhynie chert, mostly as Zygomycota and Chytridiomycota. At about this same time, approximately 400 Ma, the Ascomycota and Basidiomycota diverged, and all modern classes of fungi were present by the Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian, 318.1–299 Ma).
Lichens formed a component of the early terrestrial ecosystems, and the estimated age of the oldest terrestrial lichen fossil is 415 Ma; this date roughly corresponds to the age of the oldest known sporocarp fossil, a Paleopyrenomycites species found in the Rhynie Chert. The oldest fossil with microscopic features resembling modern-day basidiomycetes is Palaeoancistrus, found permineralized with a fern from the Pennsylvanian. Rare in the fossil record are the Homobasidiomycetes (a taxon roughly equivalent to the mushroom-producing species of the Agaricomycetes). Two amber-preserved specimens provide evidence that the earliest known mushroom-forming fungi (the extinct species Archaeomarasmius leggetti) appeared during the late Cretaceous, 90 Ma.
Some time after the Permian–Triassic extinction event (251.4 Ma), a fungal spike (originally thought to be an extraordinary abundance of fungal spores in sediments) formed, suggesting that fungi were the dominant life form at this time, representing nearly 100% of the available fossil record for this period. However, the relative proportion of fungal spores relative to spores formed by algal species is difficult to assess, the spike did not appear worldwide, and in many places it did not fall on the Permian–Triassic boundary.
Sixty-five million years ago, immediately after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that famously killed off most dinosaurs, there was a dramatic increase in evidence of fungi; apparently the death of most plant and animal species led to a huge fungal bloom like "a massive compost heap".
Taxonomy
Although commonly included in botany curricula and textbooks, fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants and are placed with the animals in the monophyletic group of opisthokonts. Analyses using molecular phylogenetics support a monophyletic origin of fungi. The taxonomy of fungi is in a state of constant flux, especially due to research based on DNA comparisons. These current phylogenetic analyses often overturn classifications based on older and sometimes less discriminative methods based on morphological features and biological species concepts obtained from experimental matings.
There is no unique generally accepted system at the higher taxonomic levels and there are frequent name changes at every level, from species upwards. Efforts among researchers are now underway to establish and encourage usage of a unified and more consistent nomenclature. Until relatively recent (2012) changes to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants, fungal species could also have multiple scientific names depending on their life cycle and mode (sexual or asexual) of reproduction. Web sites such as Index Fungorum and MycoBank are officially recognized nomenclatural repositories and list current names of fungal species (with cross-references to older synonyms).
The 2007 classification of Kingdom Fungi is the result of a large-scale collaborative research effort involving dozens of mycologists and other scientists working on fungal taxonomy. It recognizes seven phyla, two of which—the Ascomycota and the Basidiomycota—are contained within a branch representing subkingdom Dikarya, the most species rich and familiar group, including all the mushrooms, most food-spoilage molds, most plant pathogenic fungi, and the beer, wine, and bread yeasts. The accompanying cladogram depicts the major fungal taxa and their relationship to opisthokont and unikont organisms, based on the work of Philippe Silar, "The Mycota: A Comprehensive Treatise on Fungi as Experimental Systems for Basic and Applied Research" and Tedersoo et al. 2018. The lengths of the branches are not proportional to evolutionary distances.
The major phyla (sometimes called divisions) of fungi have been classified mainly on the basis of characteristics of their sexual reproductive structures. As of 2019, nine major lineages have been identified: Opisthosporidia, Chytridiomycota, Neocallimastigomycota, Blastocladiomycota, Zoopagomycotina, Mucoromycota, Glomeromycota, Ascomycota and Basidiomycota.
Phylogenetic analysis has demonstrated that the Microsporidia, unicellular parasites of animals and protists, are fairly recent and highly derived endobiotic fungi (living within the tissue of another species). Previously considered to be "primitive" protozoa, they are now thought to be either a basal branch of the Fungi, or a sister group–each other's closest evolutionary relative.
The Chytridiomycota are commonly known as chytrids. These fungi are distributed worldwide. Chytrids and their close relatives Neocallimastigomycota and Blastocladiomycota (below) are the only fungi with active motility, producing zoospores that are capable of active movement through aqueous phases with a single flagellum, leading early taxonomists to classify them as protists. Molecular phylogenies, inferred from rRNA sequences in ribosomes, suggest that the Chytrids are a basal group divergent from the other fungal phyla, consisting of four major clades with suggestive evidence for paraphyly or possibly polyphyly.
The Blastocladiomycota were previously considered a taxonomic clade within the Chytridiomycota. Molecular data and ultrastructural characteristics, however, place the Blastocladiomycota as a sister clade to the Zygomycota, Glomeromycota, and Dikarya (Ascomycota and Basidiomycota). The blastocladiomycetes are saprotrophs, feeding on decomposing organic matter, and they are parasites of all eukaryotic groups. Unlike their close relatives, the chytrids, most of which exhibit zygotic meiosis, the blastocladiomycetes undergo sporic meiosis.
The Neocallimastigomycota were earlier placed in the phylum Chytridiomycota. Members of this small phylum are anaerobic organisms, living in the digestive system of larger herbivorous mammals and in other terrestrial and aquatic environments enriched in cellulose (e.g., domestic waste landfill sites). They lack mitochondria but contain hydrogenosomes of mitochondrial origin. As in the related chrytrids, neocallimastigomycetes form zoospores that are posteriorly uniflagellate or polyflagellate.
Microscopic view of a layer of translucent grayish cells, some containing small dark-color spheres
Arbuscular mycorrhiza seen under microscope. Flax root cortical cells containing paired arbuscules.
Cross-section of a cup-shaped structure showing locations of developing meiotic asci (upper edge of cup, left side, arrows pointing to two gray cells containing four and two small circles), sterile hyphae (upper edge of cup, right side, arrows pointing to white cells with a single small circle in them), and mature asci (upper edge of cup, pointing to two gray cells with eight small circles in them)
Diagram of an apothecium (the typical cup-like reproductive structure of Ascomycetes) showing sterile tissues as well as developing and mature asci.
