Just off busy Westgate Circle in Annapolis there lies a peaceful bucolic hillside. Almost 3,000 of our nation's heroes - for heroes they all are - lie here in eternal slumber beneath precise rows of nearly identical marble gravestones. This is the Annapolis National Cemetery. For over 150 years the seasons have alternately blanketed the well-kept grounds with the frosty wind-driven snow of winter, the cheerful melodies of spring songbirds, the emerald carpet of summer grass, and the colorful hues of autumn leaves.

The National Cemetery includes veterans' graves from every major conflict from the 1860s through the late 20th century. Yet, more than 85% of the graves are from the Civil War, and by far the vast majority of these are of men who died during that conflict, rather than veterans who passed away later. And of the Civil War dead, almost 10% are unknown -- a very high percentage considering that no battles were fought anywhere near the city. Yet in spite of the lack of battles nearby, Annapolis saw more of the horrors of war than many of the distant fields of conflict.

The U.S. Naval Academy abandoned the city for a less turbulent academic atmosphere in Rhode Island during the Civil War. Annapolis then became an army town as tens of thousands of Union troops occupied the city for the duration of the war. The army established at least four major hospitals in the city. The largest of these, Division Number 1 Hospital, was located on the Naval Academy campus; another, Division Number 2 Hospital, was on the campus of St. John's College. In fact, Division Number 1 Hospital, or the Naval School Hospital as it was often called, was one of the largest U.S. Army General Hospitals in the entire country during the Civil War.

At first the hospitals treated the sick from regiments stationed in the immediate vicinity. Later they accommodated battlefield wounded brought in for treatment from such places as Gettysburg and Petersburg. Understandably, some of these men were beyond recovery. But by far the most tragic cases were the emaciated forms returning north as paroled prisoners of war from Confederate prisons in Richmond and Andersonville. One of the reasons for the large number of unknown graves is the fact that so many of these wretched former prisoners arrived devoid of reason or so close to death that they were unable to identify themselves to hospital staff.

The National Cemetery got its beginning in 1862 when it became clear that the city's civilian cemetery could not accommodate the ever increasing number of military dead. The U.S. Army leased 4 acres of land originally known as Ash Grove Cemetery from Judge Nicholas Brewer for period of 99 years. Nine years later the Government purchased the land outright. Sometime in the interim its name was changed from Ash Grove to the Annapolis National Cemetery. Annapolis was one of the 14 original national cemeteries established by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862.

Each grave in the cemetery represents a unique individual with a unique story of how he, or she, came to rest in the peaceful confines off West Street. There are, of course, soldiers felled in battle, as well as those who succumbed to wounds or various camp diseases, notably dysentery, typhoid, and small pox. There are those whose constitutions were so weakened by their experiences as prisoners of war that they could not rally their health even though returned to the tender care of dedicated surgeons and nurses in their own army. And those same dedicated nurses are represented here too. On July 11, 1863, Mary J. Dukeshire was the first to give her life in the care of others. She was followed within months by Mrs. J. Broad, Rachel Spittle, and Hannah Henderson, all of whom contracted an illness form the men they so selflessly cared for.

There is no doubt that prisoners on both sides suffered extreme hardship and many died under regrettable circumstances. Among the former POWs arriving in Annapolis, many were literally not much more than skin and bones by the time they were released from captivity. Two of these former POWs, John Q. Rose and L. H. Parham, had their pictures printed on the front page of Harpers Weekly in June 1864 and became poster boys for the wretched conditions of so many returning prisoners. Rose died the day after his picture was taken. Parham managed to last another week. Both were buried in the Nation Cemetery. The deaths of starved prisoners did not end with Rose and Parham. Before he was captured, Miletus McGowan was described as "remarkable for his muscular strength, and possessing a distinguishing trait of generosity, always ready to assume the burdens of others." As first sergeant of Co. A, 29th Indiana, he was captured at Chicamauga in September 1863 and paroled in May 1864. Like so many of the returning POWs, McGowan was emaciated. He reached Annapolis totally “weak and exhausted [and] unable to walk.” He lasted more than a month, but died on June 11, 1864 as a consequence of chronic diarrhea and starvation while in prison.

Then there was John Buckshot, a Native American with the 56th Massachusetts Infantry. A full-blooded Mohawk from upstate New York, he was described as a “brave Indian boy” and a "good shot." Buckshot was wounded and captured at the Wilderness in May 1864. He died January 13, 1865, of typhoid fever after being paroled in December 1864.

All during the war, but especially after a big battle, wounded men would come pouring into Annapolis. Shortly after the first ill-fated attack against Petersburg in June 1864, a soldier assigned to duty in one of the Annapolis hospitals wrote, "We are having a pretty busy time here now as a boat arrived last evening with 530 badly wounded from Petersburg. Oh it was a sad sight to see them bringing the poor fellows off on stretchers some with arms off others with both legs gone and some struggling with death. It was a sad sight I can assure you, quite a number have already died and others in death’s embrace." Many of the soldiers were suffering from multiple wounds as a result of being caught in a crossfire. To make matters worse, Annapolis was in the midst of a heat wave with temperatures reported as high as 105 in the shade. Private Herman Mehwaldt of the 8th N. Y. Heavy Artillery died along with 11 others within a few days of arriving in Annapolis. More than 20 others would die the following week; and even more the week after that.

The vast majority of Civil War dead buried in the Annapolis National Cemetery are enlisted men. Typically officers’ bodies were embalmed and shipped home. However, at least three Union officers are buried here; Lieutenant Harrison Y. Clifton of Pennsylvania, David D. Smith a captain in the First Alabama Cavalry (USA), and Lieutenant Samuel J. Varney of Illinois. There are also about half a dozen Confederates buried here including Lieutenant William S. Slater from Virginia and Corporal Aaron A. Bennett of Tennessee. The Confederates were wounded and picked up on the battlefield along with Union wounded and brought here for medical care.

Perhaps no one had a bigger stake in the outcome of the Civil War than the former slaves who enlisted in the Union Army to fight for their freedom. These men served in segregated units designated as United States Colored Troops, or USCT. By the end of the war, nearly 10% of the Union army was comprised of black soldiers. Although segregated in life, in death black soldiers were buried side-by-side with their white brothers in arms. The Annapolis National Cemetery has nearly two dozen graves of black soldiers. Many of these were veterans who died years later, but some of them, including Alexander Brown, Henry Clark, and Alexander Robinson, died in Annapolis during the war.

While Annapolis may have been an army town in the 1860s, it is nonetheless hard to image the city without a naval presence. And the same is true for the National Cemetery. Although few sailors came through the Annapolis hospitals to be treated for wounds or after being released as a former POW, there is at least one grave here representing the Civil War Navy. John Robinson, a U.S. sailor, died March 2, 1865 after being released as a POW.

And finally, there is the case of Nicolai Demidoff, a Russian sailor who met a tragic end while his ship was here in port. During the winter of 1863-1864, the Russian Tsar sent his fleet to American waters in response to a tense political situation in Europe at that time. Three Russian warships ships visited Annapolis in February 1864. Unfortunately for the Russians, there was one big difference in Annapolis not encountered in other cities. Because of the large numbers of Union troops camped in and around the city, the provost marshal had forbidden the sale of hard liquor to the soldiers. It is not clear whether this restriction applied to foreign sailors but in all probability it was interpreted as applicable. Within days of their arrival confusion over this prohibition had dire consequences for one of the Russians.

