Drawing is a form of visual art in which a person uses various drawing instruments to mark paper or another two-dimensional medium. Instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, various kinds of erasers, markers, styluses, various metals (such as silverpoint) and electronic drawing.

 

A drawing instrument releases small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, may be used. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard or indeed almost anything. The medium has been a popular and fundamental means of public expression throughout human history. It is one of the simplest and most efficient means of communicating visual ideas.[1] The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities.

In addition to its more artistic forms, drawing is frequently used in commercial illustration, animation, architecture, engineering and technical drawing. A quick, freehand drawing, usually not intended as a finished work, is sometimes called a sketch. An artist who practices or works in technical drawing may be called a drafter, draftsman or a draughtsman.[2]

Drawing is one of the major forms of expression within the visual arts. It is generally concerned with the marking of lines and areas of tone onto paper/other material, where the accurate representation of the visual world is expressed upon a plane surface.[3] Traditional drawings were monochrome, or at least had little colour,[4] while modern colored-pencil drawings may approach or cross a boundary between drawing and painting. In Western terminology, drawing is distinct from painting, even though similar media often are employed in both tasks. Dry media, normally associated with drawing, such as chalk, may be used in pastel paintings. Drawing may be done with a liquid medium, applied with brushes or pens. Similar supports likewise can serve both: painting generally involves the application of liquid paint onto prepared canvas or panels, but sometimes an underdrawing is drawn first on that same support.

  

Madame Palmyre with Her Dog, 1897. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

 

Galileo Galilei. Phases of the Moon. 1616.

Drawing is often exploratory, with considerable emphasis on observation, problem-solving and composition. Drawing is also regularly used in preparation for a painting, further obfuscating their distinction. Drawings created for these purposes are called studies.

 

There are several categories of drawing, including figure drawing, cartooning, doodling, free hand and shading. There are also many drawing methods, such as line drawing, stippling, shading, the surrealist method of entopic graphomania (in which dots are made at the sites of impurities in a blank sheet of paper, and lines are then made between the dots), and tracing (drawing on a translucent paper, such as tracing paper, around the outline of preexisting shapes that show through the paper).

 

A quick, unrefined drawing may be called a sketch.

 

In fields outside art, technical drawings or plans of buildings, machinery, circuitry and other things are often called "drawings" even when they have been transferred to another medium by printing.

 

History[edit]

Drawing as a Form of Communication Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression, with evidence for its existence preceding that of written communication.[5] It is believed that drawing was used as a specialised form of communication before the invent of the written language,[5][6] demonstrated by the production of cave and rock paintings created by Homo sapiens sapiens around 30,000 years ago.[7] These drawings, known as pictograms, depicted objects and abstract concepts.[8] The sketches and paintings produced in prehistoric times were eventually stylised and simplified, leading to the development of the written language as we know it today.

 

Drawing in the Arts Drawing is used to express one's creativity, and therefore has been prominent in the world of art. Throughout much of history, drawing was regarded as the foundation for artistic practise.[9] Initially, artists used and reused wooden tablets for the production of their drawings.[10] Following the widespread availability of paper in the 14th century, the use of drawing in the arts increased. At this point, drawing was commonly used as a tool for thought and investigation, acting as a study medium whilst artists were preparing for their final pieces of work.[11][12] In a period of artistic flourish, the Renaissance brought about drawings exhibiting realistic representational qualities,[13] where there was a lot of influence from geometry and philosophy.[14]

 

The invention of the first widely available form of photography led to a shift in the use of drawing in the arts.[15] Photography took over from drawing as a more superior method for accurately representing visual phenomena, and artists began to abandon traditional drawing practises.[16] Modernism in the arts encouraged "imaginative originality"[17] and artists' approach to drawing became more abstract.

 

Drawing Outside the Arts Although the use of drawing is extensive in the arts, its practice is not confined purely to this field. Before the widespread availability of paper, 12th century monks in European monasteries used intricate drawings to prepare illustrated, illuminated manuscripts on vellum and parchment. Drawing has also been used extensively in the field of science, as a method of discovery, understanding and explanation. In 1616, astronomer Galileo Galilei explained the changing phases of the moon through his observational telescopic drawings.[16] Additionally, in 1924, geophysicist Alfred Wegener used illustrations to visually demonstrate the origin of the continents.The medium is the means by which ink, pigment or color are delivered onto the drawing surface. Most drawing media are either dry (e.g. graphite, charcoal, pastels, Conté, silverpoint), or use a fluid solvent or carrier (marker, pen and ink). Watercolor pencils can be used dry like ordinary pencils, then moistened with a wet brush to get various painterly effects. Very rarely, artists have drawn with (usually decoded) invisible ink. Metalpoint drawing usually employs either of two metals: silver or lead.[20] More rarely used are gold, platinum, copper, brass, bronze, and tinpoint.

 

Paper comes in a variety of different sizes and qualities, ranging from newspaper grade up to high quality and relatively expensive paper sold as individual sheets.[21] Papers can vary in texture, hue, acidity, and strength when wet. Smooth paper is good for rendering fine detail, but a more "toothy" paper holds the drawing material better. Thus a coarser material is useful for producing deeper contrast.

 

Newsprint and typing paper may be useful for practice and rough sketches. Tracing paper is used to experiment over a half-finished drawing, and to transfer a design from one sheet to another. Cartridge paper is the basic type of drawing paper sold in pads. Bristol board and even heavier acid-free boards, frequently with smooth finishes, are used for drawing fine detail and do not distort when wet media (ink, washes) are applied. Vellum is extremely smooth and suitable for very fine detail. Coldpressed watercolor paper may be favored for ink drawing due to its texture.

 

Acid-free, archival quality paper keeps its color and texture far longer than wood pulp based paper such as newsprint, which turns yellow and become brittle much sooner.

 

The basic tools are a drawing board or table, pencil sharpener and eraser, and for ink drawing, blotting paper. Other tools used are circle compass, ruler, and set square. Fixative is used to prevent pencil and crayon marks from smudging. Drafting tape is used to secure paper to drawing surface, and also to mask an area to keep it free of accidental marks sprayed or spattered materials and washes. An easel or slanted table is used to keep the drawing surface in a suitable position, which is generally more horizontal than the position used in painting.

 

Technique[edit]

 

Raphael, study for what became the Alba Madonna, with other sketches

Almost all draftsmen use their hands and fingers to apply the media, with the exception of some handicapped individuals who draw with their mouth or feet.[22]

 

Prior to working on an image, the artist typically explores how various media work. They may try different drawing implements on practice sheets to determine value and texture, and how to apply the implement to produce various effects.

 

The artist's choice of drawing strokes affects the appearance of the image. Pen and ink drawings often use hatching—groups of parallel lines.[23] Cross-hatching uses hatching in two or more different directions to create a darker tone. Broken hatching, or lines with intermittent breaks, form lighter tones—and controlling the density of the breaks achieves a gradation of tone. Stippling, uses dots to produce tone, texture or shade. Different textures can be achieved depending on the method used to build tone.[24]

 

Drawings in dry media often use similar techniques, though pencils and drawing sticks can achieve continuous variations in tone. Typically a drawing is filled in based on which hand the artist favors. A right-handed artist draws from left to right to avoid smearing the image. Erasers can remove unwanted lines, lighten tones, and clean up stray marks. In a sketch or outline drawing, lines drawn often follow the contour of the subject, creating depth by looking like shadows cast from a light in the artist's position.

 

Sometimes the artist leaves a section of the image untouched while filling in the remainder. The shape of the area to preserve can be painted with masking fluid or cut out of a frisket and applied to the drawing surface, protecting the surface from stray marks until the mask is removed.

 

Another method to preserve a section of the image is to apply a spray-on fixative to the surface. This holds loose material more firmly to the sheet and prevents it from smearing. However the fixative spray typically uses chemicals that can harm the respiratory system, so it should be employed in a well-ventilated area such as outdoors.

 

Another technique is subtractive drawing in which the drawing surface is covered with graphite or charcoal and then erased to make the image.[25]

 

Tone[edit]

 

Line drawing in sanguine by Leonardo da Vinci

Shading is the technique of varying the tonal values on the paper to represent the shade of the material as well as the placement of the shadows. Careful attention to reflected light, shadows and highlights can result in a very realistic rendition of the image.

 

Blending uses an implement to soften or spread the original drawing strokes. Blending is most easily done with a medium that does not immediately fix itself, such as graphite, chalk, or charcoal, although freshly applied ink can be smudged, wet or dry, for some effects. For shading and blending, the artist can use a blending stump, tissue, a kneaded eraser, a fingertip, or any combination of them. A piece of chamois is useful for creating smooth textures, and for removing material to lighten the tone. Continuous tone can be achieved with graphite on a smooth surface without blending, but the technique is laborious, involving small circular or oval strokes with a somewhat blunt point.

 

Shading techniques that also introduce texture to the drawing include hatching and stippling. A number of other methods produce texture. In addition to the choice of paper, drawing material and technique affect texture. Texture can be made to appear more realistic when it is drawn next to a contrasting texture; a coarse texture is more obvious when placed next to a smoothly blended area. A similar effect can be achieved by drawing different tones close together. A light edge next to a dark background stands out to the eye, and almost appears to float above the surface.

 

Form and proportion[edit]

 

Pencil portrait by Ingres

Measuring the dimensions of a subject while blocking in the drawing is an important step in producing a realistic rendition of the subject. Tools such as a compass can be used to measure the angles of different sides. These angles can be reproduced on the drawing surface and then rechecked to make sure they are accurate. Another form of measurement is to compare the relative sizes of different parts of the subject with each other. A finger placed at a point along the drawing implement can be used to compare that dimension with other parts of the image. A ruler can be used both as a straightedge and a device to compute proportions.

 

When attempting to draw a complicated shape such as a human figure, it is helpful at first to represent the form with a set of primitive volumes. Almost any form can be represented by some combination of the cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone. Once these basic volumes have been assembled into a likeness, then the drawing can be refined into a more accurate and polished form. The lines of the primitive volumes are removed and replaced by the final likeness. Drawing the underlying construction is a fundamental skill for representational art, and is taught in many books and schools. Its correct application resolves most uncertainties about smaller details, and makes the final image look consistent.[26]

 

A more refined art of figure drawing relies upon the artist possessing a deep understanding of anatomy and the human proportions. A trained artist is familiar with the skeleton structure, joint location, muscle placement, tendon movement, and how the different parts work together during movement. This allows the artist to render more natural poses that do not appear artificially stiff. The artist is also familiar with how the proportions vary depending on the age of the subject, particularly when drawing a portrait.

 

Perspective[edit]

Linear perspective is a method of portraying objects on a flat surface so that the dimensions shrink with distance. Each set of parallel, straight edges of any object, whether a building or a table, follows lines that eventually converge at a vanishing point. Typically this convergence point is somewhere along the horizon, as buildings are built level with the flat surface. When multiple structures are aligned with each other, such as buildings along a street, the horizontal tops and bottoms of the structures typically converge at a vanishing point.

  

Two-point perspective drawing

When both the fronts and sides of a building are drawn, then the parallel lines forming a side converge at a second point along the horizon (which may be off the drawing paper.) This is a two-point perspective.[27] Converging the vertical lines to a third point above or below the horizon then produces a three-point perspective.

 

Depth can also be portrayed by several techniques in addition to the perspective approach above. Objects of similar size should appear ever smaller the further they are from the viewer. Thus the back wheel of a cart appears slightly smaller than the front wheel. Depth can be portrayed through the use of texture. As the texture of an object gets further away it becomes more compressed and busy, taking on an entirely different character than if it was close. Depth can also be portrayed by reducing the contrast in more distant objects, and by making their colors less saturated. This reproduces the effect of atmospheric haze, and cause the eye to focus primarily on objects drawn in the foreground.

 

Artistry[edit]

 

Chiaroscuro study drawing by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

The composition of the image is an important element in producing an interesting work of artistic merit. The artist plans element placement in the art to communicate ideas and feelings with the viewer. The composition can determine the focus of the art, and result in a harmonious whole that is aesthetically appealing and stimulating.

 

The illumination of the subject is also a key element in creating an artistic piece, and the interplay of light and shadow is a valuable method in the artist's toolbox. The placement of the light sources can make a considerable difference in the type of message that is being presented. Multiple light sources can wash out any wrinkles in a person's face, for instance, and give a more youthful appearance. In contrast, a single light source, such as harsh daylight, can serve to highlight any texture or interesting features.

 

When drawing an object or figure, the skilled artist pays attention to both the area within the silhouette and what lies outside. The exterior is termed the negative space, and can be as important in the representation as the figure. Objects placed in the background of the figure should appear properly placed wherever they can be viewed.

  

Drawing process in the Academic Study of a Male Torso by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1801, National Museum, Warsaw)

A study is a draft drawing that is made in preparation for a planned final image. Studies can be used to determine the appearances of specific parts of the completed image, or for experimenting with the best approach for accomplishing the end goal. However a well-crafted study can be a piece of art in its own right, and many hours of careful work can go into completing a study.

 

Process[edit]

Individuals display differences in their ability to produce visually accurate drawings.[28] A visually accurate drawing is described as being "recognized as a particular object at a particular time and in a particular space, rendered with little addition of visual detail that can not be seen in the object represented or with little deletion of visual detail”.[29]

 

Investigative studies have aimed to explain the reasons why some individuals draw better than others. One study posited four key abilities in the drawing process: perception of objects being drawn, ability to make good representational decisions, motor skills required for mark-making and the drawer's own perception of their drawing.[29] Following this hypothesis, several studies have sought to conclude which of these processes are most significant in affecting the accuracy of drawings.

 

Motor function Motor function is an important physical component in the 'Production Phase' of the drawing process.[30] It has been suggested that motor function plays a role in drawing ability, though its effects are not significant.[29]

 

Perception It has been suggested that an individual's ability to perceive an object they are drawing is the most important stage in the drawing process.[29] This suggestion is supported by the discovery of a robust relationship between perception and drawing ability.[31]

 

This evidence acted as the basis of Betty Edwards' how-to drawing book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.[32] Edwards aimed to teach her readers how to draw, based on the development of the reader's perceptual abilities.

 

Furthermore, the influential artist and art critic John Ruskin emphasised the importance of perception in the drawing process in his book The Elements of Drawing.[33] He stated that "For I am nearly convinced, that once we see keenly enough, there is very little difficult in drawing what we see".

 

Visual memory has also been shown to influence one's ability to create visually accurate drawings. Short-term memory plays an important part in drawing as one’s gaze shifts between the object they are drawing and the drawing itself.[34]

Also, I like that the turbines are almost invisible in the reflection due to obfuscation by the greenery from the reflected angle.

Drawing is a form of visual art in which a person uses various drawing instruments to mark paper or another two-dimensional medium. Instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, various kinds of erasers, markers, styluses, various metals (such as silverpoint) and electronic drawing.

 

A drawing instrument releases small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, may be used. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard or indeed almost anything. The medium has been a popular and fundamental means of public expression throughout human history. It is one of the simplest and most efficient means of communicating visual ideas.[1] The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities.

In addition to its more artistic forms, drawing is frequently used in commercial illustration, animation, architecture, engineering and technical drawing. A quick, freehand drawing, usually not intended as a finished work, is sometimes called a sketch. An artist who practices or works in technical drawing may be called a drafter, draftsman or a draughtsman.[2]

Drawing is one of the major forms of expression within the visual arts. It is generally concerned with the marking of lines and areas of tone onto paper/other material, where the accurate representation of the visual world is expressed upon a plane surface.[3] Traditional drawings were monochrome, or at least had little colour,[4] while modern colored-pencil drawings may approach or cross a boundary between drawing and painting. In Western terminology, drawing is distinct from painting, even though similar media often are employed in both tasks. Dry media, normally associated with drawing, such as chalk, may be used in pastel paintings. Drawing may be done with a liquid medium, applied with brushes or pens. Similar supports likewise can serve both: painting generally involves the application of liquid paint onto prepared canvas or panels, but sometimes an underdrawing is drawn first on that same support.

  

Madame Palmyre with Her Dog, 1897. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

 

Galileo Galilei. Phases of the Moon. 1616.

Drawing is often exploratory, with considerable emphasis on observation, problem-solving and composition. Drawing is also regularly used in preparation for a painting, further obfuscating their distinction. Drawings created for these purposes are called studies.

 

There are several categories of drawing, including figure drawing, cartooning, doodling, free hand and shading. There are also many drawing methods, such as line drawing, stippling, shading, the surrealist method of entopic graphomania (in which dots are made at the sites of impurities in a blank sheet of paper, and lines are then made between the dots), and tracing (drawing on a translucent paper, such as tracing paper, around the outline of preexisting shapes that show through the paper).

 

A quick, unrefined drawing may be called a sketch.

 

In fields outside art, technical drawings or plans of buildings, machinery, circuitry and other things are often called "drawings" even when they have been transferred to another medium by printing.

 

History[edit]

Drawing as a Form of Communication Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression, with evidence for its existence preceding that of written communication.[5] It is believed that drawing was used as a specialised form of communication before the invent of the written language,[5][6] demonstrated by the production of cave and rock paintings created by Homo sapiens sapiens around 30,000 years ago.[7] These drawings, known as pictograms, depicted objects and abstract concepts.[8] The sketches and paintings produced in prehistoric times were eventually stylised and simplified, leading to the development of the written language as we know it today.

 

Drawing in the Arts Drawing is used to express one's creativity, and therefore has been prominent in the world of art. Throughout much of history, drawing was regarded as the foundation for artistic practise.[9] Initially, artists used and reused wooden tablets for the production of their drawings.[10] Following the widespread availability of paper in the 14th century, the use of drawing in the arts increased. At this point, drawing was commonly used as a tool for thought and investigation, acting as a study medium whilst artists were preparing for their final pieces of work.[11][12] In a period of artistic flourish, the Renaissance brought about drawings exhibiting realistic representational qualities,[13] where there was a lot of influence from geometry and philosophy.[14]

 

The invention of the first widely available form of photography led to a shift in the use of drawing in the arts.[15] Photography took over from drawing as a more superior method for accurately representing visual phenomena, and artists began to abandon traditional drawing practises.[16] Modernism in the arts encouraged "imaginative originality"[17] and artists' approach to drawing became more abstract.

 

Drawing Outside the Arts Although the use of drawing is extensive in the arts, its practice is not confined purely to this field. Before the widespread availability of paper, 12th century monks in European monasteries used intricate drawings to prepare illustrated, illuminated manuscripts on vellum and parchment. Drawing has also been used extensively in the field of science, as a method of discovery, understanding and explanation. In 1616, astronomer Galileo Galilei explained the changing phases of the moon through his observational telescopic drawings.[16] Additionally, in 1924, geophysicist Alfred Wegener used illustrations to visually demonstrate the origin of the continents.The medium is the means by which ink, pigment or color are delivered onto the drawing surface. Most drawing media are either dry (e.g. graphite, charcoal, pastels, Conté, silverpoint), or use a fluid solvent or carrier (marker, pen and ink). Watercolor pencils can be used dry like ordinary pencils, then moistened with a wet brush to get various painterly effects. Very rarely, artists have drawn with (usually decoded) invisible ink. Metalpoint drawing usually employs either of two metals: silver or lead.[20] More rarely used are gold, platinum, copper, brass, bronze, and tinpoint.

 

Paper comes in a variety of different sizes and qualities, ranging from newspaper grade up to high quality and relatively expensive paper sold as individual sheets.[21] Papers can vary in texture, hue, acidity, and strength when wet. Smooth paper is good for rendering fine detail, but a more "toothy" paper holds the drawing material better. Thus a coarser material is useful for producing deeper contrast.

 

Newsprint and typing paper may be useful for practice and rough sketches. Tracing paper is used to experiment over a half-finished drawing, and to transfer a design from one sheet to another. Cartridge paper is the basic type of drawing paper sold in pads. Bristol board and even heavier acid-free boards, frequently with smooth finishes, are used for drawing fine detail and do not distort when wet media (ink, washes) are applied. Vellum is extremely smooth and suitable for very fine detail. Coldpressed watercolor paper may be favored for ink drawing due to its texture.

 

Acid-free, archival quality paper keeps its color and texture far longer than wood pulp based paper such as newsprint, which turns yellow and become brittle much sooner.