Members of the Glomeromycota form arbuscular mycorrhizae, a form of mutualist symbiosis wherein fungal hyphae invade plant root cells and both species benefit from the resulting increased supply of nutrients. All known Glomeromycota species reproduce asexually. The symbiotic association between the Glomeromycota and plants is ancient, with evidence dating to 400 million years ago. Formerly part of the Zygomycota (commonly known as 'sugar' and 'pin' molds), the Glomeromycota were elevated to phylum status in 2001 and now replace the older phylum Zygomycota. Fungi that were placed in the Zygomycota are now being reassigned to the Glomeromycota, or the subphyla incertae sedis Mucoromycotina, Kickxellomycotina, the Zoopagomycotina and the Entomophthoromycotina. Some well-known examples of fungi formerly in the Zygomycota include black bread mold (Rhizopus stolonifer), and Pilobolus species, capable of ejecting spores several meters through the air. Medically relevant genera include Mucor, Rhizomucor, and Rhizopus.
The Ascomycota, commonly known as sac fungi or ascomycetes, constitute the largest taxonomic group within the Eumycota. These fungi form meiotic spores called ascospores, which are enclosed in a special sac-like structure called an ascus. This phylum includes morels, a few mushrooms and truffles, unicellular yeasts (e.g., of the genera Saccharomyces, Kluyveromyces, Pichia, and Candida), and many filamentous fungi living as saprotrophs, parasites, and mutualistic symbionts (e.g. lichens). Prominent and important genera of filamentous ascomycetes include Aspergillus, Penicillium, Fusarium, and Claviceps. Many ascomycete species have only been observed undergoing asexual reproduction (called anamorphic species), but analysis of molecular data has often been able to identify their closest teleomorphs in the Ascomycota. Because the products of meiosis are retained within the sac-like ascus, ascomycetes have been used for elucidating principles of genetics and heredity (e.g., Neurospora crassa).
Members of the Basidiomycota, commonly known as the club fungi or basidiomycetes, produce meiospores called basidiospores on club-like stalks called basidia. Most common mushrooms belong to this group, as well as rust and smut fungi, which are major pathogens of grains. Other important basidiomycetes include the maize pathogen Ustilago maydis, human commensal species of the genus Malassezia, and the opportunistic human pathogen, Cryptococcus neoformans.
Fungus-like organisms
Because of similarities in morphology and lifestyle, the slime molds (mycetozoans, plasmodiophorids, acrasids, Fonticula and labyrinthulids, now in Amoebozoa, Rhizaria, Excavata, Opisthokonta and Stramenopiles, respectively), water molds (oomycetes) and hyphochytrids (both Stramenopiles) were formerly classified in the kingdom Fungi, in groups like Mastigomycotina, Gymnomycota and Phycomycetes. The slime molds were studied also as protozoans, leading to an ambiregnal, duplicated taxonomy.
Unlike true fungi, the cell walls of oomycetes contain cellulose and lack chitin. Hyphochytrids have both chitin and cellulose. Slime molds lack a cell wall during the assimilative phase (except labyrinthulids, which have a wall of scales), and take in nutrients by ingestion (phagocytosis, except labyrinthulids) rather than absorption (osmotrophy, as fungi, labyrinthulids, oomycetes and hyphochytrids). Neither water molds nor slime molds are closely related to the true fungi, and, therefore, taxonomists no longer group them in the kingdom Fungi. Nonetheless, studies of the oomycetes and myxomycetes are still often included in mycology textbooks and primary research literature.
The Eccrinales and Amoebidiales are opisthokont protists, previously thought to be zygomycete fungi. Other groups now in Opisthokonta (e.g., Corallochytrium, Ichthyosporea) were also at given time classified as fungi. The genus Blastocystis, now in Stramenopiles, was originally classified as a yeast. Ellobiopsis, now in Alveolata, was considered a chytrid. The bacteria were also included in fungi in some classifications, as the group Schizomycetes.
The Rozellida clade, including the "ex-chytrid" Rozella, is a genetically disparate group known mostly from environmental DNA sequences that is a sister group to fungi. Members of the group that have been isolated lack the chitinous cell wall that is characteristic of fungi. Alternatively, Rozella can be classified as a basal fungal group.
The nucleariids may be the next sister group to the eumycete clade, and as such could be included in an expanded fungal kingdom. Many Actinomycetales (Actinomycetota), a group with many filamentous bacteria, were also long believed to be fungi.
Ecology
Although often inconspicuous, fungi occur in every environment on Earth and play very important roles in most ecosystems. Along with bacteria, fungi are the major decomposers in most terrestrial (and some aquatic) ecosystems, and therefore play a critical role in biogeochemical cycles and in many food webs. As decomposers, they play an essential role in nutrient cycling, especially as saprotrophs and symbionts, degrading organic matter to inorganic molecules, which can then re-enter anabolic metabolic pathways in plants or other organisms.
Symbiosis
Many fungi have important symbiotic relationships with organisms from most if not all kingdoms. These interactions can be mutualistic or antagonistic in nature, or in the case of commensal fungi are of no apparent benefit or detriment to the host.
With plants
Mycorrhizal symbiosis between plants and fungi is one of the most well-known plant–fungus associations and is of significant importance for plant growth and persistence in many ecosystems; over 90% of all plant species engage in mycorrhizal relationships with fungi and are dependent upon this relationship for survival.
A microscopic view of blue-stained cells, some with dark wavy lines in them
The dark filaments are hyphae of the endophytic fungus Epichloë coenophiala in the intercellular spaces of tall fescue leaf sheath tissue
The mycorrhizal symbiosis is ancient, dating back to at least 400 million years. It often increases the plant's uptake of inorganic compounds, such as nitrate and phosphate from soils having low concentrations of these key plant nutrients. The fungal partners may also mediate plant-to-plant transfer of carbohydrates and other nutrients. Such mycorrhizal communities are called "common mycorrhizal networks". A special case of mycorrhiza is myco-heterotrophy, whereby the plant parasitizes the fungus, obtaining all of its nutrients from its fungal symbiont. Some fungal species inhabit the tissues inside roots, stems, and leaves, in which case they are called endophytes. Similar to mycorrhiza, endophytic colonization by fungi may benefit both symbionts; for example, endophytes of grasses impart to their host increased resistance to herbivores and other environmental stresses and receive food and shelter from the plant in return.
