To be human is to become visible

while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.

To remember the other world in this world

is to live in your true inheritance.

 

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,

you are not an accident amidst other accidents

you were invited from another and greater night

than the one from which you have just emerged.

 

-DW

Pūjā is a prayer ritual performed by Hindus to host, honour and worship one or more deities, or to spiritually celebrate an event. Sometimes spelled phonetically as Pooja or Poojah, it may honour or celebrate the presence of special guest(s), or their memories after they pass away. The word Pūjā (Devanagari: पूजा) comes from Sanskrit, and means reverence, honour, homage, adoration, and worship. Puja rituals are also held by Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs.

 

In Hinduism, puja is done on a variety of occasions, frequency and settings. It may include daily puja done in the home, to occasional temple ceremonies and annual festivals, to few lifetime events such as birth of a baby or a wedding, or to begin a new venture. The two main areas where puja is performed are in the home and at temples to mark certain stages of life, events or some festivals such as Durga Puja and Lakshmi Puja. Puja is not mandatory; it may be a routine daily affair for some Hindus, periodic ritual for some, and infrequent for other Hindus. In some temples, various pujas may be performed daily at various times of the day; in other temples, it may be occasional.

 

Puja varies according to the school of Hinduism. Within a given school, puja may vary by region, occasion, deity honored, and steps followed. In formal Nigama ceremonies, a fire may be lit in honour of deity Agni, without an idol or image present. In contrast, in Agama ceremonies, an idol or image of deity is present. In both ceremonies, a diya or incense stick may be lit while a prayer is chanted or hymn is sung. Puja is typically performed by a Hindu worshipper alone, though sometimes in presence of a priest who is well versed in procedure and hymns. In temples and priest-assisted event puja, food, fruits and sweets may be included as offerings to the deity, which, after the prayers, becomes prasad - blessed food shared by all present at the puja.

 

Both Nigama and Agama puja are practiced in Hinduism in India. In Hinduism of Bali Indonesia, Agama puja is most prevalent both inside homes and in temples. Puja is sometimes called Sembahyang in Indonesia.

 

ETYMOLOGY

Puja (Sanskrit: पूजा) is an ancient word, with unclear origins. Joshi claims the word puja was first used in vedic times when Sūtra were composed, to describe prayers and worship before yajna or homa - fire deity, Agni. Charpentier suggests the origin of the word Puja may lie in the Dravidian languages. Two possible Tamil roots have been suggested: Poosai "to smear with something" and Poochei "to do with flowers".

 

ORIGNS

According to scholars, one of the earliest mentions of Pūjā is in the Grihya Sutras, which provide rules for domestic rites. These Sutras, dated to be about 500 BC, use the term puja to describe the hospitality to honor priests who were invited to one’s home to lead rituals for departed ancestors. As Hindu philosophy expanded and diversified, with developments such as the bhakti movement, the vedic puja ritual were modified and applied to the deities. As with vedic times, the general concept of puja remained the same, but expanded to welcoming the deity along with the deity's spiritual essence as one's honored guest. The Puranic corpus of literature, dating from about 6th century CE, contain extensive outline on how to perform deity puja (deva pūjā). Deity puja thus melds Vedic rites with devotion to deity in its ritual form. As with many others aspects of Hinduism, both Vedic puja and devotional deity puja continued, the choice left to the Hindu.

 

As a historical practice, Pūjā in Hinduism, has been modeled around the idea of hosting a deity, or important person, as an honored and dearest guest in the best way one can, given one's resources, and receiving their happiness and blessing in return. Paul Thieme suggests from passages in the Rāmāyaṇa that the word pūjā referred to the hospitable reception of guests and that the things offered to guests could be offered to the gods and their dwellings. The rituals in question were the "five great sacrifices" or pañcamahāyajña recorded in the Gṛhyasūtra texts (for this literature, see Kalpa). The development of pūjā thus emerged from Vedic domestic traditions and was carried into the temple environment by analogy: just as important guests had long been welcomed in well-to-do homes and offered things that pleased them, so too were the gods welcomed in temple-homes and offered things that pleased them. Copper-plate charters recording grants of lands to temples show that this religious practice was actively encouraged from the mid-4th century.

 

SIGNIFICANCE OF PUJA

In the earliest texts describing Vedic puja, the significance of puja was to host the priest so that he could make direct requests to the gods. An example petition prayer made during a Vedic puja, according to Wade Wheelock, is:

 

Indra-Agni, slayers of Vrtra with the beautiful thunderbolt, prosper us with new gifts;

O Indra, bring treaures with your right hand;

O Agni grant the enjoyments of a good household;

Give (us) vigor, wealth in cattle, and possession of good horses.

- ÄsvSü

 

In contrast to Vedic pujas, the significance of deity pujas shifted from petitions and external goals to the experience of oneness with the deities and their spiritual essence. It became a form of yoga whose final result aimed to be the consciousness of god through homage to god. Nevertheless, even with this evolved theoretical spiritual significance, for many people, puja continued to be a vehicle to petition desires and appeals, such as for good health of one's child, speedy recovery from illness, success in venture envisioned or such. In the structure and practice of puja, the mantras and rituals focus on spirituality, and any petitions and appeals are tacked only to the end of the puja.

 

Zimmer relates puja to yantras, with the rituals helping the devotee focus on the spiritual concepts. Puja in Hinduism, claims Zimmer, is a path and process of transformation of consciousness, where the devotee and the spiritual significance of the deity are brought together. This ritual puja process, in different parts of India, is considered to be liberating, releasing, purifying and a form of yoga of spirit and emotions.

 

Puja in Hinduism sometimes involves themes beyond idols or images. Even persons, places, rivers, concrete objects or anything is seen as manifestations of divine reality by some Hindus. The access to the divine is not limited to renunciatory meditation as in yoga school of Hinduism or idols in bhakti school. For some the divine is everywhere, without limit to its form, and a puja to these manifestations signifies the same spiritual meaning to those who choose to offer a prayer to persons, places, rivers, concrete objects or anything else.

 

TEMPLE PUJA

Temple (Mandir) pūjā is more elaborate than the domestic versions and typically done several times a day. They are also performed by a temple priest, or pujari. In addition, the temple deity (patron god or goddess) is considered a resident rather than a guest, so the puja is modified to reflect that; for example the deity is "awakened" rather than "invoked" in the morning. Temple pujas vary widely from region to region and for different sects, with devotional hymns sung at Vaishnava temples for example. At a temple puja, there is often less active participation, with the priest acting on behalf of others.