On February 4, 1864, Nicholas Demidoff and one or more companion entered a restaurant looking for something to drink. One account of the event simply states that “a citizen & a Russian Sailor in a drinking house. . . had words, then blows which resulted in a pistol shot.” Whatever the circumstances however, there is no dispute that a shot rang out and Demidoff collapsed dead on the floor with a bullet through his heart. The murder nearly created an international incident. In addition to criminal charges brought against the barkeeper, the American government evidently issued an official apology to the visiting Russians. These conciliatory efforts, together with a satisfactory explanation of the tragic circumstances that led to the shooting, seem to have calmed the Russian ire. Meanwhile, although Demidoff had been only a common sailor, the Russians nonetheless gave the fallen seaman a send off that had all the dignity of a state funeral with delegations of politicians from Washington and representatives of the Russian government in attendance. The Americans, undoubtedly seeking to appease the Russian delegation following the murder, took great pains to assure the memorial service was conducted in the most solemn and imposing manner possible.

Except for the letters RSN carved under his name on the otherwise plain white stone, his grave is nearly indistinguishable from those of the thousands of American soldiers that surround it – and yet how much more effort was put into his burial than those of the American boys who were dying daily at the Annapolis hospitals! Nicholas Demidoff remains the only active-duty foreign serviceman to be buried in the Annapolis National Cemetery.

 

VAN NUYS - Precise helicopter water drops that tapered the advance of flames, allowed 48 Los Angeles Fire Department responders on the ground to quickly contain and extinguish a non-injury grass fire in the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area on the afternoon of June 18, 2021. The fire, near a homeless encampment northwest of Lake Balboa, was considered accidental, and attributed to careless cooking.

 

© Photo by Greg Doyle

 

LAFD Incident: 061821-0867

 

Connect with us: LAFD.ORG | News | Facebook | Instagram | Reddit | Twitter: @LAFD @LAFDtalk

The thing about a recipe is that it is just a guide. I don't generally bother with them unless I'm working with something I've never seen before. Understanding why the recipe is the way it is, what the ingredients bring to the dish, the cooking sequence, and all that, is more important than the precise ingredients. If you get the technique, the why a thing is done and how to carry it off, then you can always work your way backwards, from the ingredients you have, to get the results you want.

 

With soups it's all about building flavors layer by layer. If you have looked at a lot of recipes you may have detected a pattern- with soups and sauces you start by extracting flavors from various aromatic vegetables. The classic combination here in the west is carrots, celery, and onion, but other vegetables like shallots, sweet peppers, fennel, celeriac, leeks, parsnips, or parsley root can be used too.

 

That base layer is then modified with pungent vegetables and herbs- a little something to kick everything in the ass- fresh herbs like rosemary, thyme, and bay, tied in a bundle so you can fish it out later easily, and garlic or ginger, and crushed red pepper flakes.

 

Then when everything is sweated a little in hot fat (with salt to help release moisture), so you can smell the flavors combining, and there's maybe a bit of brown stuff in the pan, you deglaze the pan with a splash of wine, water, or stock to pull that brown stuff up into solution, and your soup is on it's way. At this point you add whatever it is that will make up the bulky foody part of your soup, like beans in the recipe below (I'm getting to it) and top the pan off with enough liquid to make up your portions, plus enough for evaporation. Once your ingredients are all tender (you should be tasting every few minutes), then you can make any final additions like pasta or tender herbs and greens, which will only take about 10 minutes to cook (pasta turns into glue if you cook it too long). When the time is up, taste and add salt/pepper/vinegar as needed, pull out that herb bundle, garnish with some reserved pretty herbs and shredded cheese, and do what comes naturally...

  

...........................................

   

The Minestrone in the picture recipe.

 

1 small onion, chopped fine

 

1 rib celery, chopped fine

 

1 medium carrot, chopped fine (if you have one of those giant horse penis carrots, break a half or a third off and use that)

 

1 or 2 garlic cloves, crushed, sliced, or minced, as you like it. And for fucks sake only use the stuff in the jars if you have no choice.

 

1 big tomato chopped (no need to be neat here, it will break down as it cooks)

 

1 tablespoon of tomato paste (the stuff in the tube is more economical in the long run for singletons or small fluid family units)

 

1 herb bundle (or at least a bay leaf or two) composed of rosemary, thyme, and bay (use the parsley stems that you stripped the leaves off of too, come to think) The bay leaf is mandatory, fresh or dry. If you don't have fresh herbs, a good pinch of italian seasoning or herbs de provence will do too.

 

1/2 loose cup flat leaf or curly parsley, stripped off their stems and rough chopped.

 

kosher salt to taste- remember to just add a pinch at a time- you can always add salt but you can't take it away. i like kosher because it comes in bigger chunks than table salt, giving it a lot less volume and making it a lot harder to overseason.

 

5 cups liquid. Like half water and half stock, though the stock isn't strictly necessary. You might want to deglaze with a splash of wine too. Whatever you like to drink, though a heavy tannic red is probably a bad idea.

 

crushed red pepper- a pinch

 

1/2- 2/3 cup cooked beans*

 

1/2- 2/3 cup fun pasta shapes (i used Trottole)

 

vinegar (what you got, or even lemon juice) to taste.

 

a good grind of your favorite hard cheese to finish and garnish to taste as necessary

 

olive oil. enough. a good glug. a couple tablespoons. eyeball that shit.

 

...........................................

 

put a 4-5 quart heavy bottomed saucepan (with a tight fitting lid) on medium heat.

 

pour in your oil, and toss the bundle and crushed red pepper in. as the oil warms, the flavors infuse.

 

add the onion and a pinch of salt, when you just smell it, add the garlic (always add the garlic after- you don't want to burn it).

 

dump the celery and the carrots in, and stir that around and let that soften.

 

when the pan seems like it's getting dry, add the chopped tomato, and get that reducing.

 

when the pan is getting dry again, deglaze with a splash of wine or a bit of the liquid you have standing by and the tomato paste. Admire how glossy the sauce looks as the brown stuff goes into solution.

 

Add your beans, stir to warm through, then pour the rest of your liquid in. Turn the heat to high, and when it comes to a hard boil, cover it and turn the heat down to medium low.

 

Go hang out to about 20 minutes.

 

when you come back, give the mixture a taste, making sure your carrots are tender, add the pasta and most of the parsley, stir it in, cover, go hang out for 10 more minutes.

 

uncover and check your mixture- if it seems too thick, add a little liquid, if it's too thin, let it reduce a few minutes uncovered. adjust the seasoning, get rid of the herb bundle or the bay leaf, and serve it up, topping the bowl with a little cheese and the reserved parsley. This recipe should produce enough for two largish servings or 4 wimpy little cups sized ones.

 

...........................................

  

* What? Sure, you can buy cooked beans, but fuck that- dried beans are cheaper and you get more variety that way- in this recipe I used a mixture of christmas lima, goats-eye, and great northern beans. Usually I make a few cups worth every week, then they are ready to use in sides or in soups or whatever.