With algae and cyanobacteria
A green, leaf-like structure attached to a tree, with a pattern of ridges and depression on the bottom surface
The lichen Lobaria pulmonaria, a symbiosis of fungal, algal, and cyanobacterial species
Lichens are a symbiotic relationship between fungi and photosynthetic algae or cyanobacteria. The photosynthetic partner in the relationship is referred to in lichen terminology as a "photobiont". The fungal part of the relationship is composed mostly of various species of ascomycetes and a few basidiomycetes. Lichens occur in every ecosystem on all continents, play a key role in soil formation and the initiation of biological succession, and are prominent in some extreme environments, including polar, alpine, and semiarid desert regions. They are able to grow on inhospitable surfaces, including bare soil, rocks, tree bark, wood, shells, barnacles and leaves. As in mycorrhizas, the photobiont provides sugars and other carbohydrates via photosynthesis to the fungus, while the fungus provides minerals and water to the photobiont. The functions of both symbiotic organisms are so closely intertwined that they function almost as a single organism; in most cases the resulting organism differs greatly from the individual components. Lichenization is a common mode of nutrition for fungi; around 27% of known fungi—more than 19,400 species—are lichenized. Characteristics common to most lichens include obtaining organic carbon by photosynthesis, slow growth, small size, long life, long-lasting (seasonal) vegetative reproductive structures, mineral nutrition obtained largely from airborne sources, and greater tolerance of desiccation than most other photosynthetic organisms in the same habitat.
With insects
Many insects also engage in mutualistic relationships with fungi. Several groups of ants cultivate fungi in the order Chaetothyriales for several purposes: as a food source, as a structural component of their nests, and as a part of an ant/plant symbiosis in the domatia (tiny chambers in plants that house arthropods). Ambrosia beetles cultivate various species of fungi in the bark of trees that they infest. Likewise, females of several wood wasp species (genus Sirex) inject their eggs together with spores of the wood-rotting fungus Amylostereum areolatum into the sapwood of pine trees; the growth of the fungus provides ideal nutritional conditions for the development of the wasp larvae. At least one species of stingless bee has a relationship with a fungus in the genus Monascus, where the larvae consume and depend on fungus transferred from old to new nests. Termites on the African savannah are also known to cultivate fungi, and yeasts of the genera Candida and Lachancea inhabit the gut of a wide range of insects, including neuropterans, beetles, and cockroaches; it is not known whether these fungi benefit their hosts. Fungi growing in dead wood are essential for xylophagous insects (e.g. woodboring beetles). They deliver nutrients needed by xylophages to nutritionally scarce dead wood. Thanks to this nutritional enrichment the larvae of the woodboring insect is able to grow and develop to adulthood. The larvae of many families of fungicolous flies, particularly those within the superfamily Sciaroidea such as the Mycetophilidae and some Keroplatidae feed on fungal fruiting bodies and sterile mycorrhizae.
A thin brown stick positioned horizontally with roughly two dozen clustered orange-red leaves originating from a single point in the middle of the stick. These orange leaves are three to four times larger than the few other green leaves growing out of the stick, and are covered on the lower leaf surface with hundreds of tiny bumps. The background shows the green leaves and branches of neighboring shrubs.
The plant pathogen Puccinia magellanicum (calafate rust) causes the defect known as witch's broom, seen here on a barberry shrub in Chile.
Gram stain of Candida albicans from a vaginal swab from a woman with candidiasis, showing hyphae, and chlamydospores, which are 2–4 µm in diameter.
Many fungi are parasites on plants, animals (including humans), and other fungi. Serious pathogens of many cultivated plants causing extensive damage and losses to agriculture and forestry include the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, tree pathogens such as Ophiostoma ulmi and Ophiostoma novo-ulmi causing Dutch elm disease, Cryphonectria parasitica responsible for chestnut blight, and Phymatotrichopsis omnivora causing Texas Root Rot, and plant pathogens in the genera Fusarium, Ustilago, Alternaria, and Cochliobolus. Some carnivorous fungi, like Paecilomyces lilacinus, are predators of nematodes, which they capture using an array of specialized structures such as constricting rings or adhesive nets. Many fungi that are plant pathogens, such as Magnaporthe oryzae, can switch from being biotrophic (parasitic on living plants) to being necrotrophic (feeding on the dead tissues of plants they have killed). This same principle is applied to fungi-feeding parasites, including Asterotremella albida, which feeds on the fruit bodies of other fungi both while they are living and after they are dead.
Some fungi can cause serious diseases in humans, several of which may be fatal if untreated. These include aspergillosis, candidiasis, coccidioidomycosis, cryptococcosis, histoplasmosis, mycetomas, and paracoccidioidomycosis. Furthermore, persons with immuno-deficiencies are particularly susceptible to disease by genera such as Aspergillus, Candida, Cryptoccocus, Histoplasma, and Pneumocystis. Other fungi can attack eyes, nails, hair, and especially skin, the so-called dermatophytic and keratinophilic fungi, and cause local infections such as ringworm and athlete's foot. Fungal spores are also a cause of allergies, and fungi from different taxonomic groups can evoke allergic reactions.
As targets of mycoparasites
Organisms that parasitize fungi are known as mycoparasitic organisms. About 300 species of fungi and fungus-like organisms, belonging to 13 classes and 113 genera, are used as biocontrol agents against plant fungal diseases. Fungi can also act as mycoparasites or antagonists of other fungi, such as Hypomyces chrysospermus, which grows on bolete mushrooms. Fungi can also become the target of infection by mycoviruses.
Communication
Main article: Mycorrhizal networks
There appears to be electrical communication between fungi in word-like components according to spiking characteristics.
Possible impact on climate
According to a study published in the academic journal Current Biology, fungi can soak from the atmosphere around 36% of global fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions.