 

ELABORATE PUJA

A full home or temple puja can include several traditional upacaras or "attendances". The following is an example puja; these steps may vary according to region, tradition, setting, or time particularly in ways the deity is hosted. In this example, the deity is invited as a guest, the devotee hosts and takes care of the deity as an honored guest, hymns and food are offered to the deity, after an expression of love and respect the host takes leave and with affection expresses good bye to the deity. Indologist Jan Gonda has identified 16 steps (shodasha upachara) that are common in all varieties of puja:

 

1. Avahana (“invocation”). The deity is invited to the ceremony from the heart.

2. Asana. The deity is offered a seat.

3. Padya. The deity’s feet are symbolically washed.

4. Water is offered for washing the head and body

5. Arghya. Water is offered so the deity may wash its mouth.

6. Snana or abhisekha. Water is offered for symbolic bathing.

7. Vastra (“clothing”). Here a cloth may be wrapped around the image and ornaments affixed to it.

8. Upaveeda or Mangalsutra. Putting on the sacred thread.

9. Anulepana or gandha. Perfumes and ointments are applied to the image. Sandalwood paste or kumkum is applied.

10. Pushpa. Flowers are offered before the image, or garlands draped around its neck.

11. Dhupa. Incense is burned before the image.

12. Dipa or Aarti. A burning lamp is waved in front of the image.

13. Naivedya. Foods such as cooked rice, fruit, clarified butter, sugar, and betel leaf are offered.

14. Namaskara or pranama. The worshipper and family bow or prostrate themselves before the image to offer homage.

15. Parikrama or Pradakshina. Circumambulation around the deity.

16. Taking leave.

 

Sometimes additional steps are included:

1. Dhyana (“Meditation”). The deity is invoked in the heart of the devotee.

2. Acamanıya. Water is offered for sipping.

3. Aabaran. The deity is decorated with ornaments.

4. Chatram. Offering of umbrella.

5. Chamaram Offering of fan or fly-whisk (Chamara).

6. Visarjana or Udvasana. The deity is moved from the place.

 

There are variations in this puja method such as:

1. Pancha upachara pooja (puja with 5 steps).

2. Chatushasti upachara puja (puja with 64 steps).

 

The structure of elaborate puja also varies significantly between temples, regions and occasions.

 

QUICK PUJA

A quick puja has the same structure as acts ordinary people would perform for a quick reception, hospitality and affectionate interaction with a beloved guest. First the deity is greeted, acknowledged by name and welcomed, sometimes with a diya or lighted incense stick. The devotee proceeds to connect with the spiritual manifestation by meditating (a form of darshan), or chanting hymns and mantras, then personal prayers follow. After prayer is finished, the spiritual visitor as guest is affectionately thanked and greeted good bye. A quick meditative puja is sometimes offered by some Hindus without an idol or image. According to Fuller, Hindu texts allow flexibility and abbreviated puja according to occasion, needs and personal preferences.

 

PUJA IN BALINESE HINDUISM

In Hinduism of Bali Indonesia, puja is sometimes called Sembahyang. The word originates from two words in old Javanese: sembah and hyang. Sembah means to respect and bow down; Hyang means divine, God/Shang Hyang Widhi, holy man, and ancestors. So to pray means to respect, bow down, surrender to the divine and ancestors.

 

Sembahyang (Puja) is an obligation for Balinese Hindus, the prayers and hymns are derived from the Vedas. A family typically offers prayers everyday, with Kewangen and other offerings. Kewangen means aromatic, and it is made from leaves and flowers in form of auspicious Vedic symbols. Balinese use kewangen to worship the divine, both in form of Purusha (soul) and Pradana (body). As with India, Balinese make offerings, including symbolic inclusion of fire, incense and mantras.

 

GURU PUJA

In the case of great spiritual masters, there is also a custom to perform puja for a living person. Gurus are sometimes chosen as objects of puja and honored as living gods or seen the embodiment of specific deities. Gurus are sometimes adorned with symbolic clothes, garlands and other ornaments, and celebrated with incense, washing and anointing their feet, giving them fruits, food and drinks and meditating at their feet, asking for their blessing.

 

PUJA AS A SOCIAL, HUMAN RIGHTS EVENT

As with Church services in Christianity, Pūjā in Hinduism has served as a means for Hindu communities outside India to gather, socialize, discover new friends and sometimes discuss ways to address social discrimination of Hindus. For example, Marion O'Callaghan reports that the Hindu diaspora brought as indentured laborers to Trinidad by the British colonial government, suffered discriminatory laws that did not recognize traditional Hindu marriages or inheritance rights of children from a traditional Hindu marriage, nor did the non-Hindu majority government allow pyre cremation or construction of crematorium. These Hindu rituals were considered pagan and uncivilized. Pujas offered a way for Hindus to meet, socially organize and petition their human rights. Over time, pujas became as much as social and community recreational event, as a religious event.

 

CRITIQUE OF PUJA IN THE PURVA MIMAMSAKA SCHOOL

Although pūjā is accepted as a valid religious activity by Hindus at large, it has long been criticised by Mīmāṃsā thinkers. The foundational work of this school is the Karmamīmāṃsāsūtra or "Aphorisms for Enquiry into the Act," composed by Jaimini. The earliest surviving commentary is by Śabara who lived around the end of the fourth century. Śabara's commentary, known as Śabarabhāṣya holds pride of place in Mīmāṃsā in that Sabara's understanding is taken as definitive by all later writers. In his chapter entitled Devatādikaraṇa (9 : 1: 5: 6-9), Śabara examines the popular understanding of the gods and attempts to refute the belief that they have material bodies, are able to eat the offerings made to them, and are capable of being pleased and so able to reward worshippers. Basing himself on the Vedas (he refused to accept the Mahābhārata, Purāṇa texts or even the Smṛti literatures as valid sources of authority), Śabara concludes that the gods are neither corporeal nor sentient and thus unable to enjoy offerings or own property. For this he appeals to empirical observation, noting that offerings do not decrease in size when given to the gods; any decrease is simply due to exposure to the air. Likewise he argues that substances are offered to gods not according to the wishes of the gods, but that "what is vouched for by direct perception is that the things are used according to the wishes of the temple servants (pratyakṣāt pramāṇāt devatāparicārakāṇām abhiprāyaḥ). In the course of his discussion, Śabara's asserts that "there is no relation between the case of guests and the sacrificial act." This incidental remark provides sound historical proof that pūjā was built on analogy with atithi, the ancient Vedic tradition of welcoming guests. What Śabara is maintaining is that this analogy is not valid. While the Mīmāṃsakas continued to maintain this interpretation for centuries, their defeat in debate at the hands of Śaṅkarācārya led to theirs being a minority view. It is a remarkable testament to the plurality and tolerance of Indian civilization that Mīmāṃsakas flourished even into the 17th century, as evidenced by the commentaries of Nīlakaṇṭha.