 

Measure out your beans- keep in mind that the cooked beans get 2-4 times bigger than dry, so plan for that, pick them over, looking for rocks and sticks, give them a rinse, then place them in a non reactive vessel and cover them with plenty of water. let them hang out all night. in the morning, add/pour off enough liquid so that the beans are covered under an inch of water, add a sacrificial carrot, celery rib, and herb bundle, bring it to a hard boil, and back off the heat to medium low and cook for an hour. Do NOT add any salt or acid to the uncooked beans- it will prevent them from absorbing liquid and they will never get soft. Alternately, if you have a pressure cooker, do all the above and pressure cook it for 10 minutes or whatever the manual suggests. Drain off the liquid (or save that for the soup) and throw away the vegetables (or put them in the soup too).

 

Easy.

   

Painting Cabinet 6

Rachel Ruysch (1664 - 1750), worked in Amsterdam

Fruit still life with stag beetle and chaffinch nest, 1717

Oil on canvas

Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe

Rachel Ruysch was from 1708 to 1717 court painter of the Elector Johann Wilhelm of the Palatinate. A year later, arose this still life with fruits, insects and reptiles. Extremely precise reproduced, it refers to a detailed study of nature and the cycle of growth and decay. Both the painter has likely first met through her father's profession. Frederick Ruysch was professor of anatomy and botany in Amsterdam.

 

Malereikabinett 6

Rachel Ruysch (1664 - 1750), tätig in Amsterdam

Fruchtstillleben mit Hirschkäfer und Buchfinkennest, 1717

Öl auf Leinwand

Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe

Rachel Ruysch war von 1708 bis 1717 Hofmalerin des Kurfürsten Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz. Ein Jahr später entstand dieses Stillleben mit Früchten, Insekten und Reptilien. Äußerst präzise wiedergegeben, verweist es auf ein genaues Studium der Natur und auf den Kreislauf von Werden und Vergehen. Beides dürfte die Malerin zuerst durch den Beruf ihres Vaters kennengelernt haben. Frederick Ruysch war Professor für Anatomie und Botanik in Amsterdam.

 

Collection

The foundation of the collection consists of 205 mostly French and Dutch paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries which Margravine Karoline Luise acquired 1759-1776. From this collection originate significant works, such as The portrait of a young man by Frans van Mieris the Elder, The winter landscape with lime kiln of Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, The Lacemaker by Gerard Dou, the Still Life with hunting equipment and dead partridge of Willem van Aelst, The Peace in the Chicken yard by Melchior de Hondecoeter as well as a self-portrait by Rembrandt van Rijn. In addition, four still lifes of Jean Siméon Chardin and two pastoral scenes by François Boucher, having been commissioned directly by the Marchioness from artists.

A first significant expansion the museum received in 1858 by the collection of canon Johann Baptist von Hirscher (1788-1865) with works of religious art of the 15th and 16th centuries. This group includes works such as two tablets of the Sterzinger altar and the wing fragment The sacramental blessing of Bartholomew Zeitblom. From 1899 to 1920, the native of Baden painter Hans Thoma held the position of Director of the Kunsthalle. He acquired old masterly paintings as the tauberbischofsheim altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald and drove the expansion of the collection with art of the 19th century forward. Only his successors expanded the holdings of the Art Gallery with works of Impressionism and the following generations of artists.

The permanent exhibition in the main building includes approximately 800 paintings and sculptures. Among the outstanding works of art of the Department German painters of the late Gothic and Renaissance are the Christ as Man of Sorrows by Albrecht Dürer, the Carrying of the Cross and the Crucifixion by Matthias Grünewald, Maria with the Child by Lucas Cranach the Elder, the portrait of Sebastian Brant by Hans Burgkmair the elder and The Nativity of Hans Baldung. Whose Margrave panel due to property disputes in 2006 made it in the headlines and also led to political conflicts. One of the biggest buying successes which a German museum in the postwar period was able to land concerns the successive acquisition of six of the seven known pieces of a Passion altar in 1450 - the notname of the artist after this work "Master of the Karlsruhe Passion" - a seventh piece is located in German public ownership (Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne).

In the department of Dutch and Flemish paintings of the 16th century can be found, in addition to the aforementioned works, the portrait of the Marchesa Veronica Spinola Doria by Peter Paul Rubens, Moses strikes the rock and water flows for the thirsty people of Israel of Jacob Jordaens, the still life with kitchen tools and foods of Frans Snyders, the village festival of David Teniers the younger, the still life with lemon, oranges and filled clay pot by Willem Kalf, a Young couple having breakfast by Gabriel Metsu, in the bedroom of Pieter de Hooch, the great group of trees at the waterfront of Jacob Izaaksoon van Ruisdael, a river landscape with a milkmaid of Aelbert Jacobsz. Cuyp as well as a trompe-l'œil still life of Samuel van Hoogstraten.

Further examples of French paintings of the 17th and 18th centuries are, the adoration of the golden calf of Claude Lorrain, preparations for dance class of the Le Nain brothers, the portrait of Marshal Charles-Auguste de Matignon by Hyacinthe Rigaud, the portrait of a young nobleman in hunting costume of Nicolas de Largillière, The storm of Claude Joseph Vernet and The minuet of Nicolas Lancret. From the 19th century can be found with Rocky wooded valley at Civita Castellana by Gustave Courbet, The Lamentation of Eugène Delacroix, the children portrait Le petit Lange of Édouard Manet, the portrait of Madame Jeantaud by Edgar Degas, the landscape June morning near Pontoise by Camille Pissarro, homes in Le Pouldu Paul Gauguin and views to the sea at L'Estaque by Paul Cézanne further works of French artists at Kunsthalle.

One focus of the collection is the German painting and sculpture of the 19th century. From Joseph Anton Koch, the Kunsthalle possesses a Heroic landscape with rainbow, from Georg Friedrich Kersting the painting The painter Gerhard Kügelgen in his studio, from Caspar David Friedrich the landscape rocky reef on the sea beach and from Karl Blechen view to the Monastery of Santa Scolastica. Other important works of this department are the disruption of Adolph Menzel as well as the young self-portrait, the portrait Nanna Risi and The Banquet of Plato of Anselm Feuerbach.

For the presentation of the complex of oeuvres by Hans Thoma, a whole wing in 1909 at the Kunsthalle was installed. Main oeuvres of the arts are, for example, the genre picture The siblings as well as, created on behalf of the grand-ducal family, Thoma Chapel with its religious themes.

Of the German contemporaries of Hans Thoma, Max Liebermann on the beach of Noordwijk and Lovis Corinth with a portrait of his wife in the museum are represented. Furthermore the Kunsthalle owns works by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Carl Spitzweg, Arnold Böcklin, Hans von Marées, Wilhelm Leibl, Fritz von Uhde, Wilhelm Trübner and Max Klinger.

In the building of the adjacent Orangerie works of the collection and new acquisitions from the years after 1952 can be seen. In two integrated graphics cabinets the Kupferstichkabinett (gallery of prints) gives insight into its inventory of contemporary art on paper. From the period after 1945, the works Arabs with footprints by Jean Dubuffet, Sponge Relief RE 48; Sol. 1960 by Yves Klein, Honoring the square: Yellow center of Josef Albers, the cityscape F by Gerhard Richter and the Fixe idea by Georg Baselitz in the Kunsthalle. The collection of classical modernism wandered into the main building. Examples of paintings from the period to 1945 are The Eiffel Tower by Robert Delaunay, the Improvisation 13 by Wassily Kandinsky, Deers in the Forest II by Franz Marc, People at the Blue lake of August Macke, the self-portrait The painter of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, the Merzpicture 21b by Kurt Schwitters, the forest of Max Ernst, Tower gate II by Lyonel Feininger, the Seven Deadly Sins of Otto Dix and the removal of the Sphinxes by Max Beckmann. In addition, the museum regularly shows special exhibitions.