Mycotoxins
(6aR,9R)-N-((2R,5S,10aS,10bS)-5-benzyl-10b-hydroxy-2-methyl-3,6-dioxooctahydro-2H-oxazolo[3,2-a] pyrrolo[2,1-c]pyrazin-2-yl)-7-methyl-4,6,6a,7,8,9-hexahydroindolo[4,3-fg] quinoline-9-carboxamide
Ergotamine, a major mycotoxin produced by Claviceps species, which if ingested can cause gangrene, convulsions, and hallucinations
Many fungi produce biologically active compounds, several of which are toxic to animals or plants and are therefore called mycotoxins. Of particular relevance to humans are mycotoxins produced by molds causing food spoilage, and poisonous mushrooms (see above). Particularly infamous are the lethal amatoxins in some Amanita mushrooms, and ergot alkaloids, which have a long history of causing serious epidemics of ergotism (St Anthony's Fire) in people consuming rye or related cereals contaminated with sclerotia of the ergot fungus, Claviceps purpurea. Other notable mycotoxins include the aflatoxins, which are insidious liver toxins and highly carcinogenic metabolites produced by certain Aspergillus species often growing in or on grains and nuts consumed by humans, ochratoxins, patulin, and trichothecenes (e.g., T-2 mycotoxin) and fumonisins, which have significant impact on human food supplies or animal livestock.
Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites (or natural products), and research has established the existence of biochemical pathways solely for the purpose of producing mycotoxins and other natural products in fungi. Mycotoxins may provide fitness benefits in terms of physiological adaptation, competition with other microbes and fungi, and protection from consumption (fungivory). Many fungal secondary metabolites (or derivatives) are used medically, as described under Human use below.
Pathogenic mechanisms
Ustilago maydis is a pathogenic plant fungus that causes smut disease in maize and teosinte. Plants have evolved efficient defense systems against pathogenic microbes such as U. maydis. A rapid defense reaction after pathogen attack is the oxidative burst where the plant produces reactive oxygen species at the site of the attempted invasion. U. maydis can respond to the oxidative burst with an oxidative stress response, regulated by the gene YAP1. The response protects U. maydis from the host defense, and is necessary for the pathogen's virulence. Furthermore, U. maydis has a well-established recombinational DNA repair system which acts during mitosis and meiosis. The system may assist the pathogen in surviving DNA damage arising from the host plant's oxidative defensive response to infection.
Cryptococcus neoformans is an encapsulated yeast that can live in both plants and animals. C. neoformans usually infects the lungs, where it is phagocytosed by alveolar macrophages. Some C. neoformans can survive inside macrophages, which appears to be the basis for latency, disseminated disease, and resistance to antifungal agents. One mechanism by which C. neoformans survives the hostile macrophage environment is by up-regulating the expression of genes involved in the oxidative stress response. Another mechanism involves meiosis. The majority of C. neoformans are mating "type a". Filaments of mating "type a" ordinarily have haploid nuclei, but they can become diploid (perhaps by endoduplication or by stimulated nuclear fusion) to form blastospores. The diploid nuclei of blastospores can undergo meiosis, including recombination, to form haploid basidiospores that can be dispersed. This process is referred to as monokaryotic fruiting. This process requires a gene called DMC1, which is a conserved homologue of genes recA in bacteria and RAD51 in eukaryotes, that mediates homologous chromosome pairing during meiosis and repair of DNA double-strand breaks. Thus, C. neoformans can undergo a meiosis, monokaryotic fruiting, that promotes recombinational repair in the oxidative, DNA damaging environment of the host macrophage, and the repair capability may contribute to its virulence.
Human use
See also: Human interactions with fungi
Microscopic view of five spherical structures; one of the spheres is considerably smaller than the rest and attached to one of the larger spheres
Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells shown with DIC microscopy
The human use of fungi for food preparation or preservation and other purposes is extensive and has a long history. Mushroom farming and mushroom gathering are large industries in many countries. The study of the historical uses and sociological impact of fungi is known as ethnomycology. Because of the capacity of this group to produce an enormous range of natural products with antimicrobial or other biological activities, many species have long been used or are being developed for industrial production of antibiotics, vitamins, and anti-cancer and cholesterol-lowering drugs. Methods have been developed for genetic engineering of fungi, enabling metabolic engineering of fungal species. For example, genetic modification of yeast species—which are easy to grow at fast rates in large fermentation vessels—has opened up ways of pharmaceutical production that are potentially more efficient than production by the original source organisms. Fungi-based industries are sometimes considered to be a major part of a growing bioeconomy, with applications under research and development including use for textiles, meat substitution and general fungal biotechnology.
Therapeutic uses
Modern chemotherapeutics
Many species produce metabolites that are major sources of pharmacologically active drugs.
Antibiotics
Particularly important are the antibiotics, including the penicillins, a structurally related group of β-lactam antibiotics that are synthesized from small peptides. Although naturally occurring penicillins such as penicillin G (produced by Penicillium chrysogenum) have a relatively narrow spectrum of biological activity, a wide range of other penicillins can be produced by chemical modification of the natural penicillins. Modern penicillins are semisynthetic compounds, obtained initially from fermentation cultures, but then structurally altered for specific desirable properties. Other antibiotics produced by fungi include: ciclosporin, commonly used as an immunosuppressant during transplant surgery; and fusidic acid, used to help control infection from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. Widespread use of antibiotics for the treatment of bacterial diseases, such as tuberculosis, syphilis, leprosy, and others began in the early 20th century and continues to date. In nature, antibiotics of fungal or bacterial origin appear to play a dual role: at high concentrations they act as chemical defense against competition with other microorganisms in species-rich environments, such as the rhizosphere, and at low concentrations as quorum-sensing molecules for intra- or interspecies signaling.
Other
Other drugs produced by fungi include griseofulvin isolated from Penicillium griseofulvum, used to treat fungal infections, and statins (HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors), used to inhibit cholesterol synthesis. Examples of statins found in fungi include mevastatin from Penicillium citrinum and lovastatin from Aspergillus terreus and the oyster mushroom. Psilocybin from fungi is investigated for therapeutic use and appears to cause global increases in brain network integration. Fungi produce compounds that inhibit viruses and cancer cells. Specific metabolites, such as polysaccharide-K, ergotamine, and β-lactam antibiotics, are routinely used in clinical medicine. The shiitake mushroom is a source of lentinan, a clinical drug approved for use in cancer treatments in several countries, including Japan. In Europe and Japan, polysaccharide-K (brand name Krestin), a chemical derived from Trametes versicolor, is an approved adjuvant for cancer therapy.