 

The basic tools are a drawing board or table, pencil sharpener and eraser, and for ink drawing, blotting paper. Other tools used are circle compass, ruler, and set square. Fixative is used to prevent pencil and crayon marks from smudging. Drafting tape is used to secure paper to drawing surface, and also to mask an area to keep it free of accidental marks sprayed or spattered materials and washes. An easel or slanted table is used to keep the drawing surface in a suitable position, which is generally more horizontal than the position used in painting.

 

Technique[edit]

 

Raphael, study for what became the Alba Madonna, with other sketches

Almost all draftsmen use their hands and fingers to apply the media, with the exception of some handicapped individuals who draw with their mouth or feet.[22]

 

Prior to working on an image, the artist typically explores how various media work. They may try different drawing implements on practice sheets to determine value and texture, and how to apply the implement to produce various effects.

 

The artist's choice of drawing strokes affects the appearance of the image. Pen and ink drawings often use hatching—groups of parallel lines.[23] Cross-hatching uses hatching in two or more different directions to create a darker tone. Broken hatching, or lines with intermittent breaks, form lighter tones—and controlling the density of the breaks achieves a gradation of tone. Stippling, uses dots to produce tone, texture or shade. Different textures can be achieved depending on the method used to build tone.[24]

 

Drawings in dry media often use similar techniques, though pencils and drawing sticks can achieve continuous variations in tone. Typically a drawing is filled in based on which hand the artist favors. A right-handed artist draws from left to right to avoid smearing the image. Erasers can remove unwanted lines, lighten tones, and clean up stray marks. In a sketch or outline drawing, lines drawn often follow the contour of the subject, creating depth by looking like shadows cast from a light in the artist's position.

 

Sometimes the artist leaves a section of the image untouched while filling in the remainder. The shape of the area to preserve can be painted with masking fluid or cut out of a frisket and applied to the drawing surface, protecting the surface from stray marks until the mask is removed.

 

Another method to preserve a section of the image is to apply a spray-on fixative to the surface. This holds loose material more firmly to the sheet and prevents it from smearing. However the fixative spray typically uses chemicals that can harm the respiratory system, so it should be employed in a well-ventilated area such as outdoors.

 

Another technique is subtractive drawing in which the drawing surface is covered with graphite or charcoal and then erased to make the image.[25]

 

Tone[edit]

 

Line drawing in sanguine by Leonardo da Vinci

Shading is the technique of varying the tonal values on the paper to represent the shade of the material as well as the placement of the shadows. Careful attention to reflected light, shadows and highlights can result in a very realistic rendition of the image.

 

Blending uses an implement to soften or spread the original drawing strokes. Blending is most easily done with a medium that does not immediately fix itself, such as graphite, chalk, or charcoal, although freshly applied ink can be smudged, wet or dry, for some effects. For shading and blending, the artist can use a blending stump, tissue, a kneaded eraser, a fingertip, or any combination of them. A piece of chamois is useful for creating smooth textures, and for removing material to lighten the tone. Continuous tone can be achieved with graphite on a smooth surface without blending, but the technique is laborious, involving small circular or oval strokes with a somewhat blunt point.

 

Shading techniques that also introduce texture to the drawing include hatching and stippling. A number of other methods produce texture. In addition to the choice of paper, drawing material and technique affect texture. Texture can be made to appear more realistic when it is drawn next to a contrasting texture; a coarse texture is more obvious when placed next to a smoothly blended area. A similar effect can be achieved by drawing different tones close together. A light edge next to a dark background stands out to the eye, and almost appears to float above the surface.

 

Form and proportion[edit]

 

Pencil portrait by Ingres

Measuring the dimensions of a subject while blocking in the drawing is an important step in producing a realistic rendition of the subject. Tools such as a compass can be used to measure the angles of different sides. These angles can be reproduced on the drawing surface and then rechecked to make sure they are accurate. Another form of measurement is to compare the relative sizes of different parts of the subject with each other. A finger placed at a point along the drawing implement can be used to compare that dimension with other parts of the image. A ruler can be used both as a straightedge and a device to compute proportions.

 

When attempting to draw a complicated shape such as a human figure, it is helpful at first to represent the form with a set of primitive volumes. Almost any form can be represented by some combination of the cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone. Once these basic volumes have been assembled into a likeness, then the drawing can be refined into a more accurate and polished form. The lines of the primitive volumes are removed and replaced by the final likeness. Drawing the underlying construction is a fundamental skill for representational art, and is taught in many books and schools. Its correct application resolves most uncertainties about smaller details, and makes the final image look consistent.[26]

 

A more refined art of figure drawing relies upon the artist possessing a deep understanding of anatomy and the human proportions. A trained artist is familiar with the skeleton structure, joint location, muscle placement, tendon movement, and how the different parts work together during movement. This allows the artist to render more natural poses that do not appear artificially stiff. The artist is also familiar with how the proportions vary depending on the age of the subject, particularly when drawing a portrait.

 

Perspective[edit]

Linear perspective is a method of portraying objects on a flat surface so that the dimensions shrink with distance. Each set of parallel, straight edges of any object, whether a building or a table, follows lines that eventually converge at a vanishing point. Typically this convergence point is somewhere along the horizon, as buildings are built level with the flat surface. When multiple structures are aligned with each other, such as buildings along a street, the horizontal tops and bottoms of the structures typically converge at a vanishing point.

  

Two-point perspective drawing

When both the fronts and sides of a building are drawn, then the parallel lines forming a side converge at a second point along the horizon (which may be off the drawing paper.) This is a two-point perspective.[27] Converging the vertical lines to a third point above or below the horizon then produces a three-point perspective.

 

Depth can also be portrayed by several techniques in addition to the perspective approach above. Objects of similar size should appear ever smaller the further they are from the viewer. Thus the back wheel of a cart appears slightly smaller than the front wheel. Depth can be portrayed through the use of texture. As the texture of an object gets further away it becomes more compressed and busy, taking on an entirely different character than if it was close. Depth can also be portrayed by reducing the contrast in more distant objects, and by making their colors less saturated. This reproduces the effect of atmospheric haze, and cause the eye to focus primarily on objects drawn in the foreground.

 

Artistry[edit]

 

Chiaroscuro study drawing by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

The composition of the image is an important element in producing an interesting work of artistic merit. The artist plans element placement in the art to communicate ideas and feelings with the viewer. The composition can determine the focus of the art, and result in a harmonious whole that is aesthetically appealing and stimulating.

 

The illumination of the subject is also a key element in creating an artistic piece, and the interplay of light and shadow is a valuable method in the artist's toolbox. The placement of the light sources can make a considerable difference in the type of message that is being presented. Multiple light sources can wash out any wrinkles in a person's face, for instance, and give a more youthful appearance. In contrast, a single light source, such as harsh daylight, can serve to highlight any texture or interesting features.

 

When drawing an object or figure, the skilled artist pays attention to both the area within the silhouette and what lies outside. The exterior is termed the negative space, and can be as important in the representation as the figure. Objects placed in the background of the figure should appear properly placed wherever they can be viewed.

  

Drawing process in the Academic Study of a Male Torso by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1801, National Museum, Warsaw)

A study is a draft drawing that is made in preparation for a planned final image. Studies can be used to determine the appearances of specific parts of the completed image, or for experimenting with the best approach for accomplishing the end goal. However a well-crafted study can be a piece of art in its own right, and many hours of careful work can go into completing a study.

 

Process[edit]

Individuals display differences in their ability to produce visually accurate drawings.[28] A visually accurate drawing is described as being "recognized as a particular object at a particular time and in a particular space, rendered with little addition of visual detail that can not be seen in the object represented or with little deletion of visual detail”.[29]

 

Investigative studies have aimed to explain the reasons why some individuals draw better than others. One study posited four key abilities in the drawing process: perception of objects being drawn, ability to make good representational decisions, motor skills required for mark-making and the drawer's own perception of their drawing.[29] Following this hypothesis, several studies have sought to conclude which of these processes are most significant in affecting the accuracy of drawings.

 

Motor function Motor function is an important physical component in the 'Production Phase' of the drawing process.[30] It has been suggested that motor function plays a role in drawing ability, though its effects are not significant.[29]

 

Perception It has been suggested that an individual's ability to perceive an object they are drawing is the most important stage in the drawing process.[29] This suggestion is supported by the discovery of a robust relationship between perception and drawing ability.[31]

 

This evidence acted as the basis of Betty Edwards' how-to drawing book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.[32] Edwards aimed to teach her readers how to draw, based on the development of the reader's perceptual abilities.

 

Furthermore, the influential artist and art critic John Ruskin emphasised the importance of perception in the drawing process in his book The Elements of Drawing.[33] He stated that "For I am nearly convinced, that once we see keenly enough, there is very little difficult in drawing what we see".

 

Visual memory has also been shown to influence one's ability to create visually accurate drawings. Short-term memory plays an important part in drawing as one’s gaze shifts between the object they are drawing and the drawing itself.[34]

Diana appears to have her own opinion about reality. I think we shall get along.

The phrase, "America First" was first used in 1940 by the anti-war group, the America First Committee. This was one of the largest organizations to oppose America's entrance into World War II. It's membership included many well-known Americans including writer Sinclair Lewis, poet E. E. Cummings, animator Walt Disney, actor Lillian Gish, and architect Frank Lloyd Wright. But, one of its most outspoken was aviator Charles Linbergh. Six days after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 the AFC disbanded and many of its leaders supported the war effort.

 

In his inauguration speech on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump invoked a similar isolationist sentiment when he stated, "We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first."

 

One week after he became President, Trump signed an Executive Order banning Muslims from seven Mideast counties. "Extreme vetting," he said, was warranted to keep our country safe. The fact that we already have an arduous two year vetting process, in which no immigrant even chooses to come to the United States (they are chosen by the American government), seemed to get lost in political maelstrom that followed his order. Immigrants, students, and visitors, already with proper visas were stopped from entering the country. Even lawful permanent residents with Green Cards were turned away.

 

America is an immigrant nation where millions have contributed to its success. A plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty states, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" These lines come from the poem "The New Colossus," written by Emma Lazarus in 1883.

 

Donald Trump's "America First" policy is a short-sighted political move to placate those workers who have lost their jobs to technology and globalization shifts in the last few decades. But our isolation will create a vacuum that China and Russia, and even Iran, will be quick to fill. "America First" over simplifies and even obfuscates the challenges the United States faces at this time. It goes against the very reason our country was created. And, it will end up haunting future generations of Americans.

 

See all the posters from the Chamomile Tea Party! Digital high res downloads are free here. Other options are available. And join our Facebook group.

Violence In The City.

Sharp thunderous cyrms on thee nocturnal byrne gisl night,

screams in thy gremian city and thee outskirts,

shadows of thy death dance with thee petrified clatter alle around,within, here,

constellations roar wyth thy butchery on thee ponderous front,

slaughters on thee brows of thy innocent, allye is lost,

obfuscation of decrepit'd fires shed down its primal burst engulfing towers,

shatter'd afflictions dement'd madman take control, who is now thoust boss?

eerie loneliness sleeps close to thy starvation of thy child's wound'd,no shirts,

loud reject'd moaning ov'r thee torturing choking of rapturous despair,seeking moore to confront,

riotous masses immeasurably lost,atomic demands demonstrat'd therein,O'what a cost,

euphonious strategies autonomous note,causes a new hope of showers,

incommensurately a syntax now arrives on thee horizon toss'd,

significance all is contradict'd intrinsically to keep thy peace, a polictical stunt,

vehement lies for shroud'd peace,if thoust has a ear than hear,

that is their dehumanising reasoning,thoust must really be O' so v'ry lost,

endless adversaries make scorch'd new plans,hap's tyme for another affront?

weeping shimmering embers dost just mak'st thee hungry moore hungry,

for justice that is!

now who is't that runs and falls with Icarus fear?

Steve.D.Hammond.

 

 

Drawing is a form of visual art in which a person uses various drawing instruments to mark paper or another two-dimensional medium. Instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, various kinds of erasers, markers, styluses, various metals (such as silverpoint) and electronic drawing.

 

A drawing instrument releases small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, may be used. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard or indeed almost anything. The medium has been a popular and fundamental means of public expression throughout human history. It is one of the simplest and most efficient means of communicating visual ideas.[1] The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities.

In addition to its more artistic forms, drawing is frequently used in commercial illustration, animation, architecture, engineering and technical drawing. A quick, freehand drawing, usually not intended as a finished work, is sometimes called a sketch. An artist who practices or works in technical drawing may be called a drafter, draftsman or a draughtsman.[2]

Drawing is one of the major forms of expression within the visual arts. It is generally concerned with the marking of lines and areas of tone onto paper/other material, where the accurate representation of the visual world is expressed upon a plane surface.[3] Traditional drawings were monochrome, or at least had little colour,[4] while modern colored-pencil drawings may approach or cross a boundary between drawing and painting. In Western terminology, drawing is distinct from painting, even though similar media often are employed in both tasks. Dry media, normally associated with drawing, such as chalk, may be used in pastel paintings. Drawing may be done with a liquid medium, applied with brushes or pens. Similar supports likewise can serve both: painting generally involves the application of liquid paint onto prepared canvas or panels, but sometimes an underdrawing is drawn first on that same support.

  

Madame Palmyre with Her Dog, 1897. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

 

Galileo Galilei. Phases of the Moon. 1616.

Drawing is often exploratory, with considerable emphasis on observation, problem-solving and composition. Drawing is also regularly used in preparation for a painting, further obfuscating their distinction. Drawings created for these purposes are called studies.

 

There are several categories of drawing, including figure drawing, cartooning, doodling, free hand and shading. There are also many drawing methods, such as line drawing, stippling, shading, the surrealist method of entopic graphomania (in which dots are made at the sites of impurities in a blank sheet of paper, and lines are then made between the dots), and tracing (drawing on a translucent paper, such as tracing paper, around the outline of preexisting shapes that show through the paper).

 

A quick, unrefined drawing may be called a sketch.

 

In fields outside art, technical drawings or plans of buildings, machinery, circuitry and other things are often called "drawings" even when they have been transferred to another medium by printing.

 

History[edit]

Drawing as a Form of Communication Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression, with evidence for its existence preceding that of written communication.[5] It is believed that drawing was used as a specialised form of communication before the invent of the written language,[5][6] demonstrated by the production of cave and rock paintings created by Homo sapiens sapiens around 30,000 years ago.[7] These drawings, known as pictograms, depicted objects and abstract concepts.[8] The sketches and paintings produced in prehistoric times were eventually stylised and simplified, leading to the development of the written language as we know it today.

 

Drawing in the Arts Drawing is used to express one's creativity, and therefore has been prominent in the world of art. Throughout much of history, drawing was regarded as the foundation for artistic practise.[9] Initially, artists used and reused wooden tablets for the production of their drawings.[10] Following the widespread availability of paper in the 14th century, the use of drawing in the arts increased. At this point, drawing was commonly used as a tool for thought and investigation, acting as a study medium whilst artists were preparing for their final pieces of work.[11][12] In a period of artistic flourish, the Renaissance brought about drawings exhibiting realistic representational qualities,[13] where there was a lot of influence from geometry and philosophy.[14]

 

The invention of the first widely available form of photography led to a shift in the use of drawing in the arts.[15] Photography took over from drawing as a more superior method for accurately representing visual phenomena, and artists began to abandon traditional drawing practises.[16] Modernism in the arts encouraged "imaginative originality"[17] and artists' approach to drawing became more abstract.

 

Drawing Outside the Arts Although the use of drawing is extensive in the arts, its practice is not confined purely to this field. Before the widespread availability of paper, 12th century monks in European monasteries used intricate drawings to prepare illustrated, illuminated manuscripts on vellum and parchment. Drawing has also been used extensively in the field of science, as a method of discovery, understanding and explanation. In 1616, astronomer Galileo Galilei explained the changing phases of the moon through his observational telescopic drawings.[16] Additionally, in 1924, geophysicist Alfred Wegener used illustrations to visually demonstrate the origin of the continents.The medium is the means by which ink, pigment or color are delivered onto the drawing surface. Most drawing media are either dry (e.g. graphite, charcoal, pastels, Conté, silverpoint), or use a fluid solvent or carrier (marker, pen and ink). Watercolor pencils can be used dry like ordinary pencils, then moistened with a wet brush to get various painterly effects. Very rarely, artists have drawn with (usually decoded) invisible ink. Metalpoint drawing usually employs either of two metals: silver or lead.[20] More rarely used are gold, platinum, copper, brass, bronze, and tinpoint.

 

Paper comes in a variety of different sizes and qualities, ranging from newspaper grade up to high quality and relatively expensive paper sold as individual sheets.[21] Papers can vary in texture, hue, acidity, and strength when wet. Smooth paper is good for rendering fine detail, but a more "toothy" paper holds the drawing material better. Thus a coarser material is useful for producing deeper contrast.

 

Newsprint and typing paper may be useful for practice and rough sketches. Tracing paper is used to experiment over a half-finished drawing, and to transfer a design from one sheet to another. Cartridge paper is the basic type of drawing paper sold in pads. Bristol board and even heavier acid-free boards, frequently with smooth finishes, are used for drawing fine detail and do not distort when wet media (ink, washes) are applied. Vellum is extremely smooth and suitable for very fine detail. Coldpressed watercolor paper may be favored for ink drawing due to its texture.

 

Acid-free, archival quality paper keeps its color and texture far longer than wood pulp based paper such as newsprint, which turns yellow and become brittle much sooner.

 

The basic tools are a drawing board or table, pencil sharpener and eraser, and for ink drawing, blotting paper. Other tools used are circle compass, ruler, and set square. Fixative is used to prevent pencil and crayon marks from smudging. Drafting tape is used to secure paper to drawing surface, and also to mask an area to keep it free of accidental marks sprayed or spattered materials and washes. An easel or slanted table is used to keep the drawing surface in a suitable position, which is generally more horizontal than the position used in painting.

 

Technique[edit]

 

Raphael, study for what became the Alba Madonna, with other sketches

Almost all draftsmen use their hands and fingers to apply the media, with the exception of some handicapped individuals who draw with their mouth or feet.[22]

 

Prior to working on an image, the artist typically explores how various media work. They may try different drawing implements on practice sheets to determine value and texture, and how to apply the implement to produce various effects.

 

The artist's choice of drawing strokes affects the appearance of the image. Pen and ink drawings often use hatching—groups of parallel lines.[23] Cross-hatching uses hatching in two or more different directions to create a darker tone. Broken hatching, or lines with intermittent breaks, form lighter tones—and controlling the density of the breaks achieves a gradation of tone. Stippling, uses dots to produce tone, texture or shade. Different textures can be achieved depending on the method used to build tone.[24]

 

Drawings in dry media often use similar techniques, though pencils and drawing sticks can achieve continuous variations in tone. Typically a drawing is filled in based on which hand the artist favors. A right-handed artist draws from left to right to avoid smearing the image. Erasers can remove unwanted lines, lighten tones, and clean up stray marks. In a sketch or outline drawing, lines drawn often follow the contour of the subject, creating depth by looking like shadows cast from a light in the artist's position.

 

Sometimes the artist leaves a section of the image untouched while filling in the remainder. The shape of the area to preserve can be painted with masking fluid or cut out of a frisket and applied to the drawing surface, protecting the surface from stray marks until the mask is removed.

 

Another method to preserve a section of the image is to apply a spray-on fixative to the surface. This holds loose material more firmly to the sheet and prevents it from smearing. However the fixative spray typically uses chemicals that can harm the respiratory system, so it should be employed in a well-ventilated area such as outdoors.

 

Another technique is subtractive drawing in which the drawing surface is covered with graphite or charcoal and then erased to make the image.[25]

 

Tone[edit]

 

Line drawing in sanguine by Leonardo da Vinci

Shading is the technique of varying the tonal values on the paper to represent the shade of the material as well as the placement of the shadows. Careful attention to reflected light, shadows and highlights can result in a very realistic rendition of the image.

 

Blending uses an implement to soften or spread the original drawing strokes. Blending is most easily done with a medium that does not immediately fix itself, such as graphite, chalk, or charcoal, although freshly applied ink can be smudged, wet or dry, for some effects. For shading and blending, the artist can use a blending stump, tissue, a kneaded eraser, a fingertip, or any combination of them. A piece of chamois is useful for creating smooth textures, and for removing material to lighten the tone. Continuous tone can be achieved with graphite on a smooth surface without blending, but the technique is laborious, involving small circular or oval strokes with a somewhat blunt point.