 

Sammlung

Den Grundstock der Sammlung bilden 205 meist französische und niederländische Gemälde des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, welche Markgräfin Karoline Luise zwischen 1759 und 1776 erwarb. Aus dieser Sammlung stammen bedeutende Arbeiten, wie das Bildnis eines jungen Mannes von Frans van Mieris der Ältere, die Winterlandschaft mit Kalkofen von Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, Die Spitzenklöpplerin von Gerard Dou, das Stillleben mit Jagdgeräten und totem Rebhuhn von Willem van Aelst, Der Friede im Hühnerhof von Melchior de Hondecoeter sowie ein Selbstbildnis von Rembrandt van Rijn. Hinzu kommen vier Stillleben von Jean Siméon Chardin und zwei Schäferszenen von François Boucher, die die Markgräfin bei Künstlern direkt in Auftrag gegeben hatte.

Eine erste wesentliche Erweiterung erhielt das Museum 1858 durch die Sammlung des Domkapitulars Johann Baptist von Hirscher (1788–1865) mit Werken religiöser Kunst des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts. Zu dieser Gruppe gehören Werke wie zwei Tafeln des Sterzinger Altars und das Flügelfragment Der sakramentale Segen von Bartholomäus Zeitblom. Von 1899 bis 1920 bekleidete der aus Baden stammende Maler Hans Thoma die Position des Direktors der Kunsthalle. Er erwarb altmeisterliche Gemälde wie den Tauberbischofsheimer Altar von Matthias Grünewald und trieb den Ausbau der Sammlung mit Kunst des 19. Jahrhunderts voran. Erst seine Nachfolger erweiterten die Bestände der Kunsthalle um Werke des Impressionismus und der folgenden Künstlergenerationen.

Die Dauerausstellung im Hauptgebäude umfasst rund 800 Gemälde und Skulpturen. Zu den herausragenden Kunstwerken der Abteilung deutsche Maler der Spätgotik und Renaissance gehören der Christus als Schmerzensmann von Albrecht Dürer, die Kreuztragung und Kreuzigung von Matthias Grünewald, Maria mit dem Kinde von Lucas Cranach der Ältere, das Bildnis Sebastian Brants von Hans Burgkmair der Ältere und die Die Geburt Christi von Hans Baldung. Dessen Markgrafentafel geriet durch Eigentumsstreitigkeiten 2006 in die Schlagzeilen und führte auch zu politischen Auseinandersetzungen. Einer der größten Ankaufserfolge, welche ein deutsches Museum in der Nachkriegszeit verbuchen konnte, betrifft den sukzessiven Erwerb von sechs der sieben bekannten Tafeln eines Passionsaltars um 1450 – der Notname des Malers nach diesem Werk „Meister der Karlsruher Passion“ – eine siebte Tafel befindet sich in deutschem öffentlichen Besitz (Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Köln).

In der Abteilung niederländischer und flämischer Malerei des 16. Jahrhunderts finden sich, neben den erwähnten Werken, das Bildnis der Marchesa Veronica Spinola Doria von Peter Paul Rubens, Moses schlägt Wasser aus dem Felsen von Jacob Jordaens, das Stillleben mit Küchengeräten und Lebensmitteln von Frans Snyders, das Dorffest von David Teniers dem Jüngeren, das Stillleben mit Zitrone, Orangen und gefülltem Römer von Willem Kalf, ein Junges Paar beim Frühstück von Gabriel Metsu, Im Schlafzimmer von Pieter de Hooch, die Große Baumgruppe am Wasser von Jacob Izaaksoon van Ruisdael, eine Flusslandschaft mit Melkerin von Aelbert Jacobsz. Cuyp sowie ein Augenbetrüger-Stillleben von Samuel van Hoogstraten.

Weitere Beispiele französischer Malerei des 17. bzw. 18. Jahrhunderts sind Die Anbetung des Goldeen Kalbes von Claude Lorrain, die Vorbereitung zur Tanzstunde der Brüder Le Nain, das Bildnis des Marschalls Charles-Auguste de Matignon von Hyacinthe Rigaud, das Bildnis eines jungen Edelmannes im Jagdkostüm von Nicolas de Largillière, Der Sturm von Claude Joseph Vernet und Das Menuett von Nicolas Lancret. Aus dem 19. Jahrhundert finden sich mit Felsiges Waldtal bei Cività Castellana von Gustave Courbet, Die Beweinung Christi von Eugène Delacroix, dem Kinderbildnis Le petit Lange von Édouard Manet, dem Bildnis der Madame Jeantaud von Edgar Degas, dem Landschaftsbild Junimorgen bei Pontoise von Camille Pissarro, Häuser in Le Pouldu von Paul Gauguin und Blick auf das Meer bei L’Estaque von Paul Cézanne weitere Arbeiten französischer Künstler in der Kunsthalle.

Einen Schwerpunkt der Sammlung bildet die deutsche Malerei und Skulptur des 19. Jahrhunderts. Von Joseph Anton Koch besitzt die Kunsthalle eine Heroische Landschaft mit Regenbogen, von Georg Friedrich Kersting das Gemälde Der Maler Gerhard Kügelgen in seinem Atelier, von Caspar David Friedrich das Landschaftsbild Felsenriff am Meeresstrand und von Karl Blechen den Blick auf das Kloster Santa Scolastica. Weitere bedeutende Werke dieser Abteilung sind Die Störung von Adolph Menzel sowie das Jugendliche Selbstbildnis, das Bildnis Nanna Risi und Das Gastmahl des Plato von Anselm Feuerbach.

Für die Präsentation des Werkkomplexes von Hans Thoma wurde 1909 in der Kunsthalle ein ganzer Gebäudetrakt errichtet. Hauptwerke des Künstlers sind etwa das Genrebild Die Geschwister sowie die, im Auftrag der großherzöglichen Familie geschaffene, Thoma-Kapelle mit ihren religiösen Themen.

Von den deutschen Zeitgenossen Hans Thomas sind Max Liebermann mit Am Strand von Noordwijk und Lovis Corinth mit einem Bildnis seiner Frau im Museum vertreten. Darüber hinaus besitzt die Kunsthalle Werke von Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Carl Spitzweg, Arnold Böcklin, Hans von Marées, Wilhelm Leibl, Fritz von Uhde, Wilhelm Trübner und Max Klinger.