Traditional medicine
Upper surface view of a kidney-shaped fungus, brownish-red with a lighter yellow-brown margin, and a somewhat varnished or shiny appearance
Two dried yellow-orange caterpillars, one with a curly grayish fungus growing out of one of its ends. The grayish fungus is roughly equal to or slightly greater in length than the caterpillar, and tapers in thickness to a narrow end.
The fungi Ganoderma lucidum (left) and Ophiocordyceps sinensis (right) are used in traditional medicine practices
Certain mushrooms are used as supposed therapeutics in folk medicine practices, such as traditional Chinese medicine. Mushrooms with a history of such use include Agaricus subrufescens, Ganoderma lucidum, and Ophiocordyceps sinensis.
Cultured foods
Baker's yeast or Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a unicellular fungus, is used to make bread and other wheat-based products, such as pizza dough and dumplings. Yeast species of the genus Saccharomyces are also used to produce alcoholic beverages through fermentation. Shoyu koji mold (Aspergillus oryzae) is an essential ingredient in brewing Shoyu (soy sauce) and sake, and the preparation of miso while Rhizopus species are used for making tempeh. Several of these fungi are domesticated species that were bred or selected according to their capacity to ferment food without producing harmful mycotoxins (see below), which are produced by very closely related Aspergilli. Quorn, a meat substitute, is made from Fusarium venenatum.
Belgian Collectors Card by Kwatta, Bois d'Haine, no. C. 36. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.
Cyd Charisse (1921-2008) was born to be a dancer. She became one of the top female dancers in the golden era of the musical. Her films include Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953), Brigadoon (1954) and Silk Stockings (1957). She was one of the few actresses to have danced with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.
Cyd Charisse was born Tula Ellice Finklea in 1921 in Amarillo, Texas. Her Baptist jeweler father encouraged her to begin her ballet lessons for health reasons. She was frail and sickly at the time and had a bout with polio. During a family vacation in Los Angeles when she was 12, her parents enrolled her in ballet classes at a school in Hollywood. One of her teachers was Nico Charisse, whom she married in 1939. She joined the Ballet Russe at age 13 and became a member of the corps de ballet at age 14. With the Ballets Russe, she toured the United States and Europe. In Paris the company disbanded after World War II broke out, and the Charisse couple moved to Hollywood. She got her start in Hollywood when Ballet Russe star David Lichine was hired by Columbia for a ballet sequence in the musical film Something to Shout About (Gregory Ratoff, 1943). She was billed as Lily Norwood. The same year, she played a Russian dancer in Mission to Moscow (1943), directed by Michael Curtiz. She took her name Cyd from a nickname originated from her little brother. Initially, he could not say sister and called her Sid. In 1945, she was hired to dance with Fred Astaire in Ziegfeld Follies (Vincente Minelli a.o., 1945), and that uncredited appearance got her a seven-year contract with MGM. Her first speaking part was supporting Judy Garland in The Harvey Girls (George Sidney, 1946). Her dark looks initially had her cast as ethnic beauties. She was cast as Ricardo Montalban's fiancée in the film Fiesta (Richard Thorpe, 1947), and as a Polynesian in the Esther Williams' musical On an Island with You (Richard Thorpe, 1948).
Cyd Charisse appeared in a number of musicals over the next few years, but it was the celebrated Broadway Melody ballet finale with Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain (Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen, 1952) that made her a star. That was quickly followed by her great performance in The Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli, 1953), where she danced with Fred Astaire in the acclaimed Dancing in the Dark number. She co-starred with Kelly in the Scottish-themed musical Brigadoon (Vincente Minnelli, 1954) and in It's Always Fair Weather (Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen, 1956). In 1957 she rejoined Astaire in the film version of Silk Stockings (Rouben Mamoulian, 1957), a musical remake of Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939), with Charisse taking over Greta Garbo's role. She had a slightly unusual serious acting role in Party Girl (Nicholas Ray, 1958), where she played a showgirl who became involved with gangsters and a crooked lawyer. As the 1960s dawned, musicals faded from the screen, as did her career. She made appearances on television and performed in a nightclub revue with her second husband, singer Tony Martin. At 70, she made her Broadway debut in Grand Hotel. Her last film appearance was in That's Entertainment! III (Bud Friedgen, Michael J. Sheridan, 1994) as one of the onscreen narrators of a tribute to the great MGM musical films. Cyd Charisse died at age 87 of a heart attack in 2008 in Los Angeles, California. She had two sons: Nicholas Charisse (1942) and Tony Martin Jr. (1950).
Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
August 20, 2006
Weekend in New York
In and Around Times Square
By SETH KUGEL
TIMES SQUARE is “overrated.”
At least, that’s the category Frommer’s plunked it in in its 2006 guide to New York City. Most New Yorkers and regular visitors probably agree. Other adjectives that cling to Times Square and its surrounding blocks like sidewalk chewing gum include: crowded, touristy, Disneyfied, overpriced and maddening.
But if you’re a first-time visitor, you’re going to go anyway. And even the most jaded have to admit that soaking up the neon anarchy and peering up at the huge television screens is pretty cool.
Deciding what to do beyond that, though, requires sorting the Times Square wheat from the Times Square chaff. By chaff, we mean the stuff that can be found in any mall in America. You know: Toys “R” Us (even if it does have a Ferris wheel), Olive Garden, the red-and-yellow twinkle of McDonald’s and the venti number of Starbucks. Then there are those tourist shops that, straight-faced, sell $30 Statue of Liberty gold plates.
Start by trying to look beyond all that neon, to where some intriguing buildings lurk. In 1905, The New York Times officially moved into the newly built Times Building on 42nd Street in what was Longacre Square, which had been renamed in the newspaper’s honor. In celebration of the move, the skyscraper was the center of a New Year’s Eve celebration on Dec. 31, 1904, that became a tradition. The building, subsequently known as the Times Tower, is now known as 1 Times Square, and The Times long ago moved a bit west to 43rd Street.
Nearby is a Beaux-Arts-style red-brick building at 42nd and Broadway that was built as the Knickerbocker Hotel, where Caruso once lived. The Paramount Building (1926), at 44th Street, is topped with an elegant clock and globe that even some New Yorkers have never bothered craning their necks to see. And, of course, there are the many theaters, including the Art Nouveau New Amsterdam rebuilt by Disney last decade; it was once the home of the Ziegfeld Follies.