 

Shading techniques that also introduce texture to the drawing include hatching and stippling. A number of other methods produce texture. In addition to the choice of paper, drawing material and technique affect texture. Texture can be made to appear more realistic when it is drawn next to a contrasting texture; a coarse texture is more obvious when placed next to a smoothly blended area. A similar effect can be achieved by drawing different tones close together. A light edge next to a dark background stands out to the eye, and almost appears to float above the surface.

 

Form and proportion[edit]

 

Pencil portrait by Ingres

Measuring the dimensions of a subject while blocking in the drawing is an important step in producing a realistic rendition of the subject. Tools such as a compass can be used to measure the angles of different sides. These angles can be reproduced on the drawing surface and then rechecked to make sure they are accurate. Another form of measurement is to compare the relative sizes of different parts of the subject with each other. A finger placed at a point along the drawing implement can be used to compare that dimension with other parts of the image. A ruler can be used both as a straightedge and a device to compute proportions.

 

When attempting to draw a complicated shape such as a human figure, it is helpful at first to represent the form with a set of primitive volumes. Almost any form can be represented by some combination of the cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone. Once these basic volumes have been assembled into a likeness, then the drawing can be refined into a more accurate and polished form. The lines of the primitive volumes are removed and replaced by the final likeness. Drawing the underlying construction is a fundamental skill for representational art, and is taught in many books and schools. Its correct application resolves most uncertainties about smaller details, and makes the final image look consistent.[26]

 

A more refined art of figure drawing relies upon the artist possessing a deep understanding of anatomy and the human proportions. A trained artist is familiar with the skeleton structure, joint location, muscle placement, tendon movement, and how the different parts work together during movement. This allows the artist to render more natural poses that do not appear artificially stiff. The artist is also familiar with how the proportions vary depending on the age of the subject, particularly when drawing a portrait.

 

Perspective[edit]

Linear perspective is a method of portraying objects on a flat surface so that the dimensions shrink with distance. Each set of parallel, straight edges of any object, whether a building or a table, follows lines that eventually converge at a vanishing point. Typically this convergence point is somewhere along the horizon, as buildings are built level with the flat surface. When multiple structures are aligned with each other, such as buildings along a street, the horizontal tops and bottoms of the structures typically converge at a vanishing point.

  

Two-point perspective drawing

When both the fronts and sides of a building are drawn, then the parallel lines forming a side converge at a second point along the horizon (which may be off the drawing paper.) This is a two-point perspective.[27] Converging the vertical lines to a third point above or below the horizon then produces a three-point perspective.

 

Depth can also be portrayed by several techniques in addition to the perspective approach above. Objects of similar size should appear ever smaller the further they are from the viewer. Thus the back wheel of a cart appears slightly smaller than the front wheel. Depth can be portrayed through the use of texture. As the texture of an object gets further away it becomes more compressed and busy, taking on an entirely different character than if it was close. Depth can also be portrayed by reducing the contrast in more distant objects, and by making their colors less saturated. This reproduces the effect of atmospheric haze, and cause the eye to focus primarily on objects drawn in the foreground.

 

Artistry[edit]

 

Chiaroscuro study drawing by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

The composition of the image is an important element in producing an interesting work of artistic merit. The artist plans element placement in the art to communicate ideas and feelings with the viewer. The composition can determine the focus of the art, and result in a harmonious whole that is aesthetically appealing and stimulating.

 

The illumination of the subject is also a key element in creating an artistic piece, and the interplay of light and shadow is a valuable method in the artist's toolbox. The placement of the light sources can make a considerable difference in the type of message that is being presented. Multiple light sources can wash out any wrinkles in a person's face, for instance, and give a more youthful appearance. In contrast, a single light source, such as harsh daylight, can serve to highlight any texture or interesting features.

 

When drawing an object or figure, the skilled artist pays attention to both the area within the silhouette and what lies outside. The exterior is termed the negative space, and can be as important in the representation as the figure. Objects placed in the background of the figure should appear properly placed wherever they can be viewed.

  

Drawing process in the Academic Study of a Male Torso by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1801, National Museum, Warsaw)

A study is a draft drawing that is made in preparation for a planned final image. Studies can be used to determine the appearances of specific parts of the completed image, or for experimenting with the best approach for accomplishing the end goal. However a well-crafted study can be a piece of art in its own right, and many hours of careful work can go into completing a study.

 

Process[edit]

Individuals display differences in their ability to produce visually accurate drawings.[28] A visually accurate drawing is described as being "recognized as a particular object at a particular time and in a particular space, rendered with little addition of visual detail that can not be seen in the object represented or with little deletion of visual detail”.[29]

 

Investigative studies have aimed to explain the reasons why some individuals draw better than others. One study posited four key abilities in the drawing process: perception of objects being drawn, ability to make good representational decisions, motor skills required for mark-making and the drawer's own perception of their drawing.[29] Following this hypothesis, several studies have sought to conclude which of these processes are most significant in affecting the accuracy of drawings.

 

Motor function Motor function is an important physical component in the 'Production Phase' of the drawing process.[30] It has been suggested that motor function plays a role in drawing ability, though its effects are not significant.[29]

 

Perception It has been suggested that an individual's ability to perceive an object they are drawing is the most important stage in the drawing process.[29] This suggestion is supported by the discovery of a robust relationship between perception and drawing ability.[31]

 

This evidence acted as the basis of Betty Edwards' how-to drawing book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.[32] Edwards aimed to teach her readers how to draw, based on the development of the reader's perceptual abilities.

 

Furthermore, the influential artist and art critic John Ruskin emphasised the importance of perception in the drawing process in his book The Elements of Drawing.[33] He stated that "For I am nearly convinced, that once we see keenly enough, there is very little difficult in drawing what we see".

 

Visual memory has also been shown to influence one's ability to create visually accurate drawings. Short-term memory plays an important part in drawing as one’s gaze shifts between the object they are drawing and the drawing itself.[34]

 

Drawing is a form of visual art in which a person uses various drawing instruments to mark paper or another two-dimensional medium. Instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, various kinds of erasers, markers, styluses, various metals (such as silverpoint) and electronic drawing.

 

A drawing instrument releases small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, may be used. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard or indeed almost anything. The medium has been a popular and fundamental means of public expression throughout human history. It is one of the simplest and most efficient means of communicating visual ideas.[1] The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities.

In addition to its more artistic forms, drawing is frequently used in commercial illustration, animation, architecture, engineering and technical drawing. A quick, freehand drawing, usually not intended as a finished work, is sometimes called a sketch. An artist who practices or works in technical drawing may be called a drafter, draftsman or a draughtsman.[2]

Drawing is one of the major forms of expression within the visual arts. It is generally concerned with the marking of lines and areas of tone onto paper/other material, where the accurate representation of the visual world is expressed upon a plane surface.[3] Traditional drawings were monochrome, or at least had little colour,[4] while modern colored-pencil drawings may approach or cross a boundary between drawing and painting. In Western terminology, drawing is distinct from painting, even though similar media often are employed in both tasks. Dry media, normally associated with drawing, such as chalk, may be used in pastel paintings. Drawing may be done with a liquid medium, applied with brushes or pens. Similar supports likewise can serve both: painting generally involves the application of liquid paint onto prepared canvas or panels, but sometimes an underdrawing is drawn first on that same support.

  

Madame Palmyre with Her Dog, 1897. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

 

Galileo Galilei. Phases of the Moon. 1616.

Drawing is often exploratory, with considerable emphasis on observation, problem-solving and composition. Drawing is also regularly used in preparation for a painting, further obfuscating their distinction. Drawings created for these purposes are called studies.

 

There are several categories of drawing, including figure drawing, cartooning, doodling, free hand and shading. There are also many drawing methods, such as line drawing, stippling, shading, the surrealist method of entopic graphomania (in which dots are made at the sites of impurities in a blank sheet of paper, and lines are then made between the dots), and tracing (drawing on a translucent paper, such as tracing paper, around the outline of preexisting shapes that show through the paper).

 

A quick, unrefined drawing may be called a sketch.

 

In fields outside art, technical drawings or plans of buildings, machinery, circuitry and other things are often called "drawings" even when they have been transferred to another medium by printing.

 

History[edit]

Drawing as a Form of Communication Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression, with evidence for its existence preceding that of written communication.[5] It is believed that drawing was used as a specialised form of communication before the invent of the written language,[5][6] demonstrated by the production of cave and rock paintings created by Homo sapiens sapiens around 30,000 years ago.[7] These drawings, known as pictograms, depicted objects and abstract concepts.[8] The sketches and paintings produced in prehistoric times were eventually stylised and simplified, leading to the development of the written language as we know it today.

 

Drawing in the Arts Drawing is used to express one's creativity, and therefore has been prominent in the world of art. Throughout much of history, drawing was regarded as the foundation for artistic practise.[9] Initially, artists used and reused wooden tablets for the production of their drawings.[10] Following the widespread availability of paper in the 14th century, the use of drawing in the arts increased. At this point, drawing was commonly used as a tool for thought and investigation, acting as a study medium whilst artists were preparing for their final pieces of work.[11][12] In a period of artistic flourish, the Renaissance brought about drawings exhibiting realistic representational qualities,[13] where there was a lot of influence from geometry and philosophy.[14]

 

The invention of the first widely available form of photography led to a shift in the use of drawing in the arts.[15] Photography took over from drawing as a more superior method for accurately representing visual phenomena, and artists began to abandon traditional drawing practises.[16] Modernism in the arts encouraged "imaginative originality"[17] and artists' approach to drawing became more abstract.

 

Drawing Outside the Arts Although the use of drawing is extensive in the arts, its practice is not confined purely to this field. Before the widespread availability of paper, 12th century monks in European monasteries used intricate drawings to prepare illustrated, illuminated manuscripts on vellum and parchment. Drawing has also been used extensively in the field of science, as a method of discovery, understanding and explanation. In 1616, astronomer Galileo Galilei explained the changing phases of the moon through his observational telescopic drawings.[16] Additionally, in 1924, geophysicist Alfred Wegener used illustrations to visually demonstrate the origin of the continents.The medium is the means by which ink, pigment or color are delivered onto the drawing surface. Most drawing media are either dry (e.g. graphite, charcoal, pastels, Conté, silverpoint), or use a fluid solvent or carrier (marker, pen and ink). Watercolor pencils can be used dry like ordinary pencils, then moistened with a wet brush to get various painterly effects. Very rarely, artists have drawn with (usually decoded) invisible ink. Metalpoint drawing usually employs either of two metals: silver or lead.[20] More rarely used are gold, platinum, copper, brass, bronze, and tinpoint.

 

Paper comes in a variety of different sizes and qualities, ranging from newspaper grade up to high quality and relatively expensive paper sold as individual sheets.[21] Papers can vary in texture, hue, acidity, and strength when wet. Smooth paper is good for rendering fine detail, but a more "toothy" paper holds the drawing material better. Thus a coarser material is useful for producing deeper contrast.

 

Newsprint and typing paper may be useful for practice and rough sketches. Tracing paper is used to experiment over a half-finished drawing, and to transfer a design from one sheet to another. Cartridge paper is the basic type of drawing paper sold in pads. Bristol board and even heavier acid-free boards, frequently with smooth finishes, are used for drawing fine detail and do not distort when wet media (ink, washes) are applied. Vellum is extremely smooth and suitable for very fine detail. Coldpressed watercolor paper may be favored for ink drawing due to its texture.

 

Acid-free, archival quality paper keeps its color and texture far longer than wood pulp based paper such as newsprint, which turns yellow and become brittle much sooner.

 

The basic tools are a drawing board or table, pencil sharpener and eraser, and for ink drawing, blotting paper. Other tools used are circle compass, ruler, and set square. Fixative is used to prevent pencil and crayon marks from smudging. Drafting tape is used to secure paper to drawing surface, and also to mask an area to keep it free of accidental marks sprayed or spattered materials and washes. An easel or slanted table is used to keep the drawing surface in a suitable position, which is generally more horizontal than the position used in painting.

 

Technique[edit]

 

Raphael, study for what became the Alba Madonna, with other sketches

Almost all draftsmen use their hands and fingers to apply the media, with the exception of some handicapped individuals who draw with their mouth or feet.[22]

 

Prior to working on an image, the artist typically explores how various media work. They may try different drawing implements on practice sheets to determine value and texture, and how to apply the implement to produce various effects.

 

The artist's choice of drawing strokes affects the appearance of the image. Pen and ink drawings often use hatching—groups of parallel lines.[23] Cross-hatching uses hatching in two or more different directions to create a darker tone. Broken hatching, or lines with intermittent breaks, form lighter tones—and controlling the density of the breaks achieves a gradation of tone. Stippling, uses dots to produce tone, texture or shade. Different textures can be achieved depending on the method used to build tone.[24]

 

Drawings in dry media often use similar techniques, though pencils and drawing sticks can achieve continuous variations in tone. Typically a drawing is filled in based on which hand the artist favors. A right-handed artist draws from left to right to avoid smearing the image. Erasers can remove unwanted lines, lighten tones, and clean up stray marks. In a sketch or outline drawing, lines drawn often follow the contour of the subject, creating depth by looking like shadows cast from a light in the artist's position.

 

Sometimes the artist leaves a section of the image untouched while filling in the remainder. The shape of the area to preserve can be painted with masking fluid or cut out of a frisket and applied to the drawing surface, protecting the surface from stray marks until the mask is removed.

 

Another method to preserve a section of the image is to apply a spray-on fixative to the surface. This holds loose material more firmly to the sheet and prevents it from smearing. However the fixative spray typically uses chemicals that can harm the respiratory system, so it should be employed in a well-ventilated area such as outdoors.

 

Another technique is subtractive drawing in which the drawing surface is covered with graphite or charcoal and then erased to make the image.[25]

 

Tone[edit]

 

Line drawing in sanguine by Leonardo da Vinci

Shading is the technique of varying the tonal values on the paper to represent the shade of the material as well as the placement of the shadows. Careful attention to reflected light, shadows and highlights can result in a very realistic rendition of the image.

 

Blending uses an implement to soften or spread the original drawing strokes. Blending is most easily done with a medium that does not immediately fix itself, such as graphite, chalk, or charcoal, although freshly applied ink can be smudged, wet or dry, for some effects. For shading and blending, the artist can use a blending stump, tissue, a kneaded eraser, a fingertip, or any combination of them. A piece of chamois is useful for creating smooth textures, and for removing material to lighten the tone. Continuous tone can be achieved with graphite on a smooth surface without blending, but the technique is laborious, involving small circular or oval strokes with a somewhat blunt point.

 

Shading techniques that also introduce texture to the drawing include hatching and stippling. A number of other methods produce texture. In addition to the choice of paper, drawing material and technique affect texture. Texture can be made to appear more realistic when it is drawn next to a contrasting texture; a coarse texture is more obvious when placed next to a smoothly blended area. A similar effect can be achieved by drawing different tones close together. A light edge next to a dark background stands out to the eye, and almost appears to float above the surface.

 

Form and proportion[edit]

 

Pencil portrait by Ingres

Measuring the dimensions of a subject while blocking in the drawing is an important step in producing a realistic rendition of the subject. Tools such as a compass can be used to measure the angles of different sides. These angles can be reproduced on the drawing surface and then rechecked to make sure they are accurate. Another form of measurement is to compare the relative sizes of different parts of the subject with each other. A finger placed at a point along the drawing implement can be used to compare that dimension with other parts of the image. A ruler can be used both as a straightedge and a device to compute proportions.

 

When attempting to draw a complicated shape such as a human figure, it is helpful at first to represent the form with a set of primitive volumes. Almost any form can be represented by some combination of the cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone. Once these basic volumes have been assembled into a likeness, then the drawing can be refined into a more accurate and polished form. The lines of the primitive volumes are removed and replaced by the final likeness. Drawing the underlying construction is a fundamental skill for representational art, and is taught in many books and schools. Its correct application resolves most uncertainties about smaller details, and makes the final image look consistent.[26]

 

A more refined art of figure drawing relies upon the artist possessing a deep understanding of anatomy and the human proportions. A trained artist is familiar with the skeleton structure, joint location, muscle placement, tendon movement, and how the different parts work together during movement. This allows the artist to render more natural poses that do not appear artificially stiff. The artist is also familiar with how the proportions vary depending on the age of the subject, particularly when drawing a portrait.

 

Perspective[edit]

Linear perspective is a method of portraying objects on a flat surface so that the dimensions shrink with distance. Each set of parallel, straight edges of any object, whether a building or a table, follows lines that eventually converge at a vanishing point. Typically this convergence point is somewhere along the horizon, as buildings are built level with the flat surface. When multiple structures are aligned with each other, such as buildings along a street, the horizontal tops and bottoms of the structures typically converge at a vanishing point.

  

Two-point perspective drawing

When both the fronts and sides of a building are drawn, then the parallel lines forming a side converge at a second point along the horizon (which may be off the drawing paper.) This is a two-point perspective.[27] Converging the vertical lines to a third point above or below the horizon then produces a three-point perspective.

 

Depth can also be portrayed by several techniques in addition to the perspective approach above. Objects of similar size should appear ever smaller the further they are from the viewer. Thus the back wheel of a cart appears slightly smaller than the front wheel. Depth can be portrayed through the use of texture. As the texture of an object gets further away it becomes more compressed and busy, taking on an entirely different character than if it was close. Depth can also be portrayed by reducing the contrast in more distant objects, and by making their colors less saturated. This reproduces the effect of atmospheric haze, and cause the eye to focus primarily on objects drawn in the foreground.

 

Artistry[edit]

 

Chiaroscuro study drawing by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

The composition of the image is an important element in producing an interesting work of artistic merit. The artist plans element placement in the art to communicate ideas and feelings with the viewer. The composition can determine the focus of the art, and result in a harmonious whole that is aesthetically appealing and stimulating.

 

The illumination of the subject is also a key element in creating an artistic piece, and the interplay of light and shadow is a valuable method in the artist's toolbox. The placement of the light sources can make a considerable difference in the type of message that is being presented. Multiple light sources can wash out any wrinkles in a person's face, for instance, and give a more youthful appearance. In contrast, a single light source, such as harsh daylight, can serve to highlight any texture or interesting features.

 

When drawing an object or figure, the skilled artist pays attention to both the area within the silhouette and what lies outside. The exterior is termed the negative space, and can be as important in the representation as the figure. Objects placed in the background of the figure should appear properly placed wherever they can be viewed.

  

Drawing process in the Academic Study of a Male Torso by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1801, National Museum, Warsaw)

A study is a draft drawing that is made in preparation for a planned final image. Studies can be used to determine the appearances of specific parts of the completed image, or for experimenting with the best approach for accomplishing the end goal. However a well-crafted study can be a piece of art in its own right, and many hours of careful work can go into completing a study.

 

Process[edit]

Individuals display differences in their ability to produce visually accurate drawings.[28] A visually accurate drawing is described as being "recognized as a particular object at a particular time and in a particular space, rendered with little addition of visual detail that can not be seen in the object represented or with little deletion of visual detail”.[29]

 

Investigative studies have aimed to explain the reasons why some individuals draw better than others. One study posited four key abilities in the drawing process: perception of objects being drawn, ability to make good representational decisions, motor skills required for mark-making and the drawer's own perception of their drawing.[29] Following this hypothesis, several studies have sought to conclude which of these processes are most significant in affecting the accuracy of drawings.

 

Motor function Motor function is an important physical component in the 'Production Phase' of the drawing process.[30] It has been suggested that motor function plays a role in drawing ability, though its effects are not significant.[29]

 

Perception It has been suggested that an individual's ability to perceive an object they are drawing is the most important stage in the drawing process.[29] This suggestion is supported by the discovery of a robust relationship between perception and drawing ability.[31]

 

This evidence acted as the basis of Betty Edwards' how-to drawing book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.[32] Edwards aimed to teach her readers how to draw, based on the development of the reader's perceptual abilities.

 

Furthermore, the influential artist and art critic John Ruskin emphasised the importance of perception in the drawing process in his book The Elements of Drawing.[33] He stated that "For I am nearly convinced, that once we see keenly enough, there is very little difficult in drawing what we see".

 

Visual memory has also been shown to influence one's ability to create visually accurate drawings. Short-term memory plays an important part in drawing as one’s gaze shifts between the object they are drawing and the drawing itself.[34]

One hip hat... 450 years ago.

 

This is a sneak peak at prop #9 - a Tudor Flat Cap, without doubt my most ambitious sewing project to date.