Im Gebäude der benachbarten Orangerie sind Werke der Sammlung und Neuankäufe aus den Jahren nach 1952 zu sehen. In zwei integrierten Grafikkabinetten gibt das Kupferstichkabinett Einblick in seinen Bestand zeitgenössischer Kunst auf Papier. Aus der Zeit nach 1945 finden sich die Arbeiten Araber mit Fußspuren von Jean Dubuffet, Schwammrelief >RE 48:Sol.1960< von Yves Klein, Ehrung des Quadrates: Gelbes Zentrum von Josef Albers, das Stadtbild F von Gerhard Richter und die Fixe Idee von Georg Baselitz in der Kunsthalle. Die Sammlung der Klassischen Moderne wanderte in das Hauptgebäude. Beispiele für Gemälde aus der Zeit bis 1945 sind Der Eiffelturm von Robert Delaunay, die Improvisation 13 von Wassily Kandinsky, Rehe im Wald II von Franz Marc, Leute am blauen See von August Macke, das Selbstbildnis Der Maler von Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, das Merzbild 21b von Kurt Schwitters, Der Wald von Max Ernst, Torturm II von Lyonel Feininger, Die Sieben Todsünden von Otto Dix und der Abtransport der Sphinxe von Max Beckmann. Darüber hinaus zeigt das Museum regelmäßig Sonderausstellungen.

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staatliche_Kunsthalle_Karlsruhe

Sitzende Frau mit hochgeschobenem Kleid/Seated Woman with Dress Pushed up, 1914 (Bleistift, Aquarell und Deckfarben/Pencil, watercolor and gouache), Albertina

 

Spraying her legs, Schiele's Seated Woman exposes her genitalia, framed by her thinly painted thighs and the folds of the pleated dress, in a seemingly unintentional and yet precisely calculated pose. The dark lap corresponds formally with the dark hair on her head. The precise foreshortening of the legs and face complicate the rhombic shape of the figure. The hombus opens from the tips of both shoes to the knees, before it converges along the contours of the arms and shoulders to the top of her head.

 

Die Sitzende Frau zeigt ihr Genital wie unbeabsichtigt und doch wohlkalkuliert zwischen den abgespreizten Beinen: gerahmt von den kaum aquarellierten Oberschenkeln und dem gefältelten, gerafften Kleid. Dem dunkle Schoß entspricht formal das dunkle Haupthaar. Die präzise Verkürzung der Beine und des Gesichts verkomplizieren im Inneren die rautenförmige Gestalt der Figur. Der Geometrie steigt von der Spitze der beiden Schuhe zu den Knien an, eh sie sich wieder über den Umriss der Arme und Schultern zum Kopf hin verjüngt.

 

The Albertina

The architectural history of the Palais

(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

Image: The oldest photographic view of the newly designed Palais Archduke Albrecht, 1869

"It is my will that ​​the expansion of the inner city of Vienna with regard to a suitable connection of the same with the suburbs as soon as possible is tackled and at this on Regulirung (regulation) and beautifying of my Residence and Imperial Capital is taken into account. To this end I grant the withdrawal of the ramparts and fortifications of the inner city and the trenches around the same".

This decree of Emperor Franz Joseph I, published on 25 December 1857 in the Wiener Zeitung, formed the basis for the largest the surface concerning and architecturally most significant transformation of the Viennese cityscape. Involving several renowned domestic and foreign architects a "master plan" took form, which included the construction of a boulevard instead of the ramparts between the inner city and its radially upstream suburbs. In the 50-years during implementation phase, an impressive architectural ensemble developed, consisting of imperial and private representational buildings, public administration and cultural buildings, churches and barracks, marking the era under the term "ring-street style". Already in the first year tithe decided a senior member of the Austrian imperial family to decorate the facades of his palace according to the new design principles, and thus certified the aristocratic claim that this also "historicism" said style on the part of the imperial house was attributed.

Image: The Old Albertina after 1920

It was the palace of Archduke Albrecht (1817-1895), the Senior of the Habsburg Family Council, who as Field Marshal held the overall command over the Austro-Hungarian army. The building was incorporated into the imperial residence of the Hofburg complex, forming the south-west corner and extending eleven meters above street level on the so-called Augustinerbastei.

The close proximity of the palace to the imperial residence corresponded not only with Emperor Franz Joseph I and Archduke Albert with a close familial relationship between the owner of the palace and the monarch. Even the former inhabitants were always in close relationship to the imperial family, whether by birth or marriage. An exception here again proves the rule: Don Emanuel Teles da Silva Conde Tarouca (1696-1771), for which Maria Theresa in 1744 the palace had built, was just a close friend and advisor of the monarch. Silva Tarouca underpins the rule with a second exception, because he belonged to the administrative services as Generalhofbaudirektor (general court architect) and President of the Austrian-Dutch administration, while all other him subsequent owners were highest ranking military.

In the annals of Austrian history, especially those of military history, they either went into as commander of the Imperial Army, or the Austrian, later kk Army. In chronological order, this applies to Duke Carl Alexander of Lorraine, the brother-of-law of Maria Theresa, as Imperial Marshal, her son-in-law Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, also field marshal, whos adopted son, Archduke Charles of Austria, the last imperial field marshal and only Generalissimo of Austria, his son Archduke Albrecht of Austria as Feldmarschalil and army Supreme commander, and most recently his nephew Archduke Friedrich of Austria, who held as field marshal from 1914 to 1916 the command of the Austro-Hungarian troops. Despite their military profession, all five generals conceived themselves as patrons of the arts and promoted large sums of money to build large collections, the construction of magnificent buildings and cultural life. Charles Alexander of Lorraine promoted as governor of the Austrian Netherlands from 1741 to 1780 the Academy of Fine Arts, the Théâtre de Ja Monnaie and the companies Bourgeois Concert and Concert Noble, he founded the Academie royale et imperial des Sciences et des Lettres, opened the Bibliotheque Royal for the population and supported artistic talents with high scholarships. World fame got his porcelain collection, which however had to be sold by Emperor Joseph II to pay off his debts. Duke Albert began in 1776 according to the concept of conte Durazzo to set up an encyclopedic collection of prints, which forms the core of the world-famous "Albertina" today.

Image : Duke Albert and Archduchess Marie Christine show in family cercle the from Italy brought along art, 1776. Frederick Henry Füger.

1816 declared to Fideikommiss and thus in future indivisible, inalienable and inseparable, the collection 1822 passed into the possession of Archduke Carl, who, like his descendants, it broadened. Under him, the collection was introduced together with the sumptuously equipped palace on the Augustinerbastei in the so-called "Carl Ludwig'schen fideicommissum in 1826, by which the building and the in it kept collection fused into an indissoluble unity. At this time had from the Palais Tarouca by structural expansion or acquisition a veritable Residenz palace evolved. Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen was first in 1800 the third floor of the adjacent Augustinian convent wing adapted to house his collection and he had after 1802 by his Belgian architect Louis de Montoyer at the suburban side built a magnificent extension, called the wing of staterooms, it was equipped in the style of Louis XVI. Only two decades later, Archduke Carl the entire palace newly set up. According to scetches of the architect Joseph Kornhäusel the 1822-1825 retreaded premises presented themselves in the Empire style. The interior of the palace testified from now in an impressive way the high rank and the prominent position of its owner. Under Archduke Albrecht the outer appearance also should meet the requirements. He had the facade of the palace in the style of historicism orchestrated and added to the Palais front against the suburbs an offshore covered access. Inside, he limited himself, apart from the redesign of the Rococo room in the manner of the second Blondel style, to the retention of the paternal stock. Archduke Friedrich's plans for an expansion of the palace were omitted, however, because of the outbreak of the First World War so that his contribution to the state rooms, especially, consists in the layout of the Spanish apartment, which he in 1895 for his sister, the Queen of Spain Maria Christina, had set up as a permanent residence.