 

REGIONAL NAMES

Puja, sometimes spelled pooja, is called பூஜை in Tamil, and bucha (บูชา) in Thai.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Belem ’s background includes strong French and Irish links. It was built at Chantenay-sur-Loire, near Nantes, and on its maiden voyage in 1896-7, it transported a cargo of “she-mules” from Montevideo to the Brazilian city after which it was named. Sadly, after its safe berthing, a fire destroyed the hold and killed all the animals, so the ship had to return to Nantes for repairs.

 

As a merchant vessel, it crossed the Atlantic 33 times from 1896 to 1913, bearing Brazilian cocoa, West Indian rum and sugar.

 

In 1914, it was sold to the Duke of Westminster, who converted it to a private yacht and had it fitted with engines and a main deckhouse. In 1921, it was acquired by Arthur Ernest Guinness, whose father, Edward, was chairman of the family brewery.

 

Guinness renamed it Fantome II and, in 1923, he undertook a global circumnavigation with his wife, Marie Clotilde, and three daughters, nicknamed the “Golden Guinness girls”. When he died in 1949, the yacht, moored at Seattle, Washington, was passed to his family, but the state of Washington claimed part of its value as inheritance tax.

The ship was sold to the Italian Cini Foundation in 1951, and it became a training vessel. However, it returned to the French flag with its original name in 1979, when it was acquired by a special foundation, sponsored by the French bank Caisses d’Epargne.

 

Much of the barque is true to its original, although its wooden masts have been replaced by steel. Permanent crew comprises 16 experienced officers and men, chosen from the ranks of the French merchant navy to work with up to 48 trainees at any time.

In 1896 the first Olympic Games of the modern era took place in Greece. That same year, approximately 2,000 kilometres away at a shipyard in France, the Belem was born.

 

More than a century later, the Games will finally bring them together.

 

On 27 April, the Olympic flame will leave Greece aboard the Belem, Europe's oldest three-masted barque, and set sail towards France, the host country of the Olympic Games Paris 2024.

 

The 12-day voyage between Piraeus and Marseille will add another chapter to the remarkable story of the ship, which was honoured as a historic monument 40 years ago.

IMG_1483c

Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).

 

Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions

 

"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".

 

The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.

 

The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.

 

Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.

 

Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:

 

Wet with cool dew drops

fragrant with perfume from the flowers

came the gentle breeze

jasmine and water lily

dance in the spring sunshine

side-long glances

of the golden-hued ladies

stab into my thoughts

heaven itself cannot take my mind

as it has been captivated by one lass

among the five hundred I have seen here.

 

Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.

 

Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.

 

There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.

 

Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.

 

The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.

 

In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:

 

During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".

 

Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.

 

While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’

 

Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.

 

An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.

 

Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983

 

Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture

Main article: Commercial graffiti

With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.

 

In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".

 

Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.

 

Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.

 

Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.

 

Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.

 

There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.

 

The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.

 

Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.

 

Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis

 

Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.

 

Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.

 

Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"

 

Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal

 

In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.

 

Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.

 

Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.

 

Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.

 

With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.

 

Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.

 

Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.

 

Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.

 

Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.

 

Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.

 

Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.

 

Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.

 

The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.

 

I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.

 

The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.

 

Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.

 

Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.

 

In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".

 

There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.

 

Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.

 

A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.

By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.

 

Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.

 

In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.

 

A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.

 

From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

 

In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.

 

Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.

 

Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.

 

Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.

 

In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.

 

Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.

 

In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.

 

In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."

 

In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.

 

In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.

 

In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.

 

In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.

 

In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.

 

The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.

 

To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."

 

In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.

 

In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.

 

Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".

 

Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)

In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.

 

Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.

 

Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.

 

In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.

 

Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.

 

Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.

 

To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.

 

When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.

Matt Becker

MFA Ceramics 2021

 

Ceramic

 

Ceramic

 

Ceramic

DownTown Los Angeles, California, 2013.

This is the customized Bin for the 2013 Coachella Trashed show..

 

Esta es la caneca/tacho/tarro/dispositivo de almacenamiento de basura o como lo llamen en tu país que pinté para el Coachella Trashed 2013

Austria Kunsthistorisches Museum

Federal Museum

Logo KHM

Regulatory authority (ies)/organs to the Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture

Founded 17 October 1891

Headquartered Castle Ring (Burgring), Vienna 1, Austria

Management Sabine Haag

www.khm.at website

Main building of the Kunsthistorisches Museum at Maria-Theresa-Square

The Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM abbreviated) is an art museum in Vienna. It is one of the largest and most important museums in the world. It was opened in 1891 and 2012 visited of 1.351.940 million people.

The museum

The Kunsthistorisches Museum is with its opposite sister building, the Natural History Museum (Naturhistorisches Museum), the most important historicist large buildings of the Ringstrasse time. Together they stand around the Maria Theresa square, on which also the Maria Theresa monument stands. This course spans the former glacis between today's ring road and 2-line, and is forming a historical landmark that also belongs to World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Vienna.

History

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Gallery

The Museum came from the collections of the Habsburgs, especially from the portrait and armor collections of Ferdinand of Tyrol, the collection of Emperor Rudolf II (most of which, however scattered) and the art collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm into existence. Already In 1833 asked Joseph Arneth, curator (and later director) of the Imperial Coins and Antiquities Cabinet, bringing together all the imperial collections in a single building .

Architectural History

The contract to build the museum in the city had been given in 1858 by Emperor Franz Joseph. Subsequently, many designs were submitted for the ring road zone. Plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Null planned to build two museum buildings in the immediate aftermath of the Imperial Palace on the left and right of the Heroes' Square (Heldenplatz). The architect Ludwig Förster planned museum buildings between the Schwarzenberg Square and the City Park, Martin Ritter von Kink favored buildings at the corner Währingerstraße/ Scots ring (Schottenring), Peter Joseph, the area Bellariastraße, Moritz von Loehr the south side of the opera ring, and Ludwig Zettl the southeast side of the grain market (Getreidemarkt).

From 1867, a competition was announced for the museums, and thereby set their current position - at the request of the Emperor, the museum should not be too close to the Imperial Palace, but arise beyond the ring road. The architect Carl von Hasenauer participated in this competition and was able the at that time in Zürich operating Gottfried Semper to encourage to work together. The two museum buildings should be built here in the sense of the style of the Italian Renaissance. The plans got the benevolence of the imperial family. In April 1869, there was an audience with of Joseph Semper at the Emperor Franz Joseph and an oral contract was concluded, in July 1870 was issued the written order to Semper and Hasenauer.