 

It's loosely based on a rather rough drawing I found on the internet (which I vaguely followed) and a painting of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester - a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I.

 

Fashioned from a remnant of costume "velvet", the top is lined with flannel to give it some body and the brim is lined with felt to make it a bit stiffer. It's impossible to see in the picture, but the top is pleated into the crown.

 

It was sewn entirely by hand - mostly because I didn't know what I was doing, so by the time I got done basting the bits together it was just as easy to keep going as to get out the machine.

 

Which probably would have whined about the thick layers, anyway.

 

While the hat is technically done (as of today!) I want to find a fancy ribbon or chain to go around it to replace this simple piece of ribbon.

 

FWIW: The top is help up by a reused, crumpled up, thin plastic bag, which brought home some new goodies from the fabric store this evening. The hat could also be worn completely flat, poofed up like a bowler, or with the top stretched over a plastic mesh circle to look somewhat mad-hatter-esk (yes, I tried it!)

 

(Prop #8, while completed, has yet to have its moment to shine.)

 

Our Daily Challenge - Feb 19, 2017 - "Hip"

 

Daily Dog Challenge 1937. "Hip To Be Square"

 

Note to self: stop being lazy and iron creased backdrops before using. It takes me longer to obfuscate the creases in Lightroom than it would to do the ironing!

 

Stop on by Zachary and Henry's blog: bzdogs.com - The Secret Life of the Suburban Dog

Illustration for a comparative ecophylogenetic analysis of local myrmecofaunas, based on r/K selection theory and intra / interspecific parabiosis / lestobiosis, particularly focused on allochthonous and invasive species.

 

[Stenosis Herbst 1799: 125 (IT: 8) spp]

 

Tenebrioninæ are traditionally divided in some 20-30 tbb. The exact delimitation and validity of several of these is unclear. Molecular phylogenetic studies have yielded inconsistent results, perhaps due to hybridization, horizontal gene transfer by Wolbachia bacteria, and insufficient taxon sampling obfuscating the information contained in DNA sequence data.

Most of Tenebrionidæ living in urban Rome are not rare and the urban area is an important hold for few species of conservation concern. This suggests that contrary to current practice, insect conservation programmes in an urban area should be more addressed to single species action plans than protection of as many areas as possible.

 

REFERENCES

 

S.Q. Zhang & Y. al. 2018: Coleoptera evolutionary history.

D.M. Linz & Y. Tomoyasu 2018: Origin of insect wings.

M.L. Yuan & Y. al. 2016: Coleoptera phylogeny.

W. Shyy & al. 2016: Insect-scale flapping-wing flight.

N.L. Gunter & al. 2014: Tenebrionoidea phylogeny.

G.J. Kergoat & al. 2014: Tenebrionidæ phylogeny.

S. Fattorini 2011: Insect rarity, extinction and conservation in urban Rome, Italy: a 120-year-long study of Tenebrionidæ.

//Since 1997 the ANC government has used various methods to fend-off criticism. These have run from attacking motive to bullying, obfuscation, bullshitting, lying, and outright denial. Over time civil society and media became inured to these tactics. So it was something of a welcome surprise when senior government officials - including the president and his deputy - started admitting responsibility for South Africa's energy shortages.

 

The basic line pushed by President Thabo Mbeki (and others) was that government underestimated the likely rate of economic growth and wrongly ignored Eskom's warnings that it needed to start building new capacity. For this they were very sorry.

 

These apologies have not silenced criticism, but they have been very effective in drawing attention away from where it should have been focused. This is known, in other fields, as misdirection. A Wikipedia entry notes how "The magician choreographs his actions so that even the critical and observant spectators are likely to look where the magician wants them to. More importantly, they do not look where they should not." One way of doing this is through movement, whereby "A larger action covers a smaller action."

 

Similarly, it is to the government's advantage to admit to failing to approve the building of new generating capacity on time. At worst they can be accused of ideological prevarication. Meanwhile, our gaze is shifted away from places where the ANC would prefer it not to wander. One of these is the way in which the ANC funding vehicle - Chancellor House - has been cut-in on massive contracts for the building of the Bravo and Madupi power stations. The other relates to the way in which the Eskom's racial obsessions were responsible for last week's massive black outs.//

 

www.politicsweb.co.za/iservice/eskom-the-real-cause-of-th...

Terrible manipulated image released by China.

I found this on the 41 bus in Sale, Manchester, some time in 2003. Melling Blue is the drug rehabilitation wing in Her Majesty's Prison Altcourse in Liverpool, a category B local prison for young offenders and adult male prisoners. Name redacted* to protect the guilty.

 

View larger.

 

(* deleted/obfuscated/obscured/highlighted in black)

This piece (and this series) is a massive departure for me in terms of style and approach. But feeling compelled by the dynamics tearing our nation in two, I knew I needed to express them, even though I had no idea what I was doing or where this spontaneously born series would go.

 

Outside of my studio in downtown Los Angeles, I laid the piece out covering it with the gunpowder. It's an element that one cannot control as can be seen in the video. The second to last burst of fire is the dead center burst between the two impotent shotguns.

 

Having no idea what to title the piece up until then, I looked at the starbursts covering the sky once the smoke cleared and head the word "Anthem." I then wove the same colors from the works "Ten to Midnight" and "The Nine" for all of the obvious reasons.

 

Long ago the philosopher Georg Hegel proposed that there is only one "State" expressing itself in two opposing sides to keep people enslaved to that state through constant division.

 

"...the State 'has the supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the State... for the right of the world spirit is above all special privileges.'

 

"The Hegelian dialectic is the ridiculous idea that constant conflict and continual merging of opposite ideologies, as established by extreme right or left belief systems, will lead spiritual mankind into final perfection. (Americans understood man's spiritual quests to be outside the realm of government control). Hegel's brilliance rests in his ability to confuse and obfuscate the true motives of the planners, and millions of people world-wide have been trying to make sense of why it doesn't work for over 150 years. But like the definition of insanity, the world keeps trying it over and over expecting different results. ..."

 

To see the fiery creation

youtu.be/4amiMyWKz28

 

To purchase prints and even the original....

kevissimo.squarespace.com/shop…

 

Mamiya 645 // Tri-X // Agfa Rodinal

This comes from a conversation with Don McLagan of Compete. Compete is in the business of tracking (anonymized) consumer behavior on the Web, and thinking about how to move (with permission!) towards direct communication with identified customers. We started with the concept of “customer intimacy.” But who wants to be intimate with a vendor? or vice versa?

 

Yet, true story, last Sunday I earned 6000 status miles from United Airlines for faxing them three statements from my other frequent flyer programs (British Airways, American and Delta). I would have done that for free; I *want* United to know how much I travel with the other guys. Maybe they would treat me better if they knew.

 

As it happens, I have a long, close, data-filled - but not intimate! – relationship with American. Let me explore it to make a few points. I have earned more than 7 million miles from American over the years, and I have a lifetime AAdmirals’ Club membership. (I bought it in 1985, just before I was planning to sell my business for the first time, and expected that the new owners wouldn’t pay for such a thing. It cost about as much as a single year’s membership costs now. Not that I was that smart; I bought a similar lifetime membership with Eastern Airlines – but their life was short!)

 

American knows a lot about me… both travel patterns, and, over the years, a number of complaints and a few compliments that I sent in and which are probably on file somewhere. But what’s more interesting to me is that I know American. I know not just their prices and routes, but also their seat maps and upgrade policies. I can go to American’s site and check seat availabilities on the flights I’m considering. If there are two and one’s full and the other empty(ish), I’ll go for the empty one – better chance of an upgrade, or at least of an empty seat beside me.

 

Doesn’t this transparency hurt American’s ability to control its inventory? Not at all. They *want* me and people like me to fill up their empty flights and reduce bumping on the full ones. It’s in their interest for me to be happy, and for me to benefit from upgrades to seats that would otherwise have gone empty.

 

Rather than a mysterious enemy engaging in inscrutable countermeasures, we are partners, trying to get me the best seat possible given American’s rules. I don’t expect American to be altruistic or to give me more than I deserve, but I trust them – business trust! – to do what’s in their own best long-term interest, which is to keep me as a satisfied customer.

 

How concscious is American of all this? probably not very, or they would make it slightly easier! I would love a software package that would help me to navigate American’s site and grab the seat maps of the different flights I’m considering (and perhaps those of a few competitive airlines) into a single page. In fact, I’d be happy to have a software package that would represent *me* in my dealings with a variety of vendors.

 

That brings me to the business proposition of Sidestep or, as it happens, WhenU, a company that I just wrote about in the Release 1.0 issue on adware. Their original (and perhaps born-again) proposition is a shopping assistant (as in WhenU shop) that would do precisely this kind of thing.

 

This is all part of a slow, mostly unnoticed shift in the balance of power towards consumers. Once we got into mass production, we moved into an economy where producers made things (trying hard to divine and influence customer tastes, of course) and consumers could choose from what was on offer. Then we got feedback, 800 numbers and the like, and companies started to “listen” – some of them seriously, some only in their marketing pitches.

 

But it’s mostly still the vendors who have all the firepower. The user tools I mentioned above are beginning to redress the blance. And Priceline allows the user to set his own price, but its business model basically depends on price obfuscation – because the vendors don’t want to expose their below-market pricing to competitors or to less price-sensitive customers.

 

But there’s another, better example out there of what’s coming in – of all places – the on-demand air-taxi business. In this business – most notably Dayjet - consumers enter their requirements and constraints, which are matched with other customers’ data *and* with what Dayjet has on offer in terms of aircraft and personnel to fly and service them. It’s in everyone’s interest to use the resources most effectively and to make trade-offs based on customers’ preferences (and their willingness to back them with money). To course, Dayjet takes a cut, but there’s not the feeling of Dayjet benefiting at the customers’ expense that you so often feel with traditional business models.

 

Of course, that’s a slightly idealistic view of things, but it’s where we’re heading. The customers become – in realtime – partners in designing and allocating the offering.

Interestingness 291: 12-12-2008

  

It will indubitably surprise some people to hear me say this, but Mr. Brown Pelican's feral compeers exert themselves to muddy the water, obfuscate the record, and cover up, by sophistries and denials, all of Mr. Pelican's mudslinging contretemps. Perhaps before going on, I should describe Mr. Pelican to you. Mr. Pelican is frowzy, passive-aggressive, and snippy. Furthermore, he yearns to create a beachhead for organized separatism. He favors conquest not only by violence but also by the peaceful and delicate methods of cheating and lying.

 

I plan to work within the system to persuade my fellow citizens that Mr. Pelican makes no sense at all, not because I lack the courage for more drastic steps but because Mr. Pelican's attempts to use organized violence to suppress opposition are much worse than mere Bonapartism. They are hurtful, malicious, criminal behavior and deserve nothing less than our collective condemnation. I clearly cannot emphasize enough how much I resent his quips. For your edification, I should truly point out that on several occasions I have heard him state that the health effects of secondhand smoke are negligible. I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a comment. What I consider far more important though is that when all discoverable facts and experience fly in the face of Mr. Pelican's shabby world view, Mr. Pelican stubbornly holds onto his ignorance as his birthright.

>>Like the haunting chants and prayers to which I've never listened

thou shalt no longer live in chains or ever be imprisoned.

Ease my always throbbing heart, I shall no longer falter

as pupae to imagines all images must alter.

 

Let thy glory shine on me, disperse my obfuscation,

hide thy essence in myself, I need assimilation.

Stream thyself into my soul and flood it with thy yearning,

pour thy soul into my shell, erase my restless burning.

 

I hear voices of a stranger.

I hear voices of a stranger.

I hear voices of a stranger.

I hear voices in my head, echoing. <<

 

(A prayer for sanctuary by ASP

if you want to listen: youtu.be/QkJaCjtkSHo )

D8107 (20107) drags failed 47593 (N/184) back to Crewe H.S as Locomotive Services Limited obfuscated headcode 029W.

Driver is obviously living the dream!

The roof of a church in the Atacama, Chile. I just liked the way the thatch hung really... as well as the gradual decay from the high altitude sunshine.

 

Musings on: obfuscating scale in photographs

This picture reminds me I need to get out and catch more skies and sunsets.... the setting sun over Michigan and Lake Huron

 

This image cannot be used on websites, blogs or other media without explicit my permission. © All rights reserved

CHARLOTTE NC: Another joint to get a hair cut in North Carolina's Queen City.

 

What's in a name? The way I see it the Masters of obfuscation are owners of barber shops and beauty parlors. Don't know if you can, but I remember back in the day when I went to 'the barber's' [or 'the barbers' depending on the number of chairs] and women went to the beauty parlor. Yeah, it was simple back then.

 

When I was a kid my barbers had ordinary names like Fred, Sam, and Joe and not one of the shops had a manicurist. In fact, if a manicurist showed up in the neighborhood she was escorted to the No. 74 bus stop, loaded on board, and sent back uptown where she belonged.

 

Hey, and what guy in his right mind would go down to da corner gin mill, have a couple of brewskis wit' da guys, argue foolish points about da World Series, chrow a quarter tip on the bar, stand up, and tell the crowd, "Well guys, I gotta get up to da salon now for a haircut and get my split-ends trimmed again. My roots are turning black [or, gray] again, ya know wut I mean?"

 

And, what's with the ATM sign? They need an ATM machine for customers to get a draft for a hair cut? That alone would send me down to the Central Carolina Barber's College for a cheapie $5.00 'Educational Cut' given by one of the students.

 

"All Texture?" Years ago, we had only two textures: UNCUT and CUT.

 

WOW! Gimme the old days.

Spring Start Selfie Seaside Scene - IMRAN™

Just a quick test flight of the new DJI Mini 3 Pro drone on the start of spring, with a two-shot selfie panorama stitched with some areas obfuscated to the side. Can you see me and where the dogs are in the picture?

 

© 2024 IMRAN™

>>Like the haunting chants and prayers to which I've never listened

thou shalt no longer live in chains or ever be imprisoned.

Ease my always throbbing heart, I shall no longer falter

as pupae to imagines all images must alter.

 

Let thy glory shine on me, disperse my obfuscation,

hide thy essence in myself, I need assimilation.

Stream thyself into my soul and flood it with thy yearning,

pour thy soul into my shell, erase my restless burning.

 

I hear voices of a stranger.

I hear voices of a stranger.

I hear voices of a stranger.

I hear voices in my head, echoing. <<

 

(A prayer for sanctuary by ASP

if you want to listen: youtu.be/QkJaCjtkSHo )

Caput Aquis

project: Solitudo Meridionalis

But when you hear of wars and rumers of wars, do not be troubled; for such things must happen, but the end is not yet. For nations will rise against nations, and kingdom against kingdom, And there will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles. These are the beginnings of sorrows. Mark 13:7-8

 

It has come to our attention that people are dying in Haiti because of confusion, obfuscation, bureaucracy and lack of coordination. My Brothers and Sisters this is the work of darkness. Doctors are being stymied in relief efforts. People are dying from from secondary infections and lack of treatment. This is all because satan is causing confusion and wars over turf. Pray with me.

 

Almighty God and Father. We seek your reign. You are our Master, Our Healer, Our Savior Our King. Holy Spirit join with us. Empower us Precious Holy Spirit. Show us the Way, the Truth and the Light. Join with me my Brothers and Sisters in one accord. Lift up the Name of Jesus. Father we claim your promise that where two or more are gathered in your Name.... Father we are joined now in Your Name that Hallowed Name! Father we claim authority over all darkness. In the Glorious Name of Your SON, we rebuke, bind and come against all darkness in and around Haiti. We ask that the fetters and chains or evil be broken now is the Name of Jesus. Let Your light shine through! Father God, we come against all bureaucratic chains that are holding back relief efforts. Send forth your Angels, Warriors, medical personnel and aid workers O Lord. Anoint their service to mankind! Remove all barriers to relief O Lord.

 

In the name of Jesus we come against any demonic stronghold in Haiti. We apply the power of the cross of Jesus Christ to every dark wall in Haiti. We bind every yoke of fear and doubt in Haiti. In the name of Jesus We bind Satan and all the spirits, powers, and forces of darkness loosed by Satan to act out these spells, bonds, seals, curses, charms , snares, treaps, chants, hexes, vexes, jinxes, invocations, incantations sayings and prayers. We demolish every sickness and disease of body, soul and or mind spirit placed on Haiti and the people of Haiti. Any territory handed over to Satan, we now reclaim in Jesus' Name. We plead the power of the Blood of Jesus over Haiti.Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of the Faithful in Haiti. Deliver them from all evil now and forever.

 

Father we release the people of Haiti into your loving care. Father send forth your angels to protect these people! Now, Father God having prayed this prayer, we ask that your Holy Spirit complete it in your Name and purify them in Your presence. We give You all the Glory, all the Honor and all the Praise. Set your children free In Haiti through the Cross of your Son Jesus.

 

We thank you Lord for this prayer of deliverance.

 

Amen

 

My heart goes out to Haiti in their time of trouble and sorrow. Lord help quickly and comfort the brokenhearted.

brion tomb, san vito d'altivole cemetery, italy, 1969-1978 (largely completed by 1972 as far as I can tell)

architect: carlo scarpa (1906-1978)

 

a year ago I was able to revisit a number of scarpa's key works, but rather than feeling lucky it left me deeply frustrated: even after all these years I understood so little. project by project, building by building, my knowledge of scarpa receded. every door I opened led me further into the dark. these brief notes are, as always, my own attempt to gain or regain a foothold.

 

how do we begin to talk about the brion tomb? the published texts on this late work are like a competition in academic obfuscation; scarpa's pervasive use of symbols has even the finest historian talking about occultism. the architect himself was ironic to the point of hardly saying anything at all, although he admitted that this was - uniquely - a project he was happy to revisit. and revisit he did: carlo scarpa was buried, standing up, in a hidden corner of the cemetery following his fatal fall down a flight of stairs in japan in 1978.

 

but this is less about where the architect went. we should heed the lessons learnt from his monument to the partisan women and from the querini stampalia, projects that reveal scarpa's sensitivity to the position he puts you in.

 

you already know the place and you know the way there, whether you have been to the small town of san vito d'altivole or not. that narrow asphalt road from the village down to the walled cemetery following a line of tall cypresses, fields to the side. the cemetery with its sad pomposity and polished marble, telling us so little of those dead and those mourning except perhaps their social fears. along the back of the square enclosure, you'll recognise the line up of family graves, sad little temples, always under lock and chain.

 

the neatness and predictability of death in provincial italy is broken only once. a single, ancient-looking grave stands out in its ruinous and overgrown state. as you approach it, you realise the grave is open, and not only that - at the far end is another opening, two large circles in black steel and coloured glass intersect to form a set of eyes or glasses. come and see, they beckon. come and see for yourself:

 

enter. through. the. grave.

 

notice how you don't need to be familiar with symbolism, mythology or modern architecture to understand that you are facing a through-the-looking glass moment; that on the other side, meaning will somehow be heightened and twisted.

 

scarpa's manipulation of common building parts - we experienced it in querini stampalia when entering the palace through a window and in the monument to partisan women when left on a pedestal, looking down at the statue - these reversals of use and meaning tell us of a profoundly original architect whose approach was closer to what we might find in literature than among his colleagues, right here with just a touch of the gothic novel.

 

it was ruskin who insisted that we should read a building the way we read a book, and scarpa took care that his works merit the attention. you only need to look at his use of symbols, so confusing in a late-modern work of architecture. the intersecting circles, known as the vesica piscis, form one of the more open-ended symbols, in the scientific community simply signifying a lens which is clearly one of the meanings employed by scarpa. in early christian and byzantine art, the almond shape at the centre was used to frame christ, although in scarpa's use, its emptiness is telling.

 

it had become something of a personal signature for scarpa in the same way aalto used the wave (aalto meaning wave in finnish), but he only fully unfolded its symbolic potential here in the brion tomb. the duality of the circles is obvious, they express complementary opposites. as you move through scarpa's spaces, these are shown to be many: the husband and wife buried here as in the masculine and the feminine, but also the private and the communal expressed in ritual and reflection, and not least in nature and the built delineating each other. you may continue the list, but of course the circles first of all signify the interdependence of life and death itself, just as the whole turns out to be a meditation on death; a thinking man's reconciliation with death.