There are even some worthwhile shops that do not have branches throughout America. The Drama Book Shop, an independent bookstore, has everything theater obsessives need, and several things they probably don’t (say, a William Shakespeare action figure and Northern Irish dialect CD’s). Kaufman’s Army & Navy is a musty, chaotic spot for camouflage and boots; it is one of the few true military surplus stores still around. Look for the two wooden-wheeled United States Army Hotchkiss mountain cannons from the Spanish-American War squatting outside.
On 48th Street, just east of Seventh Avenue, is a cluster of music shops including Manny’s Music, which sells everything from $12,000 guitars to an eclectic bouquet of microphones. Of course, there is still no shortage of shops selling X-rated DVD’s and sex toys, but the bad old days of prostitutes and street hustlers are mostly gone, regardless of what David Letterman’s monologues imply.
Now for the tricky part: where to eat. Right in the square itself, there are a lot of gaudiness and national chains. But a short walk away, in Clinton, is one of New York’s great ethnic eating strips, Ninth Avenue, with everything from Mexican to Thai to Afghan. Just off Ninth is the Little Pie Company’s celebrated sour cream apple walnut pie for $6. Near the hulking Port Authority bus terminal, the Cupcake Cafe is a shockingly homey spot for a breakfast of homemade doughnuts or muffins. The coffee is a buck, self-serve, and the milk is in actual cartons, hidden in a wooden refrigerator.
Then there’s the bargain block: Ninth Avenue between 41st and 42nd Street. On the corner of 41st is the ivory-billed woodpecker of the pizza industry: a dollar-a-slice shop. Take good video, or your hometown pizza-guzzlers won’t believe you. On the other end of the block, Papaya Dog is full of 99-cent bargains. In fact, you can get a hot dog and a scoop of ice cream there for two cents less than the withdrawal fee at the Citibank A.T.M. across the street (but only if you insist on your two pennies in change).
That block also has one of the neighborhood’s reasonably priced bars, Dave’s Tavern, where a Budweiser is $3 and a pitcher $10. There’s also Rudy’s Bar and Grill up the street. But the obvious winner and still-reigning Times Square hole-in-the-wall champion is Jimmy’s Corner, a slender bar tucked into 44th Street just east of the square. Boxing memorabilia cover the walls, and if boxing is on television somewhere, it’s on Jimmy’s televisions. Jimmy Glenn himself, a boxing trainer who opened the place 35 years ago, is a regular nighttime presence.
Relaxing seems antithetical to Times Square, but a block to the east sits Bryant Park on the Avenue of the Americas between 40th and 42nd Streets, where a canopy of London plane trees brings serenity to numbed minds trembling from neon overload. And if you want culture, don’t pay Broadway prices. Try the International Center of Photography, the only non-Madame Tussaud museum nearby. Admission is $10, and worth it — unless you’d rather have four pizza slices, four hot dogs and a double scoop of ice cream.
VISITOR INFORMATION
All businesses listed are open seven days a week, unless noted.
BUILDINGS OF INTEREST
1 Times Square (former Times Tower): between 42nd and 43rd Streets.
Paramount Building. 1501 Broadway, at 44th Street.
(Former) Knickerbocker Hotel, 1466 Broadway, at 42nd Street
New Amsterdam Theater, 214 West 42nd Street.
SHOPS:
Drama Book Shop, 250 West 40th Street; (212) 944-0595.
Kaufman’s Army & Navy, 319 West 42nd Street; (212) 757-5670, closed Sundays.
Manny’s Music, 156 West 48th Street; (212) 819-0576.
FOOD
Little Pie Company, 424 West 43rd Street; (212) 736-4780.
Cupcake Cafe, 545 Ninth Avenue, at 41st Street; (212) 465-1530.
99¢ Fresh Pizza, 569 Ninth Avenue, at 41st Street; (212) 268-1461.
Papaya Dog, 400 West 42nd Street; (212) 629-0632.
Dave’s Tavern, 574 Ninth Avenue, at 42nd Street; (212) 244-4408.
Jimmy’s Corner, 140 West 44th Street; (212) 221-9510.
CULTURE
International Center of Photography, 1133 Avenue of the Americas, at 43rd Street, (212) 857-0000; www.icp.org.
Costa Rica (/ˌkɒstə ˈriːkə/ (About this sound listen); Spanish: [ˈkosta ˈrika]; "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica (Spanish: República de Costa Rica), is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around 4.9 million, in a land area of 51,060 square kilometers; over 300,000 live in the capital and largest city, San José, which had a population of an estimated 333,980 in 2015.
Costa Rica has been known for its stable democracy, in a region that has had some instability, and for its highly educated workforce, most of whom speak English. The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%. Its economy, once heavily dependent on agriculture, has diversified to include sectors such as finance, corporate services for foreign companies, pharmaceuticals, and ecotourism. Many foreign companies (manufacturing and services) operate in Costa Rica's free trade zones (FTZ) where they benefit from investment and tax incentives.
In spite of impressive growth in the Gross domestic product (GDP), low inflation, moderate interest rates and an acceptable unemployment level, Costa Rica in 2017 was facing a liquidity crisis due to a growing debt and budget deficit. By August 2017, the Treasury was having difficulty paying its obligations. Other challenges facing the country in its attempts to improve the economy by increasing foreign investment include a poor infrastructure and a need to improve public sector efficiency.
Costa Rica was sparsely inhabited by indigenous peoples before coming under Spanish rule in the 16th century. It remained a peripheral colony of the empire until independence as part of the short-lived First Mexican Empire, followed by membership in the United Provinces of Central America, from which it formally declared independence in 1847. Since then, Costa Rica has remained among the most stable, prosperous, and progressive nations in Latin America. Following the brief Costa Rican Civil War, it permanently abolished its army in 1949, becoming one of only a few sovereign nations without a standing army.
The country has consistently performed favourably in the Human Development Index (HDI), placing 69th in the world as of 2015, among the highest of any Latin American nation. It has also been cited by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as having attained much higher human development than other countries at the same income levels, with a better record on human development and inequality than the median of the region.