Picture: The "audience room" after the restoration: Picture: The "balcony room" around 1990

The era of stately representation with handing down their cultural values ​​found its most obvious visualization inside the palace through the design and features of the staterooms. On one hand, by the use of the finest materials and the purchase of masterfully manufactured pieces of equipment, such as on the other hand by the permanent reuse of older equipment parts. This period lasted until 1919, when Archduke Friedrich was expropriated by the newly founded Republic of Austria. With the republicanization of the collection and the building first of all finished the tradition that the owner's name was synonymous with the building name:

After Palais Tarouca or tarokkisches house it was called Lorraine House, afterwards Duke Albert Palais and Palais Archduke Carl. Due to the new construction of an adjacently located administration building it received in 1865 the prefix "Upper" and was referred to as Upper Palais Archduke Albrecht and Upper Palais Archduke Frederick. For the state a special reference to the Habsburg past was certainly politically no longer opportune, which is why was decided to name the building according to the in it kept collection "Albertina".

Picture: The "Wedgwood Cabinet" after the restoration: Picture: the "Wedgwood Cabinet" in the Palais Archduke Friedrich, 1905

This name derives from the term "La Collection Albertina" which had been used by the gallery Inspector Maurice von Thausing in 1870 in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts for the former graphics collection of Duke Albert. For this reason, it was the first time since the foundation of the palace that the name of the collection had become synonymous with the room shell. Room shell, hence, because the Republic of Austria Archduke Friedrich had allowed to take along all the movable goods from the palace in his Hungarian exile: crystal chandeliers, curtains and carpets as well as sculptures, vases and clocks. Particularly stressed should be the exquisite furniture, which stems of three facilities phases: the Louis XVI furnitures of Duke Albert, which had been manufactured on the basis of fraternal relations between his wife Archduchess Marie Christine and the French Queen Marie Antoinette after 1780 in the French Hofmanufakturen, also the on behalf of Archduke Charles 1822-1825 in the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory by Joseph Danhauser produced Empire furnitures and thirdly additions of the same style of Archduke Friedrich, which this about 1900 at Portois & Ffix as well as at Friedrich Otto Schmidt had commissioned.

The "swept clean" building got due to the strained financial situation after the First World War initially only a makeshift facility. However, since until 1999 no revision of the emergency equipment took place, but differently designed, primarily the utilitarianism committed office furnitures complementarily had been added, the equipment of the former state rooms presented itself at the end of the 20th century as an inhomogeneous administrative mingle-mangle of insignificant parts, where, however, dwelt a certain quaint charm. From the magnificent state rooms had evolved depots, storage rooms, a library, a study hall and several officed.

Image: The Albertina Graphic Arts Collection and the Philipphof after the American bombing of 12 März 1945.

Image: The palace after the demolition of the entrance facade, 1948-52

Worse it hit the outer appearance of the palace, because in times of continued anti-Habsburg sentiment after the Second World War and inspired by an intolerant destruction will, it came by pickaxe to a ministerial erasure of history. In contrast to the graphic collection possessed the richly decorated facades with the conspicuous insignia of the former owner an object-immanent reference to the Habsburg past and thus exhibited the monarchial traditions and values ​​of the era of Francis Joseph significantly. As part of the remedial measures after a bomb damage, in 1948 the aristocratic, by Archduke Albert initiated, historicist facade structuring along with all decorations was cut off, many facade figures demolished and the Hapsburg crest emblems plunged to the ground. Since in addition the old ramp also had been cancelled and the main entrance of the bastion level had been moved down to the second basement storey at street level, ended the presence of the old Archduke's palace after more than 200 years. At the reopening of the "Albertina Graphic Collection" in 1952, the former Hapsburg Palais of splendour presented itself as one of his identity robbed, formally trivial, soulless room shell, whose successful republicanization an oversized and also unproportional eagle above the new main entrance to the Augustinian road symbolized. The emocratic throw of monuments had wiped out the Hapsburg palace from the urban appeareance, whereby in the perception only existed a nondescript, nameless and ahistorical building that henceforth served the lodging and presentation of world-famous graphic collection of the Albertina. The condition was not changed by the decision to the refurbishment because there were only planned collection specific extensions, but no restoration of the palace.

Image: The palace after the Second World War with simplified facades, the rudiment of the Danubiusbrunnens (well) and the new staircase up to the Augustinerbastei

This paradigm shift corresponded to a blatant reversal of the historical circumstances, as the travel guides and travel books for kk Residence and imperial capital of Vienna dedicated itself primarily with the magnificent, aristocratic palace on the Augustinerbastei with the sumptuously fitted out reception rooms and mentioned the collection kept there - if at all - only in passing. Only with the repositioning of the Albertina in 2000 under the direction of Klaus Albrecht Schröder, the palace was within the meaning and in fulfillment of the Fideikommiss of Archduke Charles in 1826 again met with the high regard, from which could result a further inseparable bond between the magnificent mansions and the world-famous collection. In view of the knowing about politically motivated errors and omissions of the past, the facades should get back their noble, historicist designing, the staterooms regain their glamorous, prestigious appearance and culturally unique equippment be repurchased. From this presumption, eventually grew the full commitment to revise the history of redemption and the return of the stately palace in the public consciousness.

Image: The restored suburb facade of the Palais Albertina suburb

The smoothed palace facades were returned to their original condition and present themselves today - with the exception of the not anymore reconstructed Attica figures - again with the historicist decoration and layout elements that Archduke Albrecht had given after the razing of the Augustinerbastei in 1865 in order. The neoclassical interiors, today called after the former inhabitants "Habsburg Staterooms", receiving a meticulous and detailed restoration taking place at the premises of originality and authenticity, got back their venerable and sumptuous appearance. From the world wide scattered historical pieces of equipment have been bought back 70 properties or could be returned through permanent loan to its original location, by which to the visitors is made experiencable again that atmosphere in 1919 the state rooms of the last Habsburg owner Archduke Frederick had owned. The for the first time in 80 years public accessible "Habsburg State Rooms" at the Palais Albertina enable now again as eloquent testimony to our Habsburg past and as a unique cultural heritage fundamental and essential insights into the Austrian cultural history. With the relocation of the main entrance to the level of the Augustinerbastei the recollection to this so valuable Austrian Cultural Heritage formally and functionally came to completion. The vision of the restoration and recovery of the grand palace was a pillar on which the new Albertina should arise again, the other embody the four large newly built exhibition halls, which allow for the first time in the history of the Albertina, to exhibit the collection throughout its encyclopedic breadh under optimal conservation conditions.

Image: The new entrance area of the Albertina

64 meter long shed roof. Hans Hollein.

The palace presents itself now in its appearance in the historicist style of the Ringstrassenära, almost as if nothing had happened in the meantime. But will the wheel of time should not, cannot and must not be turned back, so that the double standards of the "Albertina Palace" said museum - on the one hand Habsburg grandeur palaces and other modern museum for the arts of graphics - should be symbolized by a modern character: The in 2003 by Hans Hollein designed far into the Albertina square cantilevering, elegant floating flying roof. 64 meters long, it symbolizes in the form of a dynamic wedge the accelerated urban spatial connectivity and public access to the palace. It advertises the major changes in the interior as well as the huge underground extensions of the repositioned "Albertina".