 

more recently, the vesica piscis has been understood as a representation of the female genitalia. this would be frivolous were it not for the way scarpa's own drawings of the cemetery swarm with naked women. I have yet to come across any actual naked women there, but fertility is a theme throughout, and the oddly laconic idea that you enter the cemetery through the birth canal seems to fit with scarpa's particular sense of irony. perhaps it is related to novelistic irony in that you simply cannot know where the author stands.

 

where scarpa appears willfully ambiguous, it is an invitation. here, standing at the entrance to the brion tomb, you realise that scarpa's work began way back where the mood was set: at the first of the tall cypresses as you left the village. and then, more painfully, that you have always been on the way to the cemetery, that we always are.

 

but there is a glimpse of a garden through the intersecting circles. you enter; the game continues.

 

the scarpa set.

Kamera: Nikon F3 (1989)

Linse: Nikkor-S Auto 50mm f1.4 (1970)

Film: Cinestill BWXX (Kodak 5222) @ ISO 200

Kjemi: Xtol (stock / 8 min. @ 21°C)

 

CALAVERX: Tenochtitlan (2022)

 

A la tierra prometida

Desembarcan las flotillas

De ladrones eh impostores

Que acabaron con muchas vidas

 

El imperio Tenochtitlán

Vio como sustituían

A sus dioses ancestrales

Por las cruzes y estatuillas

 

Hemos venido de mucho tiempo atrás

De sacrificios de alma y de sangre

Donde el amor es algo espiritual

Donde la muerte se ofrece a los dioses!

 

Donde la muerte se ofrece a los dioses

 

Conocimiеntos ancestrales

Exterminados como animalеs

Templos sagrados profanados

Acompañados de enfermedades

 

Esclavizaron y robaron

Asesinaron como cobardes

Colonizaron y enterraron

Una cultura brillante!

  

- The numbers as per 12 January 2024 -

 

Killed:

 

- Gaza: 23,708+ killed - including 10,000+ children, 7,000+ women, 678 elderly, 326 paramedics and medical staff, 135 UN staff

 

[* These are official numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry but in an obviously obfuscating attempt, Wikipedia now also includes numbers from two other sources [not updated since 9 Jan. 2024]; 1) Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor - Killed: 28,201 civilians + 2,475 resistance fighters and 2) Israeli government - Killed: 10,000+ civilians + 8,000 resistance fighters]

 

- Israel: 1,397 killed - including 807 civilians (*number now includes 695 Israelis and 28 who were hostages), 520 IDF soldiers, 61 police officers and 10 Shin Bet operatives

 

- Hamas fighters killed inside Israel (Oct. 7): 1,000+ (+200 captured - where are they being held?)

 

- West Bank: 343 killed

 

- Lebanon: 190 killed

 

- Journalists: 115 killed

 

- Syria: 85 killed

  

Wounded:

 

- Gaza: 60,005+ - 75% women and children

- Israel: 8,787+ (*not updated since 1 January 2024) [mostly IDF] )

- West Bank: 3,949+ (*not updated since 9 Jan. 2024)

  

Hostages:

 

- Taken: 253 (*has previously been reported in an increasing manner as 239, 245, 248 and 250 on 1 January 2024) - including more than 133 IDF soldiers, 120+ civilians (32 children), of whom 52 are foreign or dual-nationals)

- Killed I: 60 (by Israeli bombing)

- Killed II: 36 («subsequently killed»; i.e. by IDF ground troops)

- Released: 109 [women, children and foreign nationals]

- Rescued: 1

- Remaining: 47 - Do the math

- Remaining (Israeli claim): 109 living hostages and 27 dead bodies

 

Missing:

 

- Gaza: 7,000+ - 70% women and children (in the rubble) [*number previously reported as 7,780+ / Not updated since before 1 January 2024]

- Israel: 2 - 1 Israeli, 1 foreign (*not updated since 9 Jan. 2024)

 

Displaced / Refugees:

 

- Palestinians: 1,900,000

- Israelis: 500,000

- Lebanese: 76,000 [*not updated since 9 Jan. 2024]

 

Houses in Gaza destroyed by Israeli bombing:

 

- 10 October 2023: 1,000 houses

- 19 October 2023: 98,000 houses

- 22 October 2023: 42% of all houses

- * No longer reported on Wikipedia.

 

Number of Israeli settlers in occupied Palestine since 1967:

 

- 1972: 10,531

- 1983: 99,795

- 1993: 269,200

- 2004: 423,913

- 2007: 467,478

- 2010: 512,769

- 2018: 645,800

- 2020: 671,700

- 2022: 733,000

  

- Sources: Wikipedia - Articles '2023 Israel-Hamas War', '2023 Israel-Hamas war hostage crisis & ‘Israeli settlement’, 'Killing of journalists in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war'.

 

via WordPress ift.tt/3acnmv0

 

Here I live with a small black-and-white tv that proves: Not the image is the truth, but the noise obfuscating it.

 

On the wall is sink with a small, almost blind mirror above it. In the night, when I am too tired to go out to the toilet, I stand there, dick in hand, watching my face peeled out of shadows watching me from the speckled mirror.

 

This part of the town was almost forgotten, people came here because there were no other places to go. I come here to sleep and wake up, watch tv and then sleep some more.

 

polaroid type 669, polaroid/mamiya 600se, 150mm, f/5.6 @ 1/60

 

Explored 11-15-09 #445

   

This morning was another "hazy shade" kind of morning, so I drove out early and started snapping shots.

 

I stopped off at a bridge where, lo and behold, was another guy taking pictures. He looked more professional: nice white shirt, cleanly-pressed pants, tripod. There I am, mussy hair tucked under a black hat, ratty jeans, crummy sneakers.

 

I yelled over, "You a pro?"

 

Not indicating that I wanted to buy sex from him, but pondering that he might be a professional photographer (or "photog").

 

He said no, just a hobbyist.

 

We chatted. Turns out, he was on his way to a job interview, took off a half hour early to snap some fog shots.

 

I said I could relate.

 

We went on our merry separate fog-photograph-snapping ways. Kindred souls, perhaps. Of course, he was probably a serial killer hiding his bodies but still marking the event with a snapshot for the blood-soaked scrapbook.

 

Kindred souls, indeed.

5. I’m not in this picture. Neither is Lorna, but the camera is. My iPhone 11 is on the Rotator. The large circle near the top of the phone is the Sandmarc fisheye lens. The reason I point out the camera’s presence is that you can always find it at the center of these 360/720 spherical panoramas.

  

These days, you can almost always find a camera at the center of whatever picture you’re looking at. There is an operator taking the picture, but the camera is producing the actual image. After that, there is usually a machine, a computer processing the picture.

  

The Anasazi did not have the benefit of machine presence in camera form, and look at what it got them. The wreckage is strewn for miles around. We have no real evidence, no real proof of who ate whom, who killed whom, so all we can do is speculate. I am tired of the human apologists who think this situation with no objective evidence is just fine. I am tired of those who say objectivity doesn’t exist. Oh yeah? I tell you now and I’ll say it again: Without machines recording our actions in some form, what happened to the Anasazi will happen to us, just as sure as night follows the day.

  

Think about it: without machines taking pictures, you are free to obfuscate and cover up the evidence as those you love are eaten away, as the beautiful suburb you live in hides you from discovery, as the fabled city that masks your pride becomes worse than the lowest ring of Dante’s hell.

  

I tell you now and I’ll say it again: Without machines recording our actions in some form, what happened to the Anasazi will happen to us, just as sure as night follows…

 

film

D76 1+1 @ 68d 9.5min

Olympus OM-4

Zuiko 28mm f2.8

Created in Leonardo AI.

 

MSNBC is a toxic asset and a ruined unwatchable brand that its parent company Comcast is siloing into a new parent company, (Versant), to distance itself from the damage, and the inevitable bankruptcy and liquidation event. So they changed their name to MS NOW today, rather than change their content.

 

Don't be fooled by the desperate spinoff and phony renaming buzz; this is just another downward step towards oblivion for a truly pathetic assembly of entitled woke marxists peddling lies, hate, division, smears, and globalism all while obfuscating the blatant grifting in DC by their fellow parasites. Their audience and ad revenue is gone. Good riddance!

 

I think it is unlikely overpaid executives acted independently and alone here. More likely, institutional investors applied pressure to stop destroying shareholder value behind the scenes, as the debt loads of the parent company are now at perilous levels.

 

See more of my ai images here: www.youtube.com/@journeymanplayer7459

 

This monument is truly unique, not only for the purity of the Gothic style, but also for the famous works of art it contains and its historical importance. The Basilica of Santa Croce, one of the largest churches in the city, is attributed to the genius of Arnolfo di Cambio who seems to have begun work in 1294. Work continued into the second half of the 14th century but the church was not consecrated until 1443. The facade with its three gables dates to the 19th century (project by N. Matas) and the campanile in Gothic style also dates to this period (1847, project by G. Baccani). A portico of airy arches runs along the left flank and shelters the 14th-century tomb of Francesco Pazzi. On the right side of the church are the Cloisters, with the Pazzi Chapel in the background, and the Museo dell'Opera di S. Croce. The imposing interior has a nave and two side aisles separated by slender octagonal piers from which spring spacious pointed arches with a double molding. The beauty of the Church has been partially obfuscated by 16th-century remodelling. The floor is covered with old tombstones for the entire length of the nave which has a trussed timber ceiling. The transept has a number of chapels, including the Cappella Maggiore with the Legend of the Holy Cross (1380) by Agnolo Gaddi. On the altar is Gerini's polyptych with the Madonna and Saints and, above, the Crucifix of the school of Giotto. A Deposition from the Cross (cartoon by Lorenzo Ghiberti) in stained glass can be admired on the interior facade. Below to the right is the Monument to Gino Capponi (1876), and to the left that to G. B. Niccolini (1883). A splendid marble pulpit by Benedetto da Maiano (1472-76) stands in the nave. To be noted in the right aisle, at the first altar, is a Crucifixion by Santi di Tito (1579); on the first pier is the famous bas-relief by Antonio Rossellino (1478) of the Madonna del Latte. The stained-glass windows date to the 14th century. The most famous funeral monuments are along the walls of the right aisle. These include the monument to Dante Alighieri by Ricci (1829); to Michelangelo, by Vasari (1579); to Alfieri, by Canova (1803); to Machiavelli, by I. Spinazzi (1787).

Fragments of frescoes by Orcagna are to be seen behind the fourth altar and further on is Domenico Veneziano's fine fresco (1450) of St. John the Baptist and St. Francis.

Next comes the tabernacle in pietra serena by Donatello and Michelozzo with the Annunciation (1435 c.) by Donatello. and then the Tomb of Leonardo Bruni by Bernardo Rossellino, the funeral monument to Rossini and the one to Foscolo. The right arm of the transept contains the Castellani Chapel superbly frescoed by Agnolo Gaddi (1385) with Stories of the Saints. On the altar a Crucifix by Gerini.

At the end of the transept is the Baroncelli Chapel, with the splendid Gothic tomb of the Baroncelli family and a lunette with a Madonna by Taddeo Gaddi. The frescoes on the walls with Stories of Mary are also by Gaddi and the Madonna of the Girdle is by Bastiano Mainardi (1490). The Coronation of the Virgin on the altar is by Giotto.

Michelozzo's portal leads to the Sacristy, with the Rinuccini Chapel, frescoed with Stories of the Magdalen and the Virgin by Giovanni da Milano. The fine altarpiece is by Giovanni del Biondo (1379).

Michelozzo's Medici Chapel, built for Cosimo the Elder, is at the back. It contains a magnificent bas-relief by Donatello and various works by the Della Robbias. Various chapels (14th- cent.) with important works open off the central zone of the transept.

These include the Velluti Chapel with Stories of St. Michael Archangel, perhaps by Cimabue; the Chapels of the Peruzzi and the Bardi families frescoed by Giotto with Stories of St. John the Evangelist (1320) and Stories of St. Francis (1318); the Tosinghi Chapel with the Assumption in Heaven, also by Giotto; the Pulci Chapel with frescoes by Bernardo Daddi. Of particular note in the left aisle is the Marsuppini Sepulcher by Desiderio da Settignano.

    

The Frigate Greenhalgh - F 46 , former HMS Broadsword - F 88, is the fourth ship to bear this name in the Brazilian Navy, in honor of the Marine Guardsman João Guilherme Greenhalgh, killed in the Naval Battle of Riachuelo.

 

It was built by Yarrow Shipbuilders Ltd. in Scotstoun, Glasgow, Scotland.

 

Contracts for the sale and purchase of the Greenhalgh, its three sisters, and three River Sweepers, in an amount of approximately $ 170 million (£ 100 million), were signed by the Brazilian Government and the British Ministry of Defense on November 18, 1994, with the transfers occurring as they were discharged from the Royal Navy.

 

Greenhalgh was added to the Brazilian Navy on June 30, 1995, at a ceremony held in Plymouth, England. At that time, Captain-of-the-Sea-and-War João Carlos Alves da Silva, took command of the ship.

 

Facts:

F Greenhalgh - F 46

Broadsword Class - Type 22 Batch 1

"Warrior Wolf" (1)

 

Keel Laid: February 7, 1975

Launched: May 12, 1976

Incorporation (Royal Navy): May 3, 1979

Baixa (RN): June 30, 1995

Incorporation (Brazilian Navy): June 30, 1995

 

Characteristics

Displacement: 3,900 tons (standard), 4,400 tons (loaded).

Dimensions: 131.2 m long, 14.8 m beam, 6.0 m draft and 7.5 m maximum draft.

Propulsion: COGOG (Combined Gas or Gas) with 2 Rolls-Royce Olympus TM3B gas turbines of 27,300 shp each; 2 Rolls-Royce Tyne RM1A gas turbines of 4,100 shp each, coupled to two axles with variable pitch propellers.

Electricity: 4 diesel generators Paxman Ventura 12PA 200CZ of 1,000 kw each.

Speed: maximum 29 knots (Olympus turbines), 18 knot cruise (Tyne turbines).

Radius of action: 1,200 nautical miles at 29 knots (Olympus turbines) or 4,500 at 18 knots (with Tyne turbines).

 

Weapons: 4 surface-surface missile launchers MM 38 Exocet; 2 seismic launchers of anti-aircraft missile defenses Sea Wolf GWS 25 Mod. 0; 2 BMARC-Oerlikon GAM BO1 20mm machine guns in two single repairs and 2 STWS Mk 2 triple launchers of 324mm A / S torpedoes.

Sensors: 1 combined surveillance radar (aerial and surface) Marconi Type 967-968; 1 Kelvin-Hughes Type 1006 navigation radar; 2 Marconi Type 910 firing speed radars (GWS 25 Mod.0); 2 type laser type DEC type obfuscators; CME Racal Type 670; MAGE MEL UAA-1; 4 SRBOC Mk 137 Samex Chaffers / Flares; Ferranti-Thomson Type 2050 hull sonar, Type 2008 submarine telephone and Graseby Type 182 torpedo lure.

Tactical Data System: CAAIS 400, with Link 11 and 14.

Aircraft: 2 Westland AH-11A Super Lynx helicopters .

International Calling Code: PWGH

Crew: 246 men, 21 officers and 225 crew.

 

pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_Greenhalgh_(F-46)

From right to left: Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo (1861-1945), Salman Bin Hussain Matar (1837-1944), Jacques-Théodule Alfred Cartier (1884-1941), Mugbil Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thukair (1844-1923), and Abdulrahman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Ibrahim (1875-1960) circa March 1912.

 

(Contrary to earlier conflicting accounts about the location of this famous photograph, local historians now believe that it was taken during the introductory visit of Jacques Cartier to the townhouse of the undisputed doyen of the Bahraini pearl trading community, prominent pearl merchant Salman Bin Hussain Matar, on the island of Muharraq, which was both the then political capital of Bahrain and the seat of power of its rulers for more than a century)

 

(The date of birth of Yusuf Kanoo of 1861 in the caption above is arguably the most accurate of all his purported birth dates, in particular when compared to the other two widely circulated unsubstantiated discretionary dates of 1874 and 1868, the first of which is found in the British national archives (India Office Records), vaguely based on Yusuf Kanoo's own account, casting doubt on the questionable veracity of some of the information-gathering methods of the British archival records, while the second is a more recent date, first appearing as the official birth date of Kanoo in the late 1990s, it is important to note that, with few exceptions here and there, prior to the gradual establishment of the modern bureaucratic centralised state system in Bahrain in the 1920s and the following decades, virtually every birth date in Bahrain and the rest of the basic protection social contract of Arab Gulf polities where the livelihoods and worldly possessions of the people were under the protection of a specific ruler in a loosely designated geographical area was usually determined by word-of-mouth discretionary supposition, collective consensus, and, in some rare cases, chronicled by momentous or calamitous events occurring at random during any given time in a certain year, such as warfare, lethal epidemics, or destructive natural disasters, typically identifying the year by a distinctive feature or characteristic attributed to the calamity itself by describing the person born in the year in question, irrespective of gender, routinely referred to as "being born in the year of so and so," and at best by adding the season of birth according to the seasonally unaligned Islamic Hijri Calendar, which would become over the course of time part of the collective and cultural orally transmitted from one generation to another folk memory of the Bahraini people and the Gulf region in general, at a time when a sizable portion of the indigenous local population was both illiterate and semiliterate before the spread of government-sponsored formal education in the early 1920s and 1930s in the newly formed Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf, for example when the devastating Spanish flu pandemic reached Arabia as a whole in the autumn of 1919, including Bahrain, resulting in the death of more than fifteen hundred inhabitants in Bahrain alone, the year of the outbreak was called "The Year of Mercy" due to the frequency of funerary prayers and supplications for mercy for the souls of so many victims who succumbed to the disease one after another, an Islamic religious nomenclature once commonly used in the Arabian Peninsula in relation to the catastrophic reoccurrences of virulent diseases that ravaged the Peninsula, as people in Arabia sauntered through a never-ending cycle of rampant epidemics, with very high mortality rates as one would expect under such conditions, not dissimilar to those in mediaeval Europe or even to those of their contemporaries relatively more advanced standards of the neighbouring fertile crescent, constantly girding themselves for the worse, in light of the practically complete lack of modern medical care facilities, preventive healthcare, quarantine measures, including immunisation, and public sanitation with the significantly effective though insufficient three modern healthcare facilities exceptions in the Gulf, operating in chronological order with the opening of each of them, starting with the commercial, for-profit enterprise medical services of the American Mission Hospital in 1903 in Manama, Bahrain, followed three years later by the semi-gratuitous medical services of the chronically underfunded Victoria Memorial Hospital, together with its small quarantine facility in 1906, located near the sea, directly across from the British political agency (now the British Embassy), further down the same long, meandering street as the American hospital, both facilities catered not only to the local Bahraini population but also to those from the eastern and central regions of present-day Saudi Arabia, and finally, the American Mission Hospital of Kuwait in 1914 served Kuwait and its urban and desert sedentary environs communities where there was practically a yearly infestation of at least one epidemic, most notably bubonic plague, cholera, malaria, and smallpox, causing numerous fatalities in a short space of time, particularly along the Arab polities of the western coast of the low-density populated and extensively penurious Arabian Gulf region and throughout the Arabian Peninsula in the first third of the twentieth century, before the life-changing discovery of oil in the 1930s and 1940s, and the subsequent development of an efficient free-of-charge governmental medical system funded by oil revenues, however, one of the most noteworthy calamities to leave an indelible mark on the collective consciousness of the people of the Gulf was an odd hurricane of cataclysmic proportions on the 1st of October 1925, dubbed "The Year of the Sinkage," inflicting variable damage to buildings and the surrounding environment, especially vulnerable mud huts with palm-frond thatched roofs (known as Barastis) in coastal aquicultural and fishing villages belonging to indigent toiling fishermen and indentured farmers, these huts were torn apart, interspersing their roofs across far-flung distances, and, needless to say, the pearl fishing industry during the final weeks of the four-month-long summer pearling season in anticipation of the onset of the dormant winter months for the industry and its ancillary essential sectors in the Gulf, the cornerstone of the regional fragile monocultural economy, which was hit hard, with thousands of boats sunk and, tragically, over five thousand lives, predominantly sailors, lost in a single thunderous foreboding night in the otherwise almost always placid waters of the Gulf; the calamity wrought havoc in its wake, leaving a path of devastation across a vast region, primarily in the central part of the Arabian Gulf, centring on the Bahrain archipelago and the eastern coastline of the Qatar peninsula, coupled with a number of islands and the sparsely populated coastal towns and villages along the present-day eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, including Dammam (now a metropolis) and Tarout Island, well-known back then for its small fishing and pearl diving communities, namely the famous pearl diving town of Darin, and also the nearby agricultural town of Qatif, where one hundred and fifty people died from falling date palm trees on their homes, in addition to Ras Tanura, and to a lesser extent Jubail in the north, thus the perfectly apt appellation, as these rudimentary speculative and dubious methods were the order of the day, rather than any accurate, bureaucratic official government or religious documentation specifying the exact date and year of birth, with the first large-scale issuance of birth registration certificates in Bahrain beginning in earnest in the 1950s, given the discovery of an officially notarised endowment trust fund transfer deed dated Thursday the 15th of Rabi' al-Thani 1295 in the Hijri Calendar, corresponding to the 18th of April 1878 in the Gregorian Calendar, undermining decidedly the credibility of the two earlier mentioned alleged dates of birth of Yusuf Kanoo, where respected foodstuff merchant Ahmed Mohamed Kanoo and his eldest son Yusuf were among the nine legally required consenting adults, competent witnesses to validate the strict transfer of wealth procedure, since both of the previously stated birth dates of Yusuf Kanoo pertinent to the timeline of the binding legal solemnity of such a document are incompatible with the required legal age of the witnesses, whereas Yusuf Kanoo was illogically either an undiscerning child of four or a child of ten, indicating that he was a minor under the legal age of majority of full legal responsibility in both instances to be allowed to appear before an Islamic Sharia Judge or any other judge of any civil or religious denomination for that matter, it should be clarified that, with the exception of Iran (historically known as Persia), which is still reliant on its own highly precise unique Solar Hijri Calendar designed by the renowned Muslim polymath, Omar Khayyam (1048-1131), time and age measurements, and the foundation for standard civic purposes of all aspects of mundane life, not just religious holidays, worshipping activities, and festivities, were calculated in the Arabian Gulf and much of the Islamic world at the time, per purely the lunar Islamic Hijri Calendar's dynamic but orderly unaligned seasons of the monthly cycles of the phases of the Moon, in contrast to the seasonally aligned, more dependable Gregorian, and less complex Solar Calendar, and all currently in use others, in a number of Asian nations, such as China, India, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan, are regulated by their indigenous hybrid Lunisolar Calendar's overlapping intercalations of both the positions of the Moon and the Sun, in compatibility with the Western globalised economic requirements and realities of modern life, in conclusion, as expounded earlier in the text, in the absence of a centralised efficient bureaucratic state system in the late modern period, from roughly the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century in Bahrain and the rest of the Gulf, it was a challenging task to determine the precise birth dates of the vast majority of the population, including those of the ruling and mercantile elites, with a few rare anomalous exceptions, mostly among the clergy, demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that Yusuf Kanoo, as one of the signatories of the said revealing document, was of the irrefutable legal adult majority discerning age of eighteen lunar years, marking the adulthood threshold where individuals were recognised as legally responsible for their actions, according to the prevailing religious consensus of the four principal Sunni orthodoxy schools of Islamic jurisprudence law thought at the time, before the partial implementation of more secular western-influenced administrative reforms and legislations by the British colonial local authorities in the Gulf in the first third of the twentieth century, slowly but surely replacing the lunar Hijri Calendar in daily civic use by the Gregorian solar Calendar, among other modernising measures, as part of the British worldwide imperial colonial grafting process policy similar to that of the French, but in a less brutal, culturally imperialist, and bloodstained manner, by paternalistically integrating Britain more vigorously to its racially inferior and inherently less civilised colonies in varying degrees, while taking into account the distinct circumstances of each of the occupied territories according to British evaluation that constituted the British Empire through the self-designated various British classification of each territory (such as Colonies, Crown Colonies, Charter Colonies, Protectorates, Mandates, etc) via the subtle influence of cultural assimilation, thus securing the long-term economic interests of Britain whether through primarily peaceful persuasion or, when necessary, forceful means, as demonstrated in the implementation of the aforementioned administrative reforms starting in the field experiment of Bahrain in post-World War one, the smallest yet the most advanced Arab state on the western coast of the Gulf in all fields prior to the discovery of oil, namely the establishment of a modern, centralised, bureaucratic, Western-style state system, where both approaches of grafting were aggressively adopted, derived from the ancient and still in use horticultural technique of grafting, whereby different strains of plant tissues are united to create a strong, inseparable bond, ensuring the optimal growth of desirable traits, this practice mirrors some of the nuanced strategies of European colonial powers to secure future dominance over their colonies through the soft power of cultural hegemony)