Crucial for the success of Semper and Hasenauer against the projects of other architects were among others Semper's vision of a large building complex called "Imperial Forum", in which the museums would have been a part of. Not least by the death of Semper in 1879 came the Imperial Forum not as planned for execution, the two museums were built, however.

Construction of the two museums began without ceremony on 27 November 1871 instead. Semper moved to Vienna in the sequence. From the beginning, there were considerable personal differences between him and Hasenauer, who finally in 1877 took over sole construction management. 1874, the scaffolds were placed up to the attic and the first floor completed, built in 1878, the first windows installed in 1879, the Attica and the balustrade from 1880 to 1881 and built the dome and the Tabernacle. The dome is topped with a bronze statue of Pallas Athena by Johannes Benk.

The lighting and air conditioning concept with double glazing of the ceilings made ​​the renunciation of artificial light (especially at that time, as gas light) possible, but this resulted due to seasonal variations depending on daylight to different opening times .

Kuppelhalle

Entrance (by clicking the link at the end of the side you can see all the pictures here indicated!)

Grand staircase

Hall

Empire

The Kunsthistorisches Museum was on 17 October 1891 officially opened by Emperor Franz Joseph I. Since 22 October 1891 , the museum is accessible to the public. Two years earlier, on 3 November 1889, the collection of arms, Arms and Armour today, had their doors open. On 1 January 1890 the library service resumed its operations. The merger and listing of other collections of the Highest Imperial Family from the Upper and Lower Belvedere, the Hofburg Palace and Ambras in Tyrol will need another two years.

189, the farm museum was organized in seven collections with three directorates:

Directorate of coins, medals and antiquities collection

The Egyptian Collection

The Antique Collection

The coins and medals collection

Management of the collection of weapons, art and industrial objects

Weapons collection

Collection of industrial art objects

Directorate of Art Gallery and Restaurieranstalt (Restoration Office)

Collection of watercolors, drawings, sketches, etc.

Restoration Office

Library

Very soon the room the Court Museum (Hofmuseum) for the imperial collections was offering became too narrow. To provide temporary help, an exhibition of ancient artifacts from Ephesus in the Theseus Temple was designed. However, additional space had to be rented in the Lower Belvedere.

1914, after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne, his " Estonian Forensic Collection " passed to the administration of the Court Museum. This collection, which emerged from the art collection of the house of d' Este and world travel collection of Franz Ferdinand, was placed in the New Imperial Palace since 1908. For these stocks, the present collection of old musical instruments and the Museum of Ethnology emerged.

The First World War went by, apart from the oppressive economic situation without loss. The farm museum remained during the five years of war regularly open to the public.

Until 1919 the K.K. Art Historical Court Museum was under the authority of the Oberstkämmereramt (head chamberlain office) and belonged to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. The officials and employees were part of the royal household.

First Republic

The transition from monarchy to republic, in the museum took place in complete tranquility. On 19 November 1918 the two imperial museums on Maria Theresa Square were placed under the state protection of the young Republic of German Austria. Threatening to the stocks of the museum were the claims raised in the following weeks and months of the "successor states" of the monarchy as well as Italy and Belgium on Austrian art collection. In fact, it came on 12th February 1919 to the violent removal of 62 paintings by armed Italian units. This "art theft" left a long time trauma among curators and art historians.

It was not until the Treaty of Saint-Germain of 10 September 1919, providing in Article 195 and 196 the settlement of rights in the cultural field by negotiations. The claims of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Italy again could mostly being averted in this way. Only Hungary, which presented the greatest demands by far, was met by more than ten years of negotiation in 147 cases.

On 3 April 1919 was the expropriation of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine by law and the acquisition of its property, including the "Collections of the Imperial House" , by the Republic. Of 18 June 1920 the then provisional administration of the former imperial museums and collections of Este and the secular and clergy treasury passed to the State Office of Internal Affairs and Education, since 10 November 1920, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Education. A few days later it was renamed the Art History Court Museum in the "Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna State", 1921 "Kunsthistorisches Museum" . Of 1st January 1921 the employees of the museum staff passed to the state of the Republic.

Through the acquisition of the former imperial collections owned by the state, the museum found itself in a complete new situation. In order to meet the changed circumstances in the museum area, designed Hans Tietze in 1919 the "Vienna Museum program". It provided a close cooperation between the individual museums to focus at different houses on main collections. So dominated exchange, sales and equalizing the acquisition policy in the interwar period. Thus resulting until today still valid collection trends. Also pointing the way was the relocation of the weapons collection from 1934 in its present premises in the New Castle, where since 1916 the collection of ancient musical instruments was placed.

With the change of the imperial collections in the ownership of the Republic the reorganization of the internal organization went hand in hand, too. Thus the museum was divided in 1919 into the

Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection (with the Oriental coins)

Collection of Classical Antiquities

Collection of ancient coins

Collection of modern coins and medals

Weapons collection

Collection of sculptures and crafts with the Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments

Picture Gallery

The Museum 1938-1945

Count Philipp Ludwig Wenzel Sinzendorf according to Rigaud. Clarisse 1948 by Baroness de Rothschildt "dedicated" to the memory of Baron Alphonse de Rothschildt; restituted to the Rothschilds in 1999, and in 1999 donated by Bettina Looram Rothschild, the last Austrian heiress.

With the "Anschluss" of Austria to the German Reich all Jewish art collections such as the Rothschilds were forcibly "Aryanised". Collections were either "paid" or simply distributed by the Gestapo at the museums. This resulted in a significant increase in stocks. But the KHM was not the only museum that benefited from the linearization. Systematically looted Jewish property was sold to museums, collections or in pawnshops throughout the empire.

After the war, the museum struggled to reimburse the "Aryanised" art to the owners or their heirs. They forced the Rothschild family to leave the most important part of their own collection to the museum and called this "dedications", or "donations". As a reason, was the export law stated, which does not allow owners to perform certain works of art out of the country. Similar methods were used with other former owners. Only on the basis of international diplomatic and media pressure, to a large extent from the United States, the Austrian government decided to make a change in the law (Art Restitution Act of 1998, the so-called Lex Rothschild). The art objects were the Rothschild family refunded only in the 1990s.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum operates on the basis of the federal law on the restitution of art objects from the 4th December 1998 (Federal Law Gazette I, 181 /1998) extensive provenance research. Even before this decree was carried out in-house provenance research at the initiative of the then archive director Herbert Haupt. This was submitted in 1998 by him in collaboration with Lydia Grobl a comprehensive presentation of the facts about the changes in the inventory levels of the Kunsthistorisches Museum during the Nazi era and in the years leading up to the State Treaty of 1955, an important basis for further research provenance.