Costa Rica also has progressive environmental policies. It is the only country to meet all five UNDP criteria established to measure environmental sustainability. It was ranked 42nd in the world, and third in the Americas, in the 2016 Environmental Performance Index, and was twice ranked the best performing country in the New Economics Foundation's (NEF) Happy Planet Index, which measures environmental sustainability, and was identified by the NEF as the greenest country in the world in 2009. Costa Rica plans to become a carbon-neutral country by 2021. By 2016, 98.1% of its electricity was generated from green sources particularly hydro, solar, geothermal and biomass.
HISTORY
PRE-COLUMBIAN PERIOD
Historians have classified the indigenous people of Costa Rica as belonging to the Intermediate Area, where the peripheries of the Mesoamerican and Andean native cultures overlapped. More recently, pre-Columbian Costa Rica has also been described as part of the Isthmo-Colombian Area.
Stone tools, the oldest evidence of human occupation in Costa Rica, are associated with the arrival of various groups of hunter-gatherers about 10,000 to 7,000 years BCE in the Turrialba Valley. The presence of Clovis culture type spearheads and arrows from South America opens the possibility that, in this area, two different cultures coexisted.
Agriculture became evident in the populations that lived in Costa Rica about 5,000 years ago. They mainly grew tubers and roots. For the first and second millennia BCE there were already settled farming communities. These were small and scattered, although the timing of the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture as the main livelihood in the territory is still unknown.
The earliest use of pottery appears around 2,000 to 3,000 BCE. Shards of pots, cylindrical vases, platters, gourds and other forms of vases decorated with grooves, prints, and some modelled after animals have been found.
The impact of indigenous peoples on modern Costa Rican culture has been relatively small compared to other nations, since the country lacked a strong native civilization to begin with. Most of the native population was absorbed into the Spanish-speaking colonial society through inter-marriage, except for some small remnants, the most significant of which are the Bribri and Boruca tribes who still inhabit the mountains of the Cordillera de Talamanca, in the southeastern part of Costa Rica, near the frontier with Panama.
SPANISH COLONIZATION
The name la costa rica, meaning "rich coast" in the Spanish language, was in some accounts first applied by Christopher Columbus, who sailed to the eastern shores of Costa Rica during his final voyage in 1502, and reported vast quantities of gold jewelry worn by natives. The name may also have come from conquistador Gil González Dávila, who landed on the west coast in 1522, encountered natives, and appropriated some of their gold.
During most of the colonial period, Costa Rica was the southernmost province of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, nominally part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In practice, the captaincy general was a largely autonomous entity within the Spanish Empire. Costa Rica's distance from the capital of the captaincy in Guatemala, its legal prohibition under Spanish law from trade with its southern neighbor Panama, then part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (i.e. Colombia), and lack of resources such as gold and silver, made Costa Rica into a poor, isolated, and sparsely-inhabited region within the Spanish Empire. Costa Rica was described as "the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all America" by a Spanish governor in 1719.
Another important factor behind Costa Rica's poverty was the lack of a significant indigenous population available for encomienda (forced labor), which meant most of the Costa Rican settlers had to work on their own land, preventing the establishment of large haciendas (plantations). For all these reasons, Costa Rica was, by and large, unappreciated and overlooked by the Spanish Crown and left to develop on its own. The circumstances during this period are believed to have led to many of the idiosyncrasies for which Costa Rica has become known, while concomitantly setting the stage for Costa Rica's development as a more egalitarian society than the rest of its neighbors. Costa Rica became a "rural democracy" with no oppressed mestizo or indigenous class. It was not long before Spanish settlers turned to the hills, where they found rich volcanic soil and a milder climate than that of the lowlands.
INDEPENDENCE
Like the rest of Central America, Costa Rica never fought for independence from Spain. On September 15, 1821, after the final Spanish defeat in the Mexican War of Independence (1810–21), the authorities in Guatemala declared the independence of all of Central America. That date is still celebrated as Independence Day in Costa Rica even though, technically, under the Spanish Constitution of 1812 that had been readopted in 1820, Nicaragua and Costa Rica had become an autonomous province with its capital in León.
Upon independence, Costa Rican authorities faced the issue of officially deciding the future of the country. Two bands formed, the Imperialists, defended by Cartago and Heredia cities which were in favor of joining the Mexican Empire, and the Republicans, represented by the cities of San José and Alajuela who defended full independence. Because of the lack of agreement on these two possible outcomes, the first civil war of Costa Rica occurred. The battle of Ochomogo (es) took place on the Hill of Ochomogo, located in the Central Valley in 1823. The conflict was won by the Republicans and, as a consequence, the city of Cartago lost its status as the capital, which moved to San José.
In 1838, long after the Federal Republic of Central America ceased to function in practice, Costa Rica formally withdrew and proclaimed itself sovereign. The considerable distance and poor communication routes between Guatemala City and the Central Plateau, where most of the Costa Rican population lived then and still lives now, meant the local population had little allegiance to the federal government in Guatemala. From colonial times to now, Costa Rica's reluctance to become economically tied with the rest of Central America has been a major obstacle to efforts for greater regional integration.
ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE 19TH CENTURY
Coffee was first planted in Costa Rica in 1808, and by the 1820s, it surpassed tobacco, sugar, and cacao as a primary export. Coffee production remained Costa Rica's principal source of wealth well into the 20th century, creating a wealthy class of growers, the so-called Coffee Barons. The revenue helped to modernize the country.
Most of the coffee exported was grown around the main centers of population in the Central Plateau and then transported by oxcart to the Pacific port of Puntarenas after the main road was built in 1846. By the mid-1850s the main market for coffee was Britain. It soon became a high priority to develop an effective transportation route from the Central Plateau to the Atlantic Ocean. For this purpose, in the 1870s, the Costa Rican government contracted with U.S. businessman Minor C. Keith to build a railroad from San José to the Caribbean port of Limón. Despite enormous difficulties with construction, disease, and financing, the railroad was completed in 1890.