 

(In light of the fact that Bahrain was the centre of the pearl trade in the Arabian Gulf, renowned worldwide for producing some of the finest natural pearls since antiquity, the small seafaring nation became the haunt for anyone seeking business success in the lucrative highly sought-after market for natural pearls in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, igniting what might have been an unprecedented pearl mania in recorded history to satisfy the contemporary ever-increasing international demand for pearl jewellery, especially among the upper echelons of Indian society, dominated by the British Raj vassal potentates of Hindu Maharajas and Muslim Nawab princes, the feudal successors of the once-mighty defunct Mughal Empire, the old European royalty, most supremely the doomed absolutists and the fabulously extravagant Russian imperial house of Romanov, the burgeoning capitalist and upwardly mobile Western bourgeoisie and the extraordinarily wealthy ostentatious nouveau riche urban dwellers, primarily the American tycoons of New York, amidst the sweeping American Industrial Revolution, epitomising the opulence and excess of the era known as the "Gilded Age," as in the case of the young French jeweller Jacques-Théodule Alfred Cartier (1884-1941), who opted to bypass the exorbitant prices of the Parisian coterie of pearl dealers by sourcing pearls directly from local suppliers in the Arabian Gulf, depicting an example of the final connections between the international Western jewellery industry, where natural pearls were marketed as luxury finished products in the high-end jewellery shops of the major Western capitals and cities such as London, Paris, and New York, and the intricate hierarchical network of interwoven business relationships within the once steeped in tradition centuries-old rich history of the Arabian Gulf pearl trade, personified by the four transnational Arab merchants, each of whom was associated with Bahrain to a varying degree due to its advantageous economic standing in comparison to its Arab Gulf neighbours in this iconic picture taken by one of the assistants of Jacques Cartier and meticulously stored in the photo albums of the Cartier company archives in Paris along with hundreds of other photographs taken during the various trips of Cartier to the Gulf and India as he was keen on photographically documenting as much as he could of all the major events he had taken part in during these trips, notably those from his second extended visit to Bahrain in 1912 as well as his handwritten pedantically detailed travel journal containing vital information about the places he visited and the key people he met in his trips to the Orient and other parts of the world, but let us be clear, this picture for the most part is about the three noted pearl merchants Bin Matar, Al-Thukair, and Al-Ibrahim, who more or less share similar backgrounds since they all hail directly from the Najd region of central Arabia, taking into account that Bahrain meant a different thing for each of them, for Mugbil Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thukair (1844-1923), it was a second home away from home after his beloved birthplace of Unaizah in Najd however, for the magnanimous and highly esteemed longest reigning doyen of the Bahraini business community for over half a century, the honourable staid and reticent Salman Bin Hussain Matar (1837-1944), it was his native birthplace, as his grandfather and namesake moved to Bahrain from Najd in 1825, making it his permanent home, and finally, for Abdurrahman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Ibrahim (1875-1960), Bahrain was a worthwhile frequent business destination halfway between his country of origin, Kuwait, on the northern tip of the Arabian Gulf, where his family moved in from Najd in the early 1700s, soon after the country was established as an independent sovereign political entity by the Al-Sabah dynasty of the Bani Utbah tribal confederation of Najd, and the bustling British-founded Indian entrepôt city of Bombay, now known as Mumbai, the financial capital and most populous city in India, and the abode of choice of Al-Ibrahim until the end of his life, apart from being his final resting place, the vibrant commercial hub on the Arabian Sea, and the main gathering place for Arab traders and their families in the Indian subcontinent for nearly a century, and in many instances, the real head start for a slew of industrious young Arab merchants from the mostly economically deprived Arabian Peninsula at the time, as for the apparent role of the fourth Arab member in the picture as an Arabic-Hindi and English interpreter in this historically significant photograph, the shrewd and influential merchant Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo (1861-1945), whose ancestors originated from Najd, north of the present-day Saudi capital, Riyadh, emigrated more than a hundred years before his birth to the broadly Arab eastern coast of the Arabian Gulf, then after one or two generations in the early nineteenth century, the descendants of those ancestors decided once again to relocate to the pearl-rich island state of Bahrain off the western coast of Arabia near their ancestral homeland in the Najd plateau, central Arabia, following a temporary sojourn on what is now erroneously called the Persian coast, as scores of Arabs from the hinterlands of Arabia did in the past for one reason or another before the creation of nowadays artificial political borders when the Gulf was an Arabian lake for many centuries, needless to say, the role of Kanoo was not just confined to language interpretation; therefore, it is first and foremost necessary to shed light on his business interests and activities prior to his fortuitous entry into the shipping agency business in 1911 when he was appointed as the Bahraini shipping agent for the ill-fated short-lived pioneering first fully Arab-owned shipping and passenger company "The Arab Steamers, Limited" by the majority of the principal shareholders of the budding company, most of whom were his friends, where he embraced wholeheartedly this unexpected business opportunity which came knocking at his door, as it would also play a pivotal role in shaping his future business career making him synonymous with the shipping liner and oil tanker industries in the last three decades of his life and posthumously, the eponymous company he founded up to the present, notwithstanding his involvement in significant business activities other than shipping, including the acquisition in 1913 of the highly profitable agency for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (now British Petroleum "BP"), in particular, before the discovery of oil in Bahrain in 1932 and the introduction of locally oil-refined byproducts with the completion and opening of the Bahrain refinery in 1936, the paramount byproduct of these in the Bahraini market in the first third of the twentieth century was Kerosene, also known as paraffin, when monthly shipments of thousands of barrels of the essential commodity imported from the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's refinery in Abadan in the northern Gulf used to arrive in Bahrain for local consumption, to be transported by dhow boats from a steamship anchored in deep water in the middle of the sea to the port of Manama (the current site of Bahrain Financial Harbour), a small shallow-water port incapable of receiving deep-draught large ships, then uploaded onto donkey-pulled carts to the warehouses of the nearby seaside landmark building belonging to Yusuf Kanoo in Manama, but after the building was sold, in 1934, the Kerosene shipments were stored in the warehouses of the Kanoo main office building inside the old Manama souk (the future office building of the Y.B.A. Kanoo group until 2016) for distribution to the local subagents of Kanoo, as Kerosene oil was indispensable for domestic use as the primary fuel source for lighting lamps, portable lanterns and, to a smaller scale, cooking stoves, as the majority of Bahrainis used wood for cooking, while some low-income households used dried cow dung as an affordable, easy substitute for the more expensive wood prior to the gradual establishment of an electrical power grid in the 1930s and subsequent decades, other oil derivatives, especially petrol and diesel fuel, were insignificant products since the country only had two hundred motor vehicles by 1930, Yusuf Kanoo was also the first local merchant to import diesel-electric engines, ice making machines, and mechanical water pumps into Bahrain in post-World War One, in addition to becoming the refuelling and ground handling agent for Imperial Airways' long flights from London, landing in Bahrain en route to Karachi and Delhi in British India, and the Orient Express-like exorbitantly expensive luxurious nine-day flight to Sydney, Australia in 1929, the predecessor for "British Airways", for he was the only Bahraini supplier of petroleum products for almost twenty years, laying the groundwork for the highly profitable Kanoo regional aviation ground handling business in the coming decades, specifically in Bahrain and across Saudi Arabia, his efficiency in managing plane refuelling resulted in him being appointed as the travel agent for Imperial Airways in 1937, making him the owner of the first airline travel agency in Bahrain, which ten years later would become the first agency in the Gulf to be accredited by IATA (International Air Transport Association) in 1947, among the myriads of products and services he launched in Bahrain and the Gulf as a whole, inadvertently leading to the development of arguably the first genuinely local Western-style management-based modern business firm in the Arabian Gulf, with the contemporary state-of-the-art Y.B.A. Kanoo regional conglomerate still maintaining substantially a similar scope of the then nascent businesses of its forward-thinking founder Yusuf Kanoo in the early twentieth century, most significantly shipping, travel, machinery, and oil & gas, where the company has steadily risen to become a market leader in these sectors across all of its operational markets, achieving this in less than two decades after its founder passed away in 1945, this growth has been evident particularly since the impactful first oil boom in the mid-1970s in its three main regional markets by business size: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, as these new businesses and technologies were briefly touched upon above in the course of the fifty-five-year business career of Yusuf Kanoo, in which he weathered a multitude of challenges, trials, and tribulations through an almost consecutive chain of three global catastrophes: the First World War, the Great Depression, and the Second World, as Yusuf was chiefly a banker and general trader during the first twenty years of his long business career, and as a British-influenced maverick cosmopolitan entrepreneur with a global perspective, branching out from the foodstuff business of his father, Ahmed Muhammad Kanoo (1835-1905), one of the major wholesale foodstuff merchants in Bahrain in the late nineteenth and early years of the twentieth century, and the owner of two large mixed-use elongated buildings in Manama built in the traditional Gulf architectural style, primely located close to each other, separated by the existing narrow Al Khalifa Avenue, flanked from the right side of the main building by an equally detached building of similar length but slightly broader width, formerly belonging to the brothers Abdullah and Salman Kamal, constituted the current smaller attached row of buildings consisting of shops, representing a miscellaneous collection of businesses and trades, mostly in the retail sector, owned by several different proprietors, are on the left side of the now covered pedestrian no-car strip of Souq Bab Al Bahrain Avenue, across from what were once customs bonded warehouses, the present-day site of Bab Al Bahrain shopping mall, whereas the left side of the Kanoo building is flanked by another building of the same length belonging to Sheikh Hamad, the crown prince of Bahrain at the time and future ruler, and which remains in the possession of his descendants from the Bahraini royal family, as the main building is a nearly five-hundred-foot-long three-story building and fifty-five-foot width, one of the largest detached commercial buildings in Manama in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while the smaller opposite one, the once seaside building is a two-story over two hundred feet long and also detached as its much larger sister, yet of identical width, with the first floor of the smaller building serving as a private residence for the only surviving male offspring of Ahmed Kanoo, Yusuf, whom he and his two nephews and soul heirs then sold several decades later in 1934 to the ruler of Bahrain Sheikh Hamad, coupled with other properties sold to others, the most important being Yusuf Kanoo's own constructed impressively huge two-story building on a plot of land reclaimed from the sea at the turn of the twentieth century, the largest mixed-use commercial and residential building in Bahrain and the whole Gulf back then, the present site of several prime location properties owned by the Bahraini royal family, consisting of the Unitag Group building and its car park, the Regency Intercontinental Hotel's auxiliary Plaza Spa and wellness building at the back, and the adjacent large building alongside it where a number of mostly financial firms and banks operate, covering the total three-hundred-foot right wing width of the old building, and at one point facing the old customs house, part of the one hundred and twenty thousand square feet plot of land encompassing the entire incomplete rectangular-shaped semi-bottom square bracket building, including the three-hundred-foot built-up two wings width across the two-hundred-foot length of the semi-courtyard partially unbuilt hollow-shaped space opposite the sea at the back of the property, serving as a docking area for the building, where in the mid-1970s, the Regency Intercontinental Hotel was erected on sea-reclaimed land in front of the docking area, which Yusuf Kanoo sold to prominent Kuwaiti pearl merchant Helal Bin Fajhan Al-Mutairi (1855-1938) in late 1934 for a quarter of a million British Raj rupees, the official currency used across the Gulf as the polities of the Gulf were under the jurisdiction of the British Indian Raj, in a desperate sale transaction to alleviate some of his massive debt incurred as a result of the global crisis of the Great Depression, as with a multitude of merchants across the Arabian Gulf, nevertheless, the present site of the smaller building is the Bab AL Bahrain Hotel, and all of the rented spaces on the four corners of the ground floor of the detached property, as the previous property is also owned by the royal family of Bahrain, located in close proximity to the Bab Al Bahrain archway (Gateway of Bahrain) historical landmark in Manama separated by just a thin aisle pedestrian passage between the two buildings, the upcoming exposition, is partly based on an amalgamation of varied documented materials spanning both local and foreign, including archival sources, notarised official documents, diaries, biographies, and so on, but above all based on the detailed descriptive notarised "deed of gift" of Ahmed Muhammad Kanoo, the father of Yusuf Kanoo, outlining in detail how he gifted specific holdings of his fixed and movable assets during his lifetime to his four adult heirs, these were his four adult offspring, his two sons Yusuf and Muhammed, and his two daughters Latifa and Hussa, where the aforementioned properties and their boundaries were clearly stated, among other heirlooms, leaving no room for ambiguity or obfuscation, dated 5th of Jumada al-Awwal 1323, in Hijri Islamic Calendar, corresponding to Saturday 8th of July 1905, in Gregorian Christian Calendar, penned shortly prior to the passing of Ahmed, stating that the two neighbouring buildings belonging to him in Manama were gifted to his sons Yusuf and Muhammed equally, whereas the large rear building served as the future headquarters offices of the titular firm of the eldest son of Ahmed, Yusuf, the posthumous Y.B.A. Kanoo regional conglomerate owned by the nephews and heirs of Yusuf, the sons of his deceased younger brother Muhammed, Jassim and Ali Kanoo, and their immediate eight male offspring and their legal heirs of both sexes' descendants, given that Muhammed died soon after his father Ahmed in 1905 of the plague during one of the requiring outbreaks of the deadly infectious disease at the turn of the twentieth century in Bahrain, since Yusuf did not have children of his own despite his three successive marriages, the building described above became symbiotically attached to the Y.B.A. Kanoo family business in the minds of many ordinary Bahrainis, especially dwellers of old Manama, for several generations from the death of Ahmad in 1905 to the death of his son Yusuf forty years later on the 21st of December 1945, and then operating continuously from the same premises for the next seven decades, albeit the old traditionally built structure was rebuilt in a Semi-Mediterranean commercial style using modern building materials in the late 1950s, until finally in 2016, when the company moved to a new steel and glass high-rise headquarters after more than a century in the same location, however, with respect to the smaller building, it became solely owned by Yusuf Kanoo, explaining why it was sold by him as thoroughly discussed earlier; in the meantime, the two said daughters of Ahmed received gold jewellery, in contrast to the commonly held inaccurately long perpetuated conception that Yusuf Kanoo started from humble origins and died practically bankrupt in 1945, as will be explained further in the text, it should be noted that when Yusuf established the first local bank in Bahrain and the entire Gulf, including Persia (Iran) in 1890, he was venturing into the risky uncharted territory of banking business in the Arabian Gulf at a time when banking was associated, at least in this deeply conservative puritanical region of the Arab world in the local Muslim collective consciousness, with unethical exploitative usury, as the Bank of Yusuf Kanoo remained the only bank in Bahrain for thirty years until the opening of the British-owned Oriental Bank in 1920 (The Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China), the present-day Standard Chartered Bank, having been inspired by the successful banking firms of the British Raj in India, the Kanoo Bank was significantly different from regular commercial banks as it leaned more towards private banking, targeting Bahraini wealthy pearl merchants with sizeable monetary surpluses, some of whom were occasionally in need of significant cash flows for the thousands of indentured workers on their payroll throughout the four-month-long summer pearl diving season in a non-banking-based economic environment, particularly those of the island of Muharraq and its towns where Yusuf Kanoo was constantly courting their goodwill, as they were the real drivers of the fragile local monocultural economy, as with the rest of the region, Muharraq was the most active pearling town in the Arabian Gulf, thanks in large part to having the richest pearl oyster beds in the Gulf in its northern waters, and, as a matter of course, home to the highest number of pearl divers and the largest fleet of pearling vessels in the region, the former political capital of Bahrain and the seat of power of its Al Khalifa ruling dynasty for over a century, and the beating heart of the pearling industry of the tiny archipelago, the most salient of those Muharraq's merchants was the closest, steadfast, and trusted friend of Yusuf Kanoo and chief creditor, referred to earlier in the preface, one who cannot be commended highly enough or quantify his innumerable virtuous deeds, the celebrated, unassuming, and bonhomous legendary philanthropist Salman Bin Matar, who was widely recognised for donating large amounts of rice and dates to the poor in Bahrain during the dire economic conditions of the First and Second World Wars to alleviate the sudden shortages of imported foodstuffs, principally rice, the staple food for the vast majority of Bahraini people regardless of class, stemming from disruptions in international supply chains caused by military operations, and to make matters worse, the economic strife of the First World War was compounded by a virulent epidemic, as in the situation in Bahrain, where five thousand people died from an outbreak of plague in December 1914, as referred to by the British political agent in Bahrain, Captain Keyes, in his correspondence to his superior, Deputy Political Resident Major Trevor of the British Residency in Bushehr, Persia (Iran) on the 5th of December 1914 in the following excerpted letter passage: (Divers and coolies continued to leave Bahrain till the outbreak of plague in December when hundreds of Persians also left. Plague further reduced the population by some 5000. There was then a slight revival of trade and the profits in coffee and tea were so good that several merchants took advantage of the cheapness of the labour market to collect stones and build, thus, giving work to numbers of the most indigent. There was also a market for household articles, old clothes etc, and it was not till February that any people were entirely without resources. Two or three merchants, notably Salman Bin Matar, then made large donations of rice and dates, and work was found for some men by the Agency), in conjunction with his bountiful donations in times of economic crises, there was the daily sight of long queues of the less fortunate at his doorstep all year long, both at his winter and summer residences awaiting alms of the generous distribution of cooked meals made of lamb and rice, Salman Bin Matar, the wealthiest merchant in Bahrain, aside from being its most consequential pearl merchant for nearly fifty years from the 1890s until his greatly lamented death on the 10th of February 1944, the subsequent concise bracketed excerpt below originates from a declassified comprehensive report compiled by two British political agents, Captain N. N. E. Bray (1885-1962) and Major H. R. P. Dickson (1881-1959), who served consecutively though briefly in Bahrain, whereas the latter would significantly influence the modern history of Bahrain's northern neighbour Kuwait as a future political agent, this report offers a glimpse into the mindset of these colonial officers and the prevailing racist climate in the West, as reflected in this subjective observational case study of the people of Bahrain from a British colonial perspective, verifying the typical racist European tropes and stereotypes of how none white people were widely viewed back then, including two opposing lists of influential Bahrainis who played central roles in shaping the socioeconomic and political landscape of the small state, either by aligning with Britain or opposing it, with Salman Bin Matar prominently placed at the top of the Whitelist, this list evidently refers to a group of the wealthiest and most powerful high-ranking Bahrainis considered allies of the British, conversely, the Blacklist represents a diverse group of individuals from all segments of Bahraini society, belonging to various social backgrounds, affiliations, and origins, unified by the suspicion and hostility they faced from the British colonial authorities in Bahrain, for reasons that were not exclusively political, Bin Matar was described in this special 1920 report by the British political agency in Bahrain as follows: quote (1. Salman Bin Matar. A wealthy pearl merchant, very friendly.) a simple yet emblematic description of a man who maintained a modest demeanour all his life despite his immense wealth, dedicating much of his long life to assisting the downtrodden and improving the quality of life of the Bahraini people in general in every way possible irrespective of their race, ethnicity, creed, or colour, in particular, through the introduction of modern formal government education, as he was one of the founders of the first formal school in Muharraq, the former capital of Bahrain in 1919, he was also a vital member of all the governmental councils and committees of the newly formed bureaucratically centralised, and chronically underfunded Bahraini state, where he unfailingly provided generous financial funding to these fledgling government