The two historians Susanne Hehenberger and Monika Löscher are since 1st April 2009 as provenance researchers at the Kunsthistorisches Museum on behalf of the Commission for Provenance Research operating and they deal with the investigation period from 1933 to the recent past.

The museum today

Today the museum is as a federal museum, with 1st January 1999 released to the full legal capacity - it was thus the first of the state museums of Austria, implementing the far-reaching self-financing. It is by far the most visited museum in Austria with 1.3 million visitors (2007).

The Kunsthistorisches Museum is under the name Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Ethnology and the Austrian Theatre Museum with company number 182081t since 11 June 1999 as a research institution under public law of the Federal virtue of the Federal Museums Act, Federal Law Gazette I/115/1998 and the Museum of Procedure of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Ethnology and the Austrian Theatre Museum, 3 January 2001, BGBl II 2/ 2001, in force since 1 January 2001, registered.

In fiscal 2008, the turnover was 37.185 million EUR and total assets amounted to EUR 22.204 million. In 2008 an average of 410 workers were employed.

Management

1919-1923: Gustav Glück as the first chairman of the College of science officials

1924-1933: Hermann Julius Hermann 1924-1925 as the first chairman of the College of the scientific officers in 1925 as first director

1933: Arpad Weixlgärtner first director

1934-1938: Alfred Stix first director

1938-1945: Fritz Dworschak 1938 as acting head, from 1938 as a chief in 1941 as first director

1945-1949: August von Loehr 1945-1948 as executive director of the State Art Collections in 1949 as general director of the historical collections of the Federation

1945-1949: Alfred Stix 1945-1948 as executive director of the State Art Collections in 1949 as general director of art historical collections of the Federation

1949-1950: Hans Demel as administrative director

1950: Karl Wisoko-Meytsky as general director of art and historical collections of the Federation

1951-1952: Fritz Eichler as administrative director

1953-1954: Ernst H. Buschbeck as administrative director

1955-1966: Vincent Oberhammer 1955-1959 as administrative director, from 1959 as first director

1967: Edward Holzmair as managing director

1968-1972: Erwin Auer first director

1973-1981: Friderike Klauner first director

1982-1990: Hermann Fillitz first director

1990: George Kugler as interim first director

1990-2008: Wilfried Seipel as general director

Since 2009: Sabine Haag as general director

Collections

To the Kunsthistorisches Museum are also belonging the collections of the New Castle, the Austrian Theatre Museum in Palais Lobkowitz, the Museum of Ethnology and the Wagenburg (wagon fortress) in an outbuilding of Schönbrunn Palace. A branch office is also Ambras in Innsbruck.

Kunsthistorisches Museum (main building)

Picture Gallery

Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection

Collection of Classical Antiquities

Vienna Chamber of Art

Numismatic Collection

Library

New Castle

Ephesus Museum

Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments

Arms and Armour

Archive

Hofburg

The imperial crown in the Treasury

Imperial Treasury of Vienna

Insignia of the Austrian Hereditary Homage

Insignia of imperial Austria

Insignia of the Holy Roman Empire

Burgundian Inheritance and the Order of the Golden Fleece

Habsburg-Lorraine Household Treasure

Ecclesiastical Treasury

Schönbrunn Palace

Imperial Carriage Museum Vienna

Armory in Ambras Castle

Ambras Castle

Collections of Ambras Castle

Major exhibits

Among the most important exhibits of the Art Gallery rank inter alia:

Jan van Eyck: Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, 1438

Martin Schongauer: Holy Family, 1475-80

Albrecht Dürer : Trinity Altar, 1509-16

Portrait Johann Kleeberger, 1526

Parmigianino: Self Portrait in Convex Mirror, 1523/24

Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Summer 1563

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary 1606/ 07

Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary (1606-1607)

Titian: Nymph and Shepherd to 1570-75

Portrait of Jacopo de Strada, 1567/68

Raffaello Santi: Madonna of the Meadow, 1505 /06

Lorenzo Lotto: Portrait of a young man against white curtain, 1508

Peter Paul Rubens: The altar of St. Ildefonso, 1630-32

The Little Fur, about 1638

Jan Vermeer: The Art of Painting, 1665/66

Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Fight between Carnival and Lent, 1559

Kids, 1560

Tower of Babel, 1563

Christ Carrying the Cross, 1564

Gloomy Day (Early Spring), 1565

Return of the Herd (Autumn), 1565

Hunters in the Snow (Winter) 1565

Bauer and bird thief, 1568

Peasant Wedding, 1568/69

Peasant Dance, 1568/69

Paul's conversion (Conversion of St Paul), 1567

Cabinet of Curiosities:

Saliera from Benvenuto Cellini 1539-1543

Egyptian-Oriental Collection:

Mastaba of Ka Ni Nisut

Collection of Classical Antiquities:

Gemma Augustea

Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós

Gallery: Major exhibits

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunsthistorisches_Museum

Bronze, AD 1-100

 

This unique model of a biga (two-horse chariot) shows remarkable detail. The left wheel is different from the right, to allow charioteers faster turns - races were mostly decided at the turning-posts. As children, Nero and his friends reportedly played with wooden chariots. Heavy and expensive, this seems an extravagant toy. Perhaps it was a prized scale model for a wealthy supporter or stable owner.

[British Museum]

  

Nero: the Man Behind the Myth

(May - Oct 2021)

 

Nero is known as one of Rome's most infamous rulers, notorious for his cruelty, debauchery and madness.

The last male descendant of the emperor Augustus, Nero succeeded to the throne in AD 54 aged just 16 and died a violent death at 30. His turbulent rule saw momentous events including the Great Fire of Rome, Boudicca's rebellion in Britain, the execution of his own mother and first wife, grand projects and extravagant excesses.

Drawing on the latest research, this major exhibition questions the traditional narrative of the ruthless tyrant and eccentric performer, revealing a different Nero, a populist leader at a time of great change in Roman society.

Through some 200 spectacular objects, from the imperial palace in Rome to the streets of Pompeii, follow the young emperor’s rise and fall and make up your own mind about Nero. Was he a young, inexperienced ruler trying his best in a divided society, or the merciless, matricidal megalomaniac history has painted him to be?