 

Christian Benedictine

Art historian with research interests History of Architecture, building industry of the Hapsburgs, Hofburg and Zeremonialwissenschaft (ceremonial sciences). Since 1990 he works in the architecture collection of the Albertina. Since 2000 he supervises as director of the newly founded department "Staterooms" the restoration and furnishing of the state rooms and the restoration of the facades and explores the history of the palace and its inhabitants.

 

www.wien-vienna.at/albertinabaugeschichte.php

 

Precise location anyone ?

Welcome to the most precise heart rate monitor available for Windows Phone 8.

Connect your HxM heart rate Monitor to your device, and track your heart rate over time!

 

Do you need one?

 

United states: www.amazon.com/Zephyr-Bluetooth-Wireless-Android-Windows/...

International: www.zephyranywhere.com/products/hxm-bluetooth-heart-rate-...

 

if you want to try the app

www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=91963007-5a66-4a48-974b-bd87...

Kamera: Zenza Bronica SQ-Ai

Linse: Zenzanon PS 50mm + extension tube

Film: Rollei Retro 400S @ ISO 400

Kjemi: Rodinal (1:25 / 10:30 min. @ 20°C)

 

-Monday 19 February 2024: I have just watched the whole proceedings of today’s opening statements by Palestine in the International Court of Justice in Den Haag, where in this new case the legality, policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are in question.

 

This is truly an historic moment. And the presentation today was immensely powerful. I was so impressed by the whole legal team and the entire presentation of the case. In particular, I was blown away by the sharp and precise presentation by the lawyer Paul Reichler and the emotional appeal of Riyad Mansour. This was monumental.

 

Together with South Africa’s separate genocide case against Israel, I am certain we are finally witnessing the beginning of the end of the Zionist regime and justice at last for the Palestinian people. Today Palestine had 3 hours of presentation. In the next few days, more than 50 additional countries will also present their statements.

 

Here is history in the making.

 

International Court of Justice: Opening hearing on the legal consequences of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories (publ. 19 February 2024) [Video]

 

International Court of Justice: Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem [Transcripts and Documents]

  

Mr REICHLER:

 

3. THE ILLEGALITY OF ISRAEL’S PROLONGED OCCUPATION, ANNEXATION AND SETTLEMENT OF THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY

 

1. Mr President, Members of the Court, it is an honour for me to appear before you, and a privilege to speak on behalf of the State of Palestine.

 

2. I will address the legality of Israel’s prolonged occupation, annexation and settlement of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In so doing, I will identify the elements that determine whether, and in what circumstances, a belligerent occupation is, or becomes, unlawful under international law; I will then review the evidence to assess whether those elements are present here; and I will show that, based on the applicable law and the well-established and undisputed facts, Israel’s 56-year occupation of Palestinian territory is manifestly and gravely unlawful, and that international law requires that it be brought to an end, completely and unconditionally.

 

I. The applicable rule of law

 

3. The applicable rule of law is straightforward. As Pictet wrote in 1958, “occupation . . . is essentially a temporary . . . situation”. This remains the law. In December 2022, the General Assembly, in resolution 77/126, recognized that “the occupation of a territory is to be a temporary, de facto situation, whereby the occupying Power can neither claim possession nor exert its sovereignty over the territory it occupies”. This rule is neatly explained in the Written Statement of Switzerland:

 

“The laws of occupation are built on the idea that occupation is only a temporary situation. They are based on four fundamental principles . . .: 1) the occupying power does not acquire sovereignty over the territory it occupies . . . 2) the occupying power must maintain the status quo ante and must not take any measures which might bring about permanent changes”.

 

The law is thus crystal clear: occupation can only be a temporary state of affairs. A permanent occupation is a legal oxymoron.

 

II. The permanent character of the Israeli occupation

 

4. Mr President, what makes Israel’s ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territory unlawful is precisely its permanent character, and what demonstrates its permanence are:

 

(i) Israel’s de jure and de facto annexation of Jerusalem and the West Bank;

 

(ii) its claims of sovereignty over these areas, which it refers to by their biblical names, Judea and Samaria, and considers integral parts of the State of Israel;

 

(iii) its establishment of hundreds of permanent Israeli settlements, with over 700,000 Israeli settlers, who have been promised by successive Israeli governments that they will never be removed; and

 

(iv) the multitude of official statements and documents that openly declare Israel’s intention to incorporate all of the occupied territory east of the Green Line into the State of Israel as a permanent part of a single Jewish State extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

 

A. Declarations of permanence by Israel’s highest authorities

 

5. As I will show you, the evidence is overwhelming and leaves no room for serious dispute about Israel’s actions or its intentions. As Israel’s Cabinet Secretary wrote in June of last year:

 

“Judea and Samaria were not seized from a sovereign state recognized by international law, and the State of Israel has a right to impose its sovereignty over these areas as they comprise the cradle of history of the Jewish people and are an inseparable part of the Land of Israel.”

 

As purported legal authority, the Cabinet Secretary invoked the First Book of Maccabees, written in the year 100 BC, chapter 15, verse 33:

 

“It is not a foreign land we have taken nor have we seized the property of foreigners, but only our ancestral heritage, which for a time had been unjustly occupied by our enemies.”

 

6. This was followed in August of last year by a message broadcast on Israel’s Army Radio by Israel’s Heritage Minister:

 

“Sovereignty must be extended within the borders of the West

Bank . . . and in the most prudent way, to create international recognition that this place is ours . . . There is no Green Line, it is a fictitious line that creates a distorted reality and must be erased.”

 

7. In September 2023, Israel’s Prime Minister literally erased the Green Line, in his presentation to the United Nations General Assembly. As you saw earlier, he depicted the State of Israel as extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, eliminating not only the Green Line but all traces of Palestine. This was no oversight; it was an act of the Head of Government, with all the attribution that it implies. The same message was delivered by Israel’s Finance Minister in Paris, six months earlier, when he denied the existence of Palestine and declared that Palestinians do not constitute a people. Previously, he said:

 

“We are here to stay. We will make it clear that our national ambition for a Jewish State from the river to the sea is an accomplished fact, a fact not open to discussion or negotiation.”

 

This has been Israel’s consistent position. Here is the map of Israel produced by its armed forces and published by the Government in 2021. One State, Israel, from the river to the sea. There is no Green Line; there is no Palestine. Instead, Palestine has been replaced by “Judea” and “Samaria”, which, according to Israel’s highest officials, are now integral parts of the State of Israel.

 

B. Annexation and settlement of Jerusalem

 

8. As these official statements and maps demonstrate, Israel makes no secret of its intention to retain permanently the entire area east of the Green Line. Its annexation of occupied Palestinian territory began in 1967 with legislation annexing East Jerusalem, which Israel increased eleven-fold in size to incorporate not only the Holy City but also vast areas of the West Bank surrounding the City. Its Defence Minister, Moshe Dayan, declared at the time:

 

“The Israel Defence Forces have liberated Jerusalem . . . We have returned to this most sacred shrine, never to part from it again.”

 

In 1990, the Israeli Cabinet instructed the Foreign Minister to notify the Secretary-General of the United Nations that

 

“Jerusalem is not, in any part, ‘occupied territory’; it is the sovereign capital of Israel”.

 

In June 1996, the Guidelines of the incoming Israeli Government stated:

 

“Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, is one city, whole and undivided, and will remain forever under Israel’s sovereignty.”