bodies, both before and after the discovery of oil in 1932, and continued to do so until his death, as evidenced by a short though thoughtful obituary in the declassified British colonial annual archival report of 1944 on Bahrain, the following is the slightly edited bracketed obituary: (The death occurred during the year of Haj Salman Bin Matar, one of the leading pearl merchants of Muharraq, who was well known for his philanthropic deeds. For several years he provided food for large numbers of poor people who were daily fed at his doors. He sat on various councils and committees and was a valuable member of the community), he was also well-known for his significant contributions as the biggest and longest-standing depositor of the Kanoo Bank until its bankruptcy and permanent closure at the height of the Great Depression in the early 1930s; furthermore, he was accredited for waiving all of his large outstanding debts to his local and regional debtors during the decade-long debilitating depression crisis, followed by the conflagration of the Second World War, including, as expected, the debt of Yusuf Kanoo, his lifelong friend and confidant amounting to more than half a million Indian British Raj silver rupees without legal recourse, a considerable fortune in the pre-oil Arabian Gulf, in spite of the constant insistence of Yusuf Kanoo on offering his most prized possession, his mixed-use monumental building, which he then sold to Kuwaiti pearl merchant Helal Al-Mutairi, as previously mentioned, and additional properties comprising the building gifted to him and his late brother by their father, who he sold as above indicated to the ruler of Bahrain, Sheikh Hamad, and a medium-sized date palm orchard within the vicinity of Al Khamis village near Manama, to cover the stupendous debt of Salman Bin Matar, after all the last-ditch attempts of Kanoo, a trustworthy man of impeccable integrity in all of his business dealings, to offer the building among other assets to Bin Matar in exchange for the defaulted debt had failed, thus, upon the arrival of Al-Mutairi at dusk, a good friend of both eminent Bahraini merchants from Kuwait, to seal the critical sale deal of the building on an unspecified day in a cold late December evening of 1934, Yusuf Kanoo, accompanied by his prospective Kuwaiti buyer, walking in the unlit dark narrow alleys of Muharraq, aided by oil lanterns carried by assistants, went to the winter residence townhouse of Salman Bin Matar in the heart of the old town of Muharraq in a poignant final gesture of sincere goodwill to persuade him to accept the building as the least credible rightful legal settlement for the substantial outstanding debt; however, he resolutely declined, a clear attestation to the incomparable altruism and nobility of this exceptional gentleman, demonstrated by being deservedly afforded the appellation 'Father of Orphans and Protector of Widows' by the Bahraini people many a decade before these affairs, an honorific that remained synonymous with him throughout much of his long adult life and posthumously until the present, due in no small part to the cherished memories he represents for a lot of Bahrainis from all walks of life passed down through the generations, as he is unanimously recognised as the preeminent philanthropist Bahrain has produced since the early nineteenth century, and also as its foremost pearl merchant of the golden age of the pearl trade, interestingly, the preceding debt case incident represents a compelling true moral story seldom seen in our fast-paced, materialistically driven, and consumer-oriented globalised village society in a world increasingly characterised by cynicism, moral apathy, and venal propensity, where meaningless vapid and insipid hypocritical rhetoric about human rights is routinely harangued tediously on the world media, serving as irrefutable proof of the remarkable mutual fidelity and devotion these two friends held for each other throughout their long friendship of over fifty years, lasting from the mid-1890s to their close deaths separated by just well over a year, prompting Yusuf Kanoo, a few months after this defining incident in 1935, to take the necessary precautions to ensure the continuity of his business enterprise for posterity by transferring ownership of his company and all of his remaining properties into the safe and capable hands of his nephews, Jassim and Ali, ten years before his passing in 1945, except for the dear to him 'Anglo-Persian Oil Company' (APOC) agency, now the multinational oil giant British Petroleum (BP), which remained under his ownership until his death, stipulating that the company will continue to bear his name after his death, thereby eliminating any future claims by creditors, and to limit the inheritance to the two brothers as the sole heirs of Yusuf Kanoo and their male progeny, ensuring the smooth transition of the family business in a traditional patriarchal society as a logical consequence, Yusuf died with virtually no inheritance left behind, debunking the notion that his heirs rebuilt his company from scratch, bearing in mind that the previously mentioned nephews at the time of the death of Yusuf were middle-aged, well-established businessmen in their own right, owning business interests independently from their illustrious uncle's firm, and married with grown-up children and even grandchildren, whose pioneering sons, Ahmed, the eldest son of Ali, and Muhammed, the eldest son of Jassim, and their diligent younger brothers, following steadily in the footsteps of their great uncle Yusuf Kanoo in the late 1940s, ably taking on the heavy mantle of his, expanding the resilient eponymous company he built almost sixty years prior across the Arabian Gulf, transforming it into the multinational regional conglomerate it is today, the following bracketed excerpt from the declassified 1945 colonial annual report of the British political agency in Bahrain on internal and external affairs of the country and the Arabian Gulf is an edited obituary of Yusuf Kanoo, explicitly confirming his high social status both locally and regionally, as the unfounded age of Kanoo stated to be born in 1874 in the obituary, has been refuted conclusively in the comprehensive and detailed missive above on the different hypotheses about his age, delving concisely into the rudimentary birthdate documentation methods in Bahrain and the rest of the Arabian Peninsula before the establishment of modern centralised bureaucratic state systems in the region, which commenced in earnest after the end of World War One, (On the 21st December Haji Yusuf Ahmed Kanoo died at the age of 71, (most likely between 84 and 85). His association with His Majesty's Government started in 1898 in the time of the Agent Haji Ahmed bin Abdul Rasool (Al Safar). He continued to serve as Assistant until the arrival of Mr. Gaskin in 1902, and was associated with Major Prideaux and Captain Mackenzie until 1909. He received the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal II. Class in 1911, the title of KHAN SAHIB in 1917 and the M.B.E. in 1919. In 1924, a C.I.E. was bestowed upon him. In 1913, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company appointed him their agent in Bahrain. He received honours from the late King Hussain of the Hedjaz and, also, from His Highness the Amir (Abdullah) of Transjordan (Jordan), who granted him the title Pasha. The death of this well-known old Arab was marked in Bahrain by the closing of the bazaars for one day. The political Agent sent a message of condolence to the bereaved family.), at any rate, the collapse of the only Bahraini indigenous-owned bank during the Great Depression reflects the far-reaching cataclysmic effects of the first economic crisis of the modern economic realities of the ever-increasingly interconnected world of the twentieth century, turning it into a global phenomenon where plenty of financial institutions and businesses irrespective of size were falling prey to insolvency, engendering widespread economic hardship and turmoil; the momentous collapse of Kanoo Bank had a significant impact on the establishment of another indigenous bank in Bahrain, delaying the whole process for a quarter of a century until the establishment of the first commercial Bahraini-owned bank in the country, the National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) in 1957, in view of the modest oil revenues of the slowly gaining momentum new Bahraini oil economy in comparison to the exponentially oil-rich Arab Gulf neighbours of Bahrain, namely Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and to a lesser extent Qatar in the 1950s and early 1960s, before the arrival of the last two crucial newcomers on the oil-producing scene in the Arabian Gulf, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the Sultanate of Oman, where the former would later become the dominant Emirate of the newest robust country in the Arabian Gulf, and its newly rebuilt capital city, Abu Dhabi, would be proclaimed the federal capital of the seven dynastic Emirates of the federal state of the UAE after independence from Britain in 1971, due to its geographical size and enormous hydrocarbon wealth, not to mention the British loosening of their monopolising grip on the Bahraini local banking sector in the aftermath of the brief but consequential Anglo-French debacle of the 1956 Suez crisis, which was up until then under the complete control of the British embodied by only two British banks, the formerly alluded to Standard Chartered Bank and the British Bank of the Middle East (BBME), what is now the HSBC Bank Middle East, the second biggest Kanoo Bank depositor was leading pearl merchant Muhammad Bin Rashid Bin Hindi Al Mannai (1850-1934), also from the historic previously walled eponymous town of Muharraq, as Salman Bin Matar, the largest and most densely populated on the island, with an architectural landscape characterised by the few extant buildings of the once-forest of wind towers and sun-gleaming white facades of traditional ornate residential and commercial buildings constructed largely of coral stone and covered in white lime mortar, forming the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Pearling Path, standing as testament to the prosperous and storied past of the island, when Muharraq was the pearl capital of the entire Gulf, along with the respected merchants and cousins Sayyid Khalifa Bin Abdulghafoor Al Sadah (1839-1912) and Sayyid Abdullah Bin Ibrahim Al Sadah (1853-1932) of the historically seafaring sand spit town of Al Hidd on the southeastern extremity of the island, these key pearl merchants and other business leaders were the primary economic drivers of the local economy and the largest employers prior to the turning point discovery of oil and the following gradual formation of the modern centralised state bureaucratic apparatus system in the Arabian Gulf region; yet, it is a little-known fact that Yusuf Kanoo was also a sagacious and trusted pearl broker, both locally and regionally, acting as a sort of decorous middleman interpreter and poised interlocutor between visiting international pearl dealers and their local and regional counterparts as the socially savvy, energetic, and knowledgeable multilingual comprador Yusuf Kanoo would turn his hand to anything commercially favourable, oddly enough, the majority of those international pearl dealers were French Jews, such as Léonard Rosenthal (1874-1955), Jacques Bienenfeld (1875-1933), and Solomon Pack (Date of birth unknown), who forged not only strong business relations with their Arab counterparts, but also strong enduring friendships in the Gulf and throughout Arabia; two prime examples of these friendships stand out: the first is between Abdulrahman Bin Hassan Algosaibi (1880-1976), the famed transnational well-travelled pearl merchant based in Bahrain from the Najd region of central Arabia, and Albert Habib, the affable, fluent in Arabic Paris-based pearl merchant and nephew of Léonard Rosenthal, who, like many others during the 1930s, struggled with bankruptcy owing to the Great Depression, and for whom Algosaibi generously paid his medical bills following a post-crisis malaise brought about by the abrupt price plunge of natural pearls, causing him to lose most of his sizable fortune, demonstrating the loyalty and support of Algosaibi during hardship and adversity, the other notable friendship was between the international pearl dealer, the benevolent Muhammed Ali Zainal Alireza (1884-1969) of Jeddah, known as "The King of Pearls" in the Arabian Gulf and "The King of Dimond" in post-World War Two India, when the farsighted Alireza abandoned his pearl trade business altogether after the collapse of the pearl market worldwide in the aftermath of the Great Depression, moving aggressively into the Dimond trade, the gemstone he dealt in modestly in the interwar period, as he did not opt for a life of comfortable retirement resting on his past pearl trade laurels, as some of his pearl merchant colleagues did, but instead, in less than a decade of his highly successful business transition, he became the principal Dimond merchant in India and one of the foremost in the world in the 1950s, and David Bienenfeld (1893-19?), the younger brother of the Jacques mentioned above, who was forsaken and shunned by most of his friends, particularly those from the bourgeoisie French business elite, after he lost almost all of his wealth and that of his family due to the Great Depression of 1929, except for his noble Muslim Arab religiously conscientious business partner and close friend Alireza, who stood by him and his family steadfastly until the end, Alireza was renowned in the Arabian Gulf for the earlier pearl-related sobriquet, for he was perceived as a bearer of good fortune by local pearling communities, as he, together with his other collaborative distinguished pearl merchants of French Jewish friends, typically the 'Rosenthal Freres' (Rosenthal brothers) operating from offices in the same building on Rue La Fayette in Paris, was responsible for purchasing nearly half of the per annum pearl produce of the entire Gulf spanning from Kuwait to Dubai in the 1920s, while the rest was bought either by the Banyan Indian merchants who frequented the Gulf many decades before their Western counterparts or sold by local Gulf merchants in Bombay (Mumbai) directly, dispelling the recently propagated and deliberately Western media-manufactured myth of imagined animosity between the followers of the two Abrahamic faiths in order to give credence to the present-day realities in the Middle East, and also in some fringe mostly unrecognised academic Western circles of the intractable ancient discord between predominantly Arab Muslim populations in Muslim-governed polities on one side, and particularly, followers of other monotheistic religious traditions on the other, these are Jews and Christians, as Jews, Muslim Arabs, Arab Christians, non-Arab Muslims, non-Arab Christians, and, in some cases, Mandaeans and Zoroastrians, with a special dispensation for Hindus and Buddhists, coexisted peacefully under the collective term of "Dhimmīs" (protected people) status Islamic jurisdiction, derived from the singular dhimmi (Arabic: ذمي) meaning "protected person" this jurisdiction was initially intended according to the Qur'anic text for the people of the covenant or the monotheistic people of the book, specifically Jews, Christians, and Mandaeans, even though these scriptures are Islamically deemed interpolated or corrupted sacred texts before including other religious groups in the aftermath of the century-long Arab Islamic conquests following the death of prophet Muhammad in 632 AD, considering that this jurisdiction pervaded throughout the mediaeval Islamic world golden age, in the 8, 9, and 10th centuries, and subsequent centuries, and even during the two tumultuous bloody centuries of the Crusades, stretching from Muslim Iberia all the way to Central Asia and later centuries in the Ottoman Empire, where tens of thousands of Spanish Jews fled the torturous persecution of the dreadful inquisition court under Catholic Spain after the fall of the only remaining Muslim stronghold of Granada in 1492, the last bastion of tolerance, culture, learning, and diversity in the Iberian Peninsula to the safety of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, as for the so-called friction between Muslims and Jews, it is a newfound phenomenon that began to rear its ugly head when British imperial designs for the Near Eastern legacy of the Ottoman Empire converged with Zionism, a late nineteenth-century Jewish nationalist ideology strongly influenced by emerging nationalist movements in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, and concurrent European settler colonial experiences involving the forceful mass displacement of native populations in the Americas, Africa, and Australia, leading to the ominous Balfour Declaration of 1917, culminating in the violent genocidal bloodstained establishment of the state of Israel, thirty years later, in the years 1947 and 1948, displacing and ethnically cleansing the majority of the Palestinian Arab indigenous population and their rich deeply rooted and nuanced cultural heritage in its wake, with unequivocal and unwavering Anglo-French support at all levels and from the bulk of the Western bloc until the mid-1960s, when the steering helm of the Middle East was taken over by the new mighty American-led Western alliance thenceforth, creating an unduly artificial and ephemeral schism in the primordial cradle of civilisation and monotheism in the fertile crescent and Arabia amongst adherents of two of the three major Semitic monotheistic closely related Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam ever since, other than the significant foreign international pearl dealers previously described, there was one notable indigenous exception from the Arabian Peninsula and the only Arab of the lot during the heyday of pearls, represented in the interwar period by the earlier mentioned, the venerable Hijazi (from the Hijaz region of western Arabia), cosmopolitan, multilingual, intermittently residing in Paris with his second English wife Ruby Elsie Jackson (1919-1973?), the mother of his three daughters Aminah, Hafsa, and Mariam, pearl dealer Muhammad Ali Zainal Alireza, a member of the prominent transnational Persianized Arab trading family Alireza of Jeddah, widely regarded for his extraordinary largesse and numerous philanthropic charitable works throughout the Arabian Peninsula and beyond, most notably, his invaluable progressive contributions to the eradication of pervasive illiteracy and ignorance in Arabia and other regions of the Muslim world through the proliferation of formal modern education for both genders, encompassing the entire twelve-year curriculum, constitute his most enduring legacy, where he established the first formal, comprehensive charitable school in Jeddah named "Alfalah" (Success) at the tender age of twenty-one in 1905, followed by a similar institution in the holy city of Mecca in 1911 and complemented by a network of akin charitable schools for both sexes by the same name in Bombay, India, Dubai, and Bahrain in the first three decades of the twentieth century, with the schools in existence now being the ones in Jeddah and Mecca, while the others were closed down in the 1950s after being superseded by government-funded formal school education, Alireza was also the only merchant from Arabia to own both a flat on the world-famous Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris and a house in the chic Cleveland Square in London in the 1920s, in addition to the aforementioned periodic visits of the Paris-based pearl tycoons, Bahrain was regularly visited by well-known international jewellers, such as the acclaimed French jewellers of the house of Cartier and their representatives, as well as representatives of other prestigious Western jewellery houses, including the American Tiffany & Co, who frequented the Gulf on pearl purchasing expeditions, with a special focus on Bahrain, the regional pearl trade centre, with its exceptionally well-stocked pearl oyster beds, the source of its unparalleled rare-hued coveted pearls attributed by environmental experts to the unique undersea freshwater springs found in the shallow waters of Bahrain, a phenomenon exclusive to this archipelago on the western shores of the Arabian Gulf, giving it its then Gulf advanced economic position and international fame; however, it is worth noting that in the early twentieth century, natural pearls were priced internationally in French francs, as Paris was the undisputed international pearl trade centre during the golden age of pearls, when pearls were valued more than fourfold the price of diamonds in world markets owing to their rarity and natural shape, especially after the discovery of the South African diamond mines until the 1929 Wall Street stock exchange crash, precipitating a catastrophic, slow, remorseless onslaught of a global decade-long economic depression, coinciding with the introduction of the much cheaper Mikimoto Japanese cultured pearls and the discovery of oil in the Gulf, beginning with Bahrain in 1932, the Arabian Gulf centre of the pearl fishing industry, and followed in the next few years by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, supplanting the quasi-feudal industry of pearl fishing's gruelling, low-paying vicious circle of servitude indentured labour, and the time-consuming, with prolonged health risks such as blindness and deafness, particularly for pearl divers, who often had lower life expectancy than the rest of the crew members due to their primitive, sparsely clad protective diving gear, suggesting it gave little protection from the months-long detrimental exposure to the sea salinity and hazardous predatory marine creatures, followed immediately by the Second World War, delivering the final death blow to the already severely weakened reeling pearl industry by the protracted Great Depression, as if the timing of these calamitous events had conspired in a preordained twist of fate, resulting in a disastrous collapse in pearl prices from which it would not recover for several decades, effectively bringing an end to the seasonally highly organised and regimented centuries-old pearl fishing industry with its ancient rich cultural traditions of the in-part husbandry industry of dhow boat shipbuilding and its various supplementary traditional crafts and folklore, featuring boat crew folk dances and the soulful, melancholic sea shanty bard songs transmitted orally from one generation to another, performed by deep-voiced, highly skilled, mostly illiterate singers in the Gulf, this once colossal industry, employing at its zenith in the 1920s around a third to half of the able-bodied male workforce across the Arabian Gulf, has since the late 1990s transformed into an occasional extremely financially rewarding experience resembling a solitary treasure-hunting pastime, on top of being an equally rewarding tourist attraction for some fortunate scuba diving tourists)

 

The two excerpts below are from two different sources; the first is slightly edited, from an archival file of the British colonial Arabian Gulf Residency in Bushehr, Persia (Iran), covering the period from the 1st to the 31st of March 1912, pertaining to the timeline of the visit of Jacques Cartier to Bahrain, a tiny section of the stupendous detailed, file consisting of miscellaneous news reports received by the Gulf Residency (the 'Political Diary' of the Residency) relating to various areas of Persia (Iran) and the Arabian Gulf, for each month from November 1911 to December 1920. The reports were compiled by the Political Resident in the Arabian Gulf (Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Zachariah Cox) or, in his absence, by the Officiating Political Resident, the Deputy Political Resident, or the First Assistant Resident. (There are discrepancies between the diary of Jacques Cartier and the said report in terms of the exact dates of Cartier's arrival and departure and the unveiling of his unrealised intended final destination on his second extended Arabian Gulf trip) while the second excerpt is a citation from the book "Cartier: Jewellers Extraordinary", by Hans Nadelhoffer, which is part of the author's description of the Oriental trips of Jacques Cartier particularly those to the Arabian Gulf and his adoption of some of the local business customs and practices during those trips.