 

Nero was the 5th emperor of Rome and the last of Rome’s first dynasty, the Julio-Claudians, founded by Augustus (the adopted son of Julius Caesar). Nero is known as one of Rome’s most infamous rulers, notorious for his cruelty and debauchery. He ascended to power in AD 54 aged just 16 and died at 30. He ruled at a time of great social and political change, overseeing momentous events such as the Great Fire of Rome and Boudica’s rebellion in Britain. He allegedly killed his mother and two of his wives, only cared about his art and had very little interest in ruling the empire.

Most of what we know about Nero comes from the surviving works of three historians – Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio. All written decades after Nero’s death, their accounts have long shaped our understanding of this emperor’s rule. However, far from being impartial narrators presenting objective accounts of past events, these authors and their sources wrote with a very clear agenda in mind. Nero’s demise brought forward a period of chaos and civil war – one that ended only when a new dynasty seized power, the Flavians. Authors writing under the Flavians all had an interest in legitimising the new ruling family by portraying the last of the Julio-Claudians in the worst possible light, turning history into propaganda. These accounts became the ‘historical’ sources used by later historians, therefore perpetuating a fabricated image of Nero, which has survived all the way to the present.

Nero was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus on 15 December AD 37.

He was the son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the Younger. Both Gnaeus and Agrippina were the grandchildren of Augustus, making Nero Augustus’ great, great grandson with a strong claim to power.

Nero was only two years old when his mother was exiled and three when his father died. His inheritance was taken from him and he was sent to live with his aunt. However, Nero’s fate changed again when Claudius became emperor, restoring the boy’s property and recalling his mother Agrippina from exile.

In AD 49 the emperor Claudius married Agrippina, and adopted Nero the following year. It is at this point that Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus changed his name to Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus. In Roman times it was normal to change your name when adopted, abandoning your family name in favour of your adoptive father’s. Nero was a common name among members of the Claudian family, especially in Claudius’ branch.

Nero and Agrippina offered Claudius a politically useful link back to Augustus, strengthening his position.

Claudius appeared to favour Nero over his natural son, Britannicus, marking Nero as the designated heir.

When Claudius died in AD 54, Nero became emperor just two months before turning 17.

As he was supported by both the army and the senate, his rise to power was smooth. His mother Agrippina exerted a significant influence, especially at the beginning of his rule.

The Roman historians Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio all claim that Nero, fed up with Agrippina’s interference, decided to kill her.

Given the lack of eyewitnesses, there is no way of knowing if or how this happened. However, this did not stop historians from fabricating dramatic stories of Agrippina’s murder, asserting that Nero tried (and failed) to kill her with a boat engineered to sink, before sending his men to do the job.

Agrippina allegedly told them to stab her in the womb that bore Nero, her last words clearly borrowed from stage plays.

It is entirely possible, as claimed by Nero himself, that Agrippina chose (or was more likely forced) to take her own life after her plot against her son was discovered.

Early in his rule, Nero had to contend with a rebellion in the newly conquered province of Britain.

In AD 60–61, Queen Boudica of the Iceni tribe led a revolt against the Romans, attacking and laying waste to important Roman settlements. The possible causes of the rebellion were numerous – the greed of the Romans exploiting the newly conquered territories, the recalling of loans made to local leaders, ongoing conflict in Wales and, above all, violence against the family of Prasutagus, Boudica’s husband and king of the Iceni.

Boudica and the rebels destroyed Colchester, London and St Albans before being heavily defeated by Roman troops. After the uprising, the governor of Britain Suetonius Paulinus introduced harsher laws against the Britons, until Nero replaced him with the more conciliatory governor Publius Petronius Turpilianus.

The marriage between Nero and Octavia, aged 15 and 13/14 at the time, was arranged by their parents in order to further legitimise Nero’s claim to the throne. Octavia was the daughter of the emperor Claudius from a previous marriage, so when Claudius married Agrippina and adopted her son Nero, Nero and Octavia became brother and sister. In order to arrange their marriage, Octavia had to be adopted into another family.

Their marriage was not a happy one. According to ancient writers, Nero had various affairs until his lover Poppaea Sabina convinced him to divorce his wife. Octavia was first exiled then executed in AD 62 on adultery charges. According to ancient writers, her banishment and death caused great unrest among the public, who sympathised with the dutiful Octavia.

No further motives were offered for Octavia’s death other than Nero’s passion for Poppaea, and we will probably never know what transpired at court. The fact that Octavia couldn’t produce an heir while Poppaea was pregnant with Nero’s daughter likely played an important role in deciding Octavia’s fate.

On 19 July AD 64, a fire started close to the Circus Maximus. The flames soon encompassed the entire city of Rome and the fire raged for nine days. Only four of the 14 districts of the capital were spared, while three were completely destroyed.

Rome had already been razed by flames – and would be again in its long history – but this event was so severe it came to be known as the Great Fire of Rome.

Later historians blamed Nero for the event, claiming that he set the capital ablaze in order to clear land for the construction of a vast new palace. According to Suetonius and Cassius Dio, Nero took in the view of the burning city from the imperial residence while playing the lyre and singing about the fall of Troy. This story, however, is fictional.

Tacitus, the only historian who was actually alive at the time of the Great Fire of Rome (although only 8 years old), wrote that Nero was not even in Rome when the fire started, but returned to the capital and led the relief efforts.

Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio all describe Nero as being blinded by passion for his wife Poppaea, yet they accuse him of killing her, allegedly by kicking her in an outburst of rage while she was pregnant.

Interestingly, pregnant women being kicked to death by enraged husbands is a recurring theme in ancient literature, used to explore the (self) destructive tendencies of autocrats. The Greek writer Herodotus tells the story of how the Persian king Cambyses kicked his pregnant wife in the stomach, causing her death. A similar episode is told of Periander, tyrant of Corinth. Nero is just one of many allegedly ‘mad’ tyrants for which this literary convention was used.

Poppaea probably died from complications connected with her pregnancy and not at Nero’s hands. She was given a lavish funeral and was deified.

Centred on greater Iran, the Parthian empire was a major political and cultural power and a long-standing enemy of Rome. The two powers had long been contending for control over the buffer state of Armenia and open conflict sparked again during Nero’s rule. The Parthian War started in AD 58 and, after initial victories and following set-backs, ended in AD 63 when a diplomatic solution was reached between Nero and the Parthian king Vologases I.

According to this settlement Tiridates, brother of the Parthian king, would rule over Armenia, but only after having travelled all the way to Rome to be crowned by Nero.