Most Afro-Costa Ricans descend from Jamaican immigrants who worked in the construction of that railway and now make up about 3% of Costa Rica's population. U.S. convicts, Italians and Chinese immigrants also participated in the construction project. In exchange for completing the railroad, the Costa Rican government granted Keith large tracts of land and a lease on the train route, which he used to produce bananas and export them to the United States. As a result, bananas came to rival coffee as the principal Costa Rican export, while foreign-owned corporations (including the United Fruit Company later) began to hold a major role in the national economy and eventually became a symbol of the exploitative export economy. The major labor dispute between the peasants and the United Fruit Company (The Great Banana Strike) was a major event in the country's history and was an important step that would eventually lead to the formation of effective trade unions in Costa Rica, as the company was required to sign a collective agreement with its workers in 1938.
20TH CENTURY
Historically, Costa Rica has generally enjoyed greater peace and more consistent political stability than many of its fellow Latin American nations. Since the late 19th century, however, Costa Rica has experienced two significant periods of violence. In 1917–19, General Federico Tinoco Granados ruled as a military dictator until he was overthrown and forced into exile. The unpopularity of Tinoco's regime led, after he was overthrown, to a considerable decline in the size, wealth, and political influence of the Costa Rican military. In 1948, José Figueres Ferrer led an armed uprising in the wake of a disputed presidential election between Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia (who had been president between 1940 and 1944) and Otilio Ulate Blanco. With more than 2,000 dead, the resulting 44-day Costa Rican Civil War was the bloodiest event in Costa Rica during the 20th century.
The victorious rebels formed a government junta that abolished the military altogether, and oversaw the drafting of a new constitution by a democratically elected assembly. Having enacted these reforms, the junta transferred power to Ulate on November 8, 1949. After the coup d'état, Figueres became a national hero, winning the country's first democratic election under the new constitution in 1953. Since then, Costa Rica has held 14 presidential elections, the latest in 2014. With uninterrupted democracy dating back to at least 1948, the country is the region's most stable.
GEOGRAPHY
Costa Rica is located on the Central American isthmus, lying between latitudes 8° and 12°N, and longitudes 82° and 86°W. It borders the Caribbean Sea (to the east) and the Pacific Ocean (to the west), with a total of 1,290 kilometres of coastline, 212 km on the Caribbean coast and 1,016 km on the Pacific. Costa Rica also borders Nicaragua to the north (309 km of border) and Panama to the south-southeast (330 km of border). In total, Costa Rica comprises 51,100 square kilometres plus 589 square kilometres of territorial waters.
The highest point in the country is Cerro Chirripó, at 3,819 metres; it is the fifth highest peak in Central America. The highest volcano in the country is the Irazú Volcano (3,431 m) and the largest lake is Lake Arenal. There are 14 known volcanoes in Costa Rica, and six of them have been active in the last 75 years. The country has also experienced at least ten earthquakes of magnitude 5.7 or higher (3 of magnitude 7.0 or higher) in the last century.
Costa Rica also comprises several islands. Cocos Island (24 square kilometres) stands out because of its distance from the continental landmass, 480 kilometres from Puntarenas, but Isla Calero is the largest island of the country (151.6 square kilometres). Over 25% of Costa Rica's national territory is protected by SINAC (the National System of Conservation Areas), which oversees all of the country's protected areas. Costa Rica also possesses the greatest density of species in the world.
CLIMATE
Because Costa Rica is located between 8 and 12 degrees north of the Equator, the climate is tropical year round. However, the country has many microclimates depending on elevation, rainfall, topography, and by the geography of each particular region.
Costa Rica's seasons are defined by how much rain falls during a particular period. The year can be split into two periods, the dry season known to the residents as summer (verano), and the rainy season, known locally as winter (invierno). The "summer" or dry season goes from December to April, and "winter" or rainy season goes from May to November, which almost coincides with the Atlantic hurricane season, and during this time, it rains constantly in some regions.
The location receiving the most rain is the Caribbean slopes of the Cordillera Central mountains, with an annual rainfall of over 5,000 mm. Humidity is also higher on the Caribbean side than on the Pacific side. The mean annual temperature on the coastal lowlands is around 27 °C, 20 °C in the main populated areas of the Cordillera Central, and below 10 °C on the summits of the highest mountains.
FLORA AND FAUNA
Costa Rica is home to a rich variety of plants and animals. While the country has only about 0.03% of the world's landmass, it contains 5% of the world's biodiversity. Around 25% of the country's land area is in protected national parks and protected areas, the largest percentage of protected areas in the world (developing world average 13%, developed world average 8%). Costa Rica has successfully managed to diminish deforestation from some of the worst rates in the world from 1973 to 1989, to almost zero by 2005.
One national park, the Corcovado National Park, is internationally renowned among ecologists for its biodiversity (including big cats and tapirs) and is where visitors can expect to see an abundance of wildlife. Corcovado is the one park in Costa Rica where all four Costa Rican monkey species can be found. These include the white-headed capuchin, the mantled howler, the endangered Geoffroy's spider monkey, and the Central American squirrel monkey, found only on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and a small part of Panama, and considered endangered until 2008, when its status was upgraded to vulnerable. Deforestation, illegal pet-trading, and hunting are the main reasons for its threatened status.
Tortuguero National Park – the name Tortuguero can be translated as "Full of Turtles" – is home to spider, howler, and white-throated capuchin monkeys; the three-toed sloth and two-toed sloth; 320 species of birds; and a variety of reptiles. The park is recognized for the annual nesting of the endangered green turtle, and is the most important nesting site for the species. Giant leatherback, hawksbill, and loggerhead turtles also nest there. The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve is home to about 2,000 plant species, including numerous orchids. Over 400 types of birds and more than 100 species of mammals can be found there.
Over 840 species of birds have been identified in Costa Rica. As is the case in much of Central America, the avian species in Costa Rica are a mix of North and South American species. The country's abundant fruit trees, many of which bear fruit year round, are hugely important to the birds, some of whom survive on diets that consist only of one or two types of fruit. Some of the country's most notable avian species include the resplendent quetzal, scarlet macaw, three-wattled bellbird, bare-necked umbrellabird, and the keel-billed toucan. The Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad is allowed to collect royalties on any biological discoveries of medical importance. Costa Rica is a center of biological diversity for reptiles and amphibians, including the world's fastest running lizard, the spiny-tailed iguana (Ctenosaura similis).
WIKIPEDIA