 

The following two brief paragraphs provide a first-hand British archival summary of Jacques Cartier and his travel companions' trip to the Arabian Gulf in March 1912.

 

A young Frenchman, Monsieur Jacques Cartier, arrived with two companions, Monsieur Maurice Richard, also a Frenchman, and Mr. J. S. Sethna, a Parsi Indian by the Arab Steamer "Tynesider" on March 13th. They came to the Agency to get an order of exemption for the quarantine at Kuwait. When they learned that this was impossible, they determined to stay in Bahrain until the "Tynesider" returned from Basra. They were put up by Haji Mugbil Al-Thukair to whom they brought recommendations from Bombay Arabs. They left for Bombay on the return of the ship on 1st April.

 

Monsieur Cartier represents the firm of Cartier of Paris and London (175 New Bond Street) and his visit was professional. He cultivated the acquaintance of the local Arab merchants and is said to have brought pearls to the value of Rs. 25,000. He informed the Political Agent that he might return to Bahrain for the pearl season of 1913. Others say that his companion, Mr. Sethna previously dealt in pearls on his own account and will be sent to work for the firm here.

 

The edited citation below is from the book "Cartier: Jewellers Extraordinary" by Hans Nadelhoffer.

 

Jacques Cartier was the firm's special expert on pearls, and it was he who accompanied the sales assistant Maurice Richard on various journeys to the Arabian Gulf and to India. In accordance with Oriental custom, he would sit cross-legged in his negotiations with local traders, and he learned the customs, languages, and habits of the various nations that he visited. Two of his journeys were recorded in the form of a diary and various other reports.

 

www.google.com.bh/books/edition/Cartier/xnKpjh1gkqgC?hl=e...

Your government's let you down.

 

They were supposed to protect you from this kind of shit.

 

They were supposed to be there to make sure that the water that comes out of your faucet when you open it up was safe.

 

There's supposed to be an absolute relationship of trust there.

 

At the very least they fell asleep on the job.

 

I have no evidence to indicate that the officials at the Illinois EPA were anything but incompetent.

 

Except that scary phone call with Saavu.

 

And the way they seemed to always try to minimize what the officials in Deadwood did.

 

No one's accused them of taking bribes to look the other way.

 

No one's said they benefitted in any way from letting the people in that town drink poison 'slow death' water for over twenty years.

 

They were supposed to be looking out for you and your families.

 

As taxpayers we paid them billions of dollars that year to do just that.

 

I know that they've obfuscated the truth... I know they're a part of the coverup.

 

I knew that I couldn't trust them to do the right thing.

 

What I saw when the dust had settled after the intial story'd broke was a bunch of lame ass paperpushers looking out for themselves... trying to save their jobs... covering their own asses.

 

They weren't even pointing fingers... they were hiding their faces behind file folders and studies.

 

It was enough to make me sick.

 

It took me months to get them to do anything... and they only did that after we gave all the documents to an environmental reporter with one of the big newspapers and he had the balls to run with the story.

 

It was front page news.

 

A mayor who was once called 'America's Best Small Town Mayor' was at the top of a racket that was intentionally using a well, known to be contaminated to provide drinking water for the citizens of the town he ran.

 

He'd been doing it for more than twenty years.

 

And he ran that town with an 'iron fist.'

 

He'd said it himself.

 

It was a case of 'absolute power.'

 

A case of 'absolute corruption.'

 

'I know every curb, every sidewalk, every stormwater drain. I know all the dikes' he once boasted to a reporter... 'I built most of them.'

 

Old 'Iron Fist' knew that the residents of that town were being slowly poisoned by the shitwater coming out of Municipal Well Number 1.

 

He just didn't care.

 

He was the king and that water was good enough for the serfs to drink.

 

It was good to be 'Iron Fist.'

 

He knew everything... and he didn't believe those idiot scientists for a minute when they warned that really bad stuff could happen to people that drank that water.

 

Iron Fist knew better than all of them.

 

He always did.

 

He was always telling The Fall Guy to use more of it.

 

'Open up that godamn well and keep it open.'

 

Iron Fist knew exactly what was going on.

 

It's not the vinyl chloride that's the real boogie-monster in the water.

 

That shit's bad enough and it'll do horrible things to you.

 

It's an industrial solvent and it has no business in the human body.

 

That motherfucker deserves the death penalty if you ask me.

 

And the US Attorney doesn't even idict him?

 

He indicts the poor suckers who cowered underneath King Iron Fist for all of those years doing exactly what Iron Fist told them to do... and he calls Iron Fist 'Public Official A' in the federal indictment itself.

 

Didn't even have the balls to name him publicly... to shame him even?

 

They say Iron Fist's not fit for trial... he's too old... he's got Parkinsons disease and 'mild dementia'... he can't even participate in his own defense.

 

Even though I heard he just got his drivers license renewed.

 

He's gonna skate.

 

Enjoy his riches and retirement down in Boca Raton.

 

While someone's watching their mother die of cancer a pool of her own vomit in Deadwood.

 

There's not going to be justice here.

 

Your government doesn't want that.

 

You know why?

 

Iron Fist's got them by the balls as much as I had all those guys by the balls.

 

When the truth comes out... and I've already taken all of the steps to make sure that happens... you're gonna be looking at incompetence and corruption the likes of which will sicken everyone who's not already sick from drinking water from that contaminated well.

 

Iron Fist getting taken down would mean the government demonstrating all of the ways they failed us.

 

If I don't blow into a breathalyzer when they haul my ass down to the police station I'm gonna get arrested for DUI (Driving Under the Influence).

 

The government has no qualms about presuming I've been drinking if I don't blow into that tester... they'll 'presume' me to be a danger to the public and they'll charge me in a second... even if I don't give them any evidence.

 

But Deadwood avoided testing their municipal water supply for all those years by lying to the Illinois EPA and the US EPA about where it came from.

 

And Deadwood has the nerve to send out press releases saying that there was never any evidence of dangerous contamination in the water!

 

Because they made sure there was no evidence!

 

They NEVER TESTED that shitwater for any of the contaminants likely to be in it.

 

You ain't gonna find evidence of an invisible chemical you ain't looking for... unless people start dying unexplainably.

 

And the government itself makes sure at every juncture to say that there's no evidence that the water was dangerous.

 

Bullshit.

 

These people are fucking clowns.

 

That well was just over eight hundred feet away from the Sanitary and Ship Canal.

 

Scientists say it's one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world.

 

There are signs there that say 'incidental contact with this water may be dangerous.'

 

The government mandated that they be posted!

 

Forget vinyl chloride and hexa haka whatever that they're talking about in that well...

 

Those people were drinking water out of that canal for years.

 

Deadwood was bustin' at the seams with dirty little secrets.

 

That's just one dirty little secret even the fed seems to want covered up.

 

They can't even dredge the canal because the sediment on the bottom is so toxic that they'd have to dump it in a toxic waste dump and that'd cost a flippin' fortune.

 

Nobody talks about that.

 

But I know why the government is so stuck on saying things like 'only' twenty percent of the towns water came from the contaminated well... which is bullshit and Krista's got the documents to prove it...

 

because geologists have created a map that shows what's called the well's 'zone of influence.'

 

And on that map there are these circles that go around the well at various intervals... like elevation lines on a topographic map.

 

Each of those circles represents how far the water'd come from that got sucked into that well based on how many gallons were drawn from the well itself.

 

And if you go to the third circle... the circle that represents the 'zone of influence' for the well if it was providing thirty percent or more of the drinking water for the town... the Sanitary and Ship Canal goes right through it.

 

The people of that town were drinking untreated canal water from the most toxic body of water in the world for years.

 

And the state and federal government have no interest in that little factoid ever reaching the light of day.

 

Yeah... they'll indict a couple of clerks who had absolutely nothing more to gain from using the contaminated well than keeping their jobs... they'll make sure that they go to prison for 'lying to the government'.

 

But the government itself is lying to you.

 

Big time.

 

But it's not a crime for the government to lie to you and me.

 

It's only a crime if we lie to them.

 

Kind of a built in to the system 'double standard.'

 

I don't want to bore you to death with examples but this one's so stupid I couldn't believe it when I heard some doctors from the Center's for Disease Control (CDC) say it.

 

I was at a meeting with Congressman Bobby Rush and he heard it too.

 

The CDC was ordered to study the cancer rates in the town.

 

Congressman Rush, a cancer survivor himself, wanted to see if the rates of cancer would be found to be elevated.

 

So the CDC was gonna get the statistics... and I pestered them on how they might do it.

 

I'd seen so much incompetence already that I presumed the worst from the beginning.

 

'Easy' the idiot from the CDC said 'doctors report newly diagnosed cases of cancer to the health department.'

 

That sounded good but I bothered him more about the methods that they'd use.

 

'The cases are reported by zip code' he said.

 

'Deadwood shares a zipcode with two other towns' I replied.

 

Two other towns that don't drink the water from the contaminated well.

 

The results would have been useless.

 

I could see that.

 

The CDC couldn't.

 

I told 'em that since the US Census was coming up maybe they could have the Census people... who'd be knocking on every door in the town of twelve thousand... ask a few more questions...

 

like 'do you or anyone who's ever lived here have cancer.'

 

They just gave me dumb looks.

 

No study would have been perfect... but at every turn the government seemed to obstruct the truth from being learned.

 

The truth is that the government agency that was supposed to protect us from this bullshit didn't.

 

Where's their trial?

 

Where's their judgement?

 

I doubt anyone at the Illinois EPA even got a sternly worded letter in their personnel file.

 

They messed up.

 

They let us all down bigtime.

 

And the people are gonna pay for it.

 

The CDC study said that cancer rates in the town were 'significantly elevated.'

 

But the government can't attribute that to the poisoned well.

 

It's freaking criminal incompetence.

 

Here's a good one for you government officials.

 

I found in my research on the internet that fish enthusiasts in town were talking since the mid nineties about how they couldn't keep tropical fish alive in their fish tanks in Deadwood.

 

Especially the fish in saltwater fish tanks.

 

Fishtanks filled with water from their faucets.

 

The fish hobbyists would test the water for nitrates and it was really high.

 

They couldn't understand why.

 

Nitrates shouldn't have been in that water at all.

 

They even published the nitrate levels on their forums.

 

You could see the numbers from fifteen years ago.

 

Unless you work for the government.

 

Then you couldn't see the truth if you ran right into it.

 

They were using a lot more than twenty percent contaminated water in their deadly blend of toxic tapwater.

 

There's a multitude of ways to figure it out.

 

But the government doesn't want you to know just how much.

 

Because that would show us all how much they failed us.

 

They'll just charge a couple of clerks with 23 felonies apiece and call it quits.

 

It looks like they did something that way.

 

You'll never know the truth.

 

Not the whole truth.

 

In the first trial of this whole affair my attorney was getting frustrated with the amount of information I would give him.

 

I was overwhelming the poor guy with my facts.

 

'It's the truth... that's reality' I'd say.

 

Finally he layed it out to me... 'look man... a trial has nothing to do with reality' he said.

 

I thought that was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard an attorney say.

 

Time and watching that trial would prove me wrong.

 

That dude was brilliant.

 

Everyday the light of the truth is getting dimmer.

 

And everyday Iron Fist is sittin' down poolside in Boca Raton gettin' away with murder.

 

We're all suckers.

 

They say that we get the government that we deserve.

 

It's always hard to imagine that the people of Deadwood deserved this.

  

From the series 'There's Something in the Water' here on Flickr... www.flickr.com/photos/light_seeker/sets/72157627041317913...

   

been a bit out of sorts lately.

can't quite place the feeling, but i hear it's quite common.

i'm going to ramble a bit, just to get some thoughts out so

if you're a TL;DR type you can stop here...

 

y'all ever look at your creative endeavors and think...

what the hell is this stuff? what am i doing? what am i saying?

what is my voice here?

am i so self involved in my own ideas and output that i

don't care if it ultimately is a load of crap?

or did i, somewhere along the journey just stop caring either way?

is it worse to believe your own b/s, or is it worse to not care

what your output is as long as you're creating (or even doing) something.

anything?

 

i don't discount that artists have voices that need to be heard.

often times, art is the only form of dissent we have.

but sometimes i wonder how many people are shouting just to be shouting

(or as i like to say "talk just to be talking")?

 

or does everyone genuinely have something of value to contribute

to the overall understanding?

 

is there value in shock for shock's sake?

what about absurdity for absurdity's sake?

perhaps absurdity is easier to digest than shock.

an almost supernatural appeal draws me to the theatre of the absurd.

absurdity is freedom. it's rule breaking, within conventional paramaters.

in absurdity we can let ourselves go. we can be, do, say, think in ways outside

our norms.

last year, i stumbled upon a youtube video of a woman on the subway.

she sat normally at first, and then out of her bag came a cutting board,

followed by a large onion and a knife. she sat there, riding the subway

cutting an onion.

at the time i lambasted the hell out of it, because performance art for the sake

of getting a reaction has always held an iffy place for me - especially

if there is no message directed towards the audience or even an attempt

to foster discussion or understanding. but especially if the artist purposefully

obfuscates the message to such a degree the audience is left feeling more like

the butt of a deeply hidden inside joke than intelligent, thinking, feeling beings.

in retrospect, perhaps her act was to point out the absurdity of hardly anyone

reacting - which we could then take in a different direction and say

"what if she was chopping up a kitten?" how long would it take to garner a

reaction in a population already so jaded by violence that we think to take

photos of violence with our phones rather than help?

or maybe i'm thinking about it too much. maybe it's just some woman

on the subway, chopping an onion. *shrug*

my point is, that my opinion of that piece changed recently. That's not to say

It's great art, but there it is, on YouTube with people looking at and commenting on it.

i'm still not sure what the intended purpose of the piece was.

perhaps it would've been easier and softer if a flashmob rode the subway

singing "tears of a clown" while chopping onions to the beat.

everyone loves a flash mob.

flash mobs are fun.

Flash mobs are warm and fuzzy.

 

either way, i'm thinking about it more

than i probably should.

 

everytime you create something it changes you.

don't believe me? tread back through your own photostreams and look

at how many changes you've been through.

if i go through mine, i'm amazed at the ups and downs in my creativity.

i look at some photos and am blown away that i took them.

i look at others and i know i put no effort into them in the least, yet somehow

they turned out fine thanks to a good square cropping - or as some might

say "cheating" aka filters, colour tweaks, etc.

And some are complete garbage.

i read my thoughts under the photos, and can't connect to the person that wrote them.

and i read my thoughts and feel like i'm reading the words of a soulmate.

 

i think this is why actors do what they do.

it's all very technical and

clinical with cameras and lighting crews all around, but it's absurd.

they geniunely get to be someone else for a long period of time.

 

it's super absurd if you think about it.

if everything happens for a reason, then perhaps they are acting out fears, paranoias,

loves, hates (and passions just like mine), struggles that their souls need to be put

through. except actors get to do it on a grand stage, and we as the audience are allowed

to passively participate and relate. passively.

how does constantly changing characters not somehow influence who you are?

how do you not take on characteristics from the roles you play? how does this

not completely fuck with the "you" you were before acting?

you can say it's just a job - but how many jobs do you know of where people

literally become other people and interact with other people who have also

literally become other people?

how do you play a role like hannibal lector and not take a piece of the guy

with you afterwards?

they say actors get into character for a part.

i say the characters get into them after a while.

 

i guess what i'm asking is

 

Do you control your art, or does your art control you?

how do you control it? or do you not control it?

how can you control it if you don't even realize it's happening?

and

does everyone need to create something to feel validated?

do you have to paint, sew, bake, write, photograph, style, act

to make life have meaning?

 

i don't even know what's created and what's derivative anymore.

above, all i've done is photograph someone else's words

and made them fit my thoughts in a round about way.

derivative. the off colouring makes it quaint and quirky

and the scene itself is a bit dauntingly mechanical - obviously abandoned.

all i did was take the picture. I didn't create anything or even arrange any elements.

I just documented.

  

and here, at the end...i've noticed that there is always noise around me. i'm having

severe problems with silence lately. netflix will run in the background and i won't even

watch or listen - i'll be studying or reading.

 

it's just human noise.

 

people doing something.

  

/eh, i'll pop out of this soon.

and all the above text may not even be here tomorrow or the day after.

random glyphs on paper? ... or cipher text?

I am pretty proud of this nail.

 

Painted especially to do display pictures for Chase's book, Obfuscate.

Ferruginous Hawk Launching

Random encounters being what they are, worked out pretty well for this meeting in the backcountry. I will drive around two track trails, don’t make a lot of noise unless I’m driving through 4 foot high sage. The Ford Raptor is pretty quiet if you keep your foot out of the turbo’s. So not being a threat in a slow moving black truck, was sufficient to get this wild raptor on a post. Apparently it didn’t feel threatened by another Raptor…. 🤔😜

I don’t get this close too often as I’m thinking 100 yards maybe. It took a while to close the distance between us as I spied it. I drive like I’m a grazing animal. It looks best to my prey if I stop, start, take a minute at a spot, move 20 feet, rinse and repeat is my “process” at approaching most wild animals I encounter. Might take me 10 minutes so if they are sitting around, you’ll eventually get there I find. I take photos at each stop. Obviously after I came as close as he was tolerating, I started machine gunning the 400-1200mm lens. Click click click click ad nausium. Caught him taking off.

I’m not a hawk expert but I believe this to be a Ferruginous Hawk. I suspect somebody knows the answer that will be reading this. Feel free to correct my ID as I’m only about 80 percent sure. The different phases are an obfuscation but I think those underwings are pretty diagnostic 😜🤔👀📷.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title : Ferruginous Hawk Launching

  

blissphotographics.com/ferruginous-hawk-taking-off/

join the discussion at

onbeingbecoming.com/2017/11/04/on-beyond-the-subject/

Hipstamatic self