The journey lasted 9 months, Tiridates’ retinue included 3,000 Parthian horsemen and many Roman soldiers. The coronation ceremony took place in the summer of AD 66 and the day was celebrated with much pomp: all the people of Rome saw the new king of Armenia kneeling in front of Nero. This was the Golden Day of Nero’s rule

In AD 68, Vindex, the governor of Gaul (France), rebelled against Nero and declared his support for Galba, the governor of Spain. Vindex was defeated in battle by troops loyal to Nero, yet Galba started gaining more military support.

It was at this point that Nero lost the support of Rome’s people due to a grain shortage, caused by a rebellious commander who cut the crucial food supply from Egypt to the capital. Abandoned by the people and declared an enemy of the state by the senate, Nero tried to flee Rome and eventually committed suicide.

Following his death, Nero’s memory was condemned (a practice called damnatio memoriae) and the images of the emperor were destroyed, removed or reworked. However, Nero was still given an expensive funeral and for a long time people decorated his tomb with flowers, some even believing he was still alive.

After Nero’s death, civil war ensued. At the end of the so-called ‘Year of the Four Emperors’ (AD 69), Vespasian became emperor and started a new dynasty: the Flavians.

[Francesca Bologna, curator, for British Museum]

 

Taken in the British Museum

This photograph appeared in the edition of the Norwich Mercury dated Saturday May 25 1918 along with the caption : Pte. Charles Chambers, son of Mr. and Mrs. J. Chambers, The Fen, Roydon, reported missing.

 

Private CHAMBERS, C

Service Number:…… 36379

Died:………………………. 04/04/1918

Unit:…………………………8th Bn., East Surrey Regiment

Buried:…………………….. Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery

Grave:………………………XV:B.4

CWGC: www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/575726/chambers,-/

 

Soldiers Died in the Great War records that Private 36379 Charles Chambers was Killed in Action on the 4th April 1918 whilst serving in France and Flanders with the 8th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment. He was born Redlingfield, Suffolk, resident Royden Fen, Norfolk and enlisted Norwich.

 

The Medal Index Card for Private 36379 Charles Chambers, East Surrey Regiment, is held at the National Archive under the reference WO 372/4/70051

discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D1752105

 

Some of his Service Records appear to have survived the incendiary attack during the Blitz on the Warehouse where all the Other Ranks Army Service Records were stored.

 

He attested on the 28th December 1916 and was immediately posted to the Army Reserve. He was mobilised on the 7th March 1917 when he reported to the Norwich Depot for mobilisation. The next day at his medical he was recorded as 18 years and 2 months old, a Shoemaker by trade, born Redlingfield, Suffolk. He was 5 feet 8 and a half inches tall and weighed 130lbs. His physical development and eyesight were rated good.

 

After his medical he was posted on the 9th March to the 31st Training Reserve Battalion. He was given service number T.R. 10/27375. On the 11th July 1917 at Dover he was disciplined for overstaying his leave pass by two days, forfeiting two days wage and incurring 5 days confined to barracks.

 

After his initial training his next posting was to the 4th Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment and given service number G/36379. He was posted to the British Expeditionary Force, arriving in France at an Infantry Base Depot on the 14th January 1918. Two days later he was initially posted to the 13th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment, but the same day it was changed to the 8th Battalion.

 

He was posted missing on the 4th April 1918. On the 5th May 1919 he was officially assumed to have died on or since the earlier date. His personal effects were to be sent to a Mrs G. Chambers, of Roydon Fen, Near Diss, Norfolk.

 

In a letter received at the Records Office from the War Office, date stamped 25 March 1920, they were advised that his grave had been “found” in the Australian Military Cemetery at Villers-Bretonneux. The same information was then conveyed on to a Mrs G. Chambers, Royden, near Diss, in a letter dated 27th March 1920.

 

Post-war, as part of the issuing medals and paying war gratuities for soldiers who had died, the Army sent out form W.5080 to the last known next of kin.

 

The form asked for details of relatives who were then still alive and follows the order of precedence under the inheritance laws as they then applied. His mother Grace completed the form, signing and getting it witnessed by a J.P. on the 1st August 1919.

 

The form confirms there was no widow or children. His parents were John Chambers and Grace Chambers, both of Roydon Fen. He had one full-blood brother, William John, then aged 17 and also living at Roydon Fen.

 

He was entitled to the British War Medal and also the Victory Medal.

 

No obvious Soldiers Will or Civil Probate for this man.

 

The International Red Cross received a communication from a Miss. A. Garwood, of 37 Pottergate Street, Norwich enquiring if anything had been heard about Private 36379 C. Chambers of 4 Platoon, “A” Company, East Surrey Regiment, of the B.E.F, missing in France since the 4th April 1918. The IRC would reply back on the 24th June 1918 that nothing had been heard.

grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/File/Details/4343876/3/2/

 

No match on Picture Norfolk, the County Image Archive.

  

1898/99 Birth……………………..

 

The birth of a Charles Chambers was registered with the Civil Authorities in the District of Hartismere, Suffolk in the January to March quarter, (Q1), of 1899. Hartismere Civil Registration district included the Civil Parish of Redlingfield.

 

The most likely marriage of his parents was recorded in the Hoxne District of Suffolk in the October to December quarter, (Q4), of 1898 when a John Chambers married a Grace Lawes.

 

1901 Census of England and Wales

 

The 2 year old Charles Chambers, born Redlingfield, Suffolk, was recorded living at a dwelling on Horham Road, Redlingfield. This was the household of his parents John, (aged 24, a Horseman on Farm, born Eye, Suffolk) and Grace, (aged 25, born Denham, Suffolk). Also in the household is a 5 year old Ernest Lawes, born Eye, Suffolk. His relationship to John Chambers is given as son, but given the information on the W.5080 form above, I suspect that’s more like to be step-son.

 

1911 Census of England and Wales

 

The Chambers family were now recorded living at Brewers Green, Roydon, Norfolk. Parents John, (33, Horseman on Farm) and Grace, (33) have been married 12 years and have had 3 children, all then still alive. Children still single and living with them are Ernest, (15, Works on Farm), Charles, (12) and John, (9, born Redlingfield).

 

Until September 1911 the quarterly index published by the General Registrars Office did not show information about the mothers maiden name. A check of the General Registrars Office Index of Birth for England and Wales 1911 – 1983 shows no likely additional children of Grace and John.

 

1915 Norfolk Register of Voters…………

 

A John Chambers is recorded as entitled to vote in Parliamentary, County Coucil and Parish Elections as he was a (male) householder of a dwelling house at Brewer’s Green, Roydon.

www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2H17-GZN

  

On the day…………………………..

 

4th April 1918 – Battalion War Diary

 

5 a.m. Heavy enemy shelling on the whole of Bn. sector, & particularly on the wood behind the Right Co. This shelling included some smoke & gas shells.

 

5.30 a.m. Shelling lifted on to battery positions in rear.

 

6 a.m. Heavy shelling recommenced on the front & support line. Fortunately the majority of the shelling missed both these trenches by some 20/30x and caused very few casualties. The rain fell incessantly all morning & by this time the ground was sodden and very muddy, so that it was very difficult to keep rifles & L.G. in working order. At 6.30 am. the enemy infantry attack developed. It was not so heavy on the frontage of this Bn. as on the frontage held by the 7th Buffs, & as a result of continuous rifle & L.G. fire, the attack appeared to drift across our front from N. to S. on to the frontage of the Bn. on our right. At 7 a.m. a Sergeant of the 7th Queens reported to Bn.H.Q. and stated that he was the leader of a liaison patrol, & that he had dropped connecting files within sight of each other on his way up from Bde. H.Q. As all telephone wires had already been cut, this liaison patrol proved most useful in sending back messages. As no information had come in from our front line Cos., the C.O. had already detailed O.C. “D” Co. to send out an Officer patrol, & in accordance with this order, 2/Lt. B.G. Scrase, M.C., took forward a section and made his way to the supporting pl. of the Left Co. He was then able to send back a message that the line was intact, & messages to the same effect were also received from the other Cos. about the same time.

 

Up to this time, the Battn. had suffered very few casualties from the shelling but with one exception, all runners from the front & support trenches were hit on the way to Bn.H.Q. by rifle or M.G. fire, the intervening space being quite open and swept by very accurate fire from the high ground to the S.E. In spite of their wounds, all Co.runners, with the exception of one killed, managed to reach Bn.H.Q. and one of their number L/C Bassett, “C” Co. is worthy of special mention in that he succeeded in delivering his message after having been hit four times.

 

About 9 a.m. it could be seen from Bn.H.Q. that a general withdrawal had commenced on our left, & O.C. “D” Co. was detailed to send two pls. immediately to secure the left flank of the Battn. Before this order could be carried out, the position seemed so serious that the C.O. with Major J. Wightman, M.C. & the Adjt. took forward all H.Q. personnel about 300x & put them in position in echelon behind the left flank of the left Co. It appeared that the Australians, who were on the left of the 7th Buffs, had withdrawn a considerable distance and the 7th Buffs had been forced to conform with this withdrawal. However, very shortly afterwards, the 7th Buffs came forward again & reoccupied their original positions on our left.

 

It was still raining heavily, & owing to the nature of the ground, the majority of which was ploughed field, rifles & L.G. became so clogged with mud that it was almost impossible to keep them clean although extra flannelette & rifle oil was sent up from Bde.H.Q. The men’s hands and clothes were covered with liquid mud, & the mere action of inserting a fresh clip on the magazine entailed a certain amount of mud being inserted with it. Lewis guns, in particular, presented an almost impossible task although the gunners did their best to keep them clean. In addition to using flannelette, men used their handkerchiefs, & even in one case, one man tore up the tail of his shirt in order to clean his gun. As a result of these conditions, the fire-power of the Battn. was reduced by at least 2/3rds., whereas in the attack which subsequently developed, the enemy used fresh troops who had, presumably, clean rifles & machine guns. In addition, it began to be apparent that the situation on the right of the Brigade was not satisfactory, & that some of the troops there had been forced to give ground.

 

At about 4 p.m. a fresh enemy attack developed from the line of the MARCELCAVE AUBERCOURT RD., and was particularly heavy on the frontage of this Brigade. The reduced amount of fire-power which this Battn. was able to produce was not sufficient to repulse the attack, & a general withdrawal commenced along the whole of the line held by the Bde. An attempt was made to form a stand on a line held by the two remaining pls. of the Res. Co., but by this time the majority of the Officers had become casualties, and a large percentage of the men were practically unarmed owing to the fact that their rifles were useless. A stand was eventually made about 200x west of the VILLER BRETONNEUX – HANGARD RD. All Officers had now become casualties with the exception of the C.O., Major J. Wightman, M.C., 2/Lt. F.A. Dawson, M.C. and 2/Lt. A.E. Spooner, and it was therefore very difficult to rally the men, who had also lost most of their N.C.O.’s . With those who were rallied, a line was formed in touch with the 7th Queens on the left, & two platoons of the R. Berks on the right, but this line was very thin.

 

About dusk, the C.O. sent Major Wightman, M.C., to see the Bde, Comdr., who was with the 7th Queens on our left. While talking to the General, Major Wightman was shot through the body by an enemy sniper & mortally wounded. His servant, Pte. Newman, maded a very gallant attempt to get him away with the help of three men of the 7th Queens, but after two had been killed, & one wounded, he gave up the attempt and waited until it was sufficiently dark, when he succeeded with the help of three other men in carrying Major Wightman back to CACHY, a distance of about 1 and a half miles. This very gallant officer subsequently died of his wounds on the 9.4.18.

qrrarchive.websds.net/PDF/ES00819180402.pdf

 

As part of the commemoration of the outbreak of the Great War, the CWGC added a number of original reports to their website. One of those on their webpage for Charles is a Concentration Report. These reports document the exhumation and relocation of individuals to their current resting. Charles was one of six bodies, (2 Australians and four East Surreys) recoved from marked battlefield graves at Map Reference Sheet 62 D Se, V.7.c.90.10. The other three East Surreys were:-

A. Carter – now in grave A.3.

Private 892 A. Syms – now in grave E.3.

Private 4692 M. Baker – now in grave C.4.

The two Australians were from the 33rd Battalion.

In other locations nearby were other men from the East Surreys or a Surrey Regiment, as well as 33rd Battalion men, some unknown.

  

Mildly photoshopped to minimise impact of damage present on the original image.

 

A recycle bin I painted for Coachella 2010 in partnership with Global Inheritance, out of 1000's of applicants I made it to the top 26!

My entry for day 250 of the 2009photochallenge; the theme for the day was TRADITIONAL. This is my grandfather's tefillin and talis --traditional Jewish prayer items. They are traditional in an additional sense: these items are traditionally passed on to one's eldest grandson, and I inherited these via that tradition when my grandfather died this past year. I don't usually use such things a lot, but I'll give them a spin for the upcoming high holidays.

View On Black