 

More recently, in assuming office in December 2022, the current Prime Minister declared that

 

“[t]he Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land nor occupiers in our eternal capital Jerusalem”.

 

As these official statements make clear, Israel’s dominion over Jerusalem and the incorporated area of the West Bank is not intended to be temporary. It has been repeatedly proclaimed by Israel’s highest authorities to be “eternal”.

 

9. In furtherance of this end, more than 230,000 Israeli Jewish settlers - encouraged, subsidized and protected by the Israeli Government and occupation forces - have been installed in East Jerusalem, dramatically altering the demographic composition of the Holy City by creating an Israeli Jewish majority.

 

C. Annexation and settlement of the West Bank

 

10. Israel has been equally clear in declaring its permanence in the West Bank, where more than 465,000 Israeli Jewish settlers have been implanted with the support of every Israeli government since 1967, in over 270 ever-expanding settlements, spread throughout this territory, in what can only be described as a vast colonial enterprise. These settlements, whose accelerated growth and distribution over the years are illustrated on your screens now, are a key instrument of Israel’s annexation of the West Bank; this is both their purpose and their effect.

 

11. As the Secretary-General reported to the General Assembly in 2015:

 

“Occupation is supposed to be temporary because the annexation or acquisition of territory by force is strictly prohibited under international law . . . In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the establishment and maintenance of the settlements amount to a slow, but steady annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory.”

 

12. Israel has made no secret of the intended permanence of these settlements. In 2010, Prime Minister Netanyahu told Israeli settlers in the West Bank:

 

“Our message is clear. ‘We are planting here, we will stay here, we will build here. This place will be an inseparable part of the State of Israel for eternity.’”

 

In August 2019, the Prime Minister announced that:

 

“The time has come to apply Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and to also arrange the status of all Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria . . . They will be part of the State of Israel.”

 

In January 2020, Israel’s Defence Minister, Naftali Bennett, declared:

 

“Our objective is that within a short amount of time . . . we will apply sovereignty to all of Area C, not just the settlements, not just this bloc or another.”

 

13. This area, which is depicted in red on your screens now, comprises over 61 per cent of the West Bank. The Defence Minister proclaimed:

 

“I solemnly declare that Area C belongs to Israel.”

 

This area includes the Jordan Valley, which is the water reservoir, the breadbasket and the source of life for the entire West Bank.

 

14. In December 2022, the Guiding Principles of the incoming Israeli Government declared:

 

“The Jewish people have an exclusive and indisputable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The Government will promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel - the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan and Judea and Samaria.”

 

The coalition agreement between the political parties that formed the Government included this pledge:

 

“[T]he Prime Minister will lead the formulation and promotion of policy in which sovereignty will be applied in Judea and Samaria, while choosing the timing and weighing all the national and international interests of the State of Israel.”

 

III. Israel’s defiance of the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Court

 

15. General Assembly resolution 77/126 was adopted on 12 December 2022, just as the current Israeli Government was assuming office. The resolution pointedly recalled:

 

“[T]he principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of land by force and therefore the illegality of the annexation of any part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, which constitutes a breach of international law” and the resolution condemned Israel’s “annexation of land, whether de facto or through national legislation”.

 

16. Israel has thoroughly disregarded resolution 77/126, just as it disregarded all prior General Assembly and Security Council resolutions declaring illegal the annexation of any part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the establishment of Israeli settlements there. These include but are by no means limited to:

 

* - Security Council resolution 252 of 1968, declaring Israel’s acquisition of territory by military conquest “inadmissible”;

 

* - resolution 476 of 1980, which “[r]eaffirm[ed] the overriding necessity for ending the prolonged occupation of Arab territories” in 1980 and “[s]trongly deplore[d] the refusal of Israel . . . to comply with the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly”;

 

* - resolution 478 of 1980, which “determine[d] that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel . . . to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and in particular the ‘basic law’ on Jerusalem, are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith”;

 

* - resolution 2334 of 2016, which “reaffirm[ed] . . . the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force”, and condemned “all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967 . . . including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians”; and

 

* - at least 28 General Assembly resolutions, which expressly condemned Israel’s “annexation” of Jerusalem and the West Bank.

 

* 17. Israel has also blatantly disregarded the obligations reflected in the Court’s 2004 Advisory Opinion in the Wall case. Since then, instead of dismantling the wall, Israel has extended it from a length of 190 km to more than 460 km38, encompassing hundreds of additional square kilometres of Palestinian land, and incorporating it into the State of Israel. In its Advisory Opinion, the Court expressed concern lest

 

“the construction of the wall and its associated régime create a ‘fait accompli’ on the ground that could well become permanent, in which case, and notwithstanding the formal characterization of the wall by Israel, it would be tantamount to de facto annexation”

 

18. And that is precisely what has happened over the past 20 years, not only within the expanded confines of the wall, but all across the West Bank, most of which has now been annexed de facto by Israel. In 2022, the report of the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry concluded:

 

“Israel treats the occupation as a permanent fixture and has - for all intents and purposes - annexed parts of the West Bank . . . The International Court of Justice anticipated such a scenario in its 2004 advisory opinion . . . This has now become the reality.”

 

19. The Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory reached the same conclusion:

 

“The occupation by Israel has been conducted in profound defiance of international law . . . Its 55-year-old occupation burst through the restraints of temporariness long ago. Israel has progressively engaged in the de jure and de facto annexation of occupied territory.”

 

IV. Recent acceleration of Israel’s annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory

 

20. Mr President, Israel’s ongoing annexation of the West Bank accelerated in 2023, with the largest ever expansion of settlements in the territory. Twenty-two new settlements were authorized and more than 16,000 new housing units were built, funded or planned by Israeli authorities. As explained by Israel’s Finance Minister:

 

“The construction boom in Judea and Samaria and all over our country continues . . . We will continue to develop the settlement[s] and strengthen the Israeli hold on the territory.”

 

21. In developing its settlements, Israel has invested heavily in the infrastructure needed to supply them with water and electric power, as well as a network of roads and highways to connect them to one another and to Israel itself. These investments, in the hundreds of millions of dollars, attest to the intended permanent character of the settlements. The roads, which Palestinians are forbidden to use, and a pervasive system of roadblocks and checkpoints, prevent Palestinians - but not Israeli settlers - from moving from place to place in the West Bank, and they isolate Palestinian communities by cutting them off from one another. Israel’s settlement expansion has thus both uprooted Palestinians from their homes to make room for new settlements, and forced them to live in disconnected and non-contiguous enclaves, which the Special Rapporteur has called

 

“a fragmented archipelago of 165 disparate patches of land”. This achieves the fundamental objective of the occupation: permanent acquisition of the maximum amount of Palestinian territory, with the minimum number of Palestinians in it.

 

22. In furtherance of this objective, and with increasing frequency, armed groups of settlers, supported by Israel’s occupation forces and encouraged by government ministers, have violently expelled thousands of peaceful Palestinian civilians from their ancestral villages and lands. A United Nations Fact Finding Mission confirmed:

 

“[T]he motivation behind this violence and the intimidation against the Palestinians and their properties is to drive the local populations away from their lands and allow the settlements to expand.”

 

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported in March 2023:

 

“[S]ettler violence further intensified, reaching the highest levels ever recorded by the United Nations.”

 

In November 2023, the High Commissioner warned that the situation had further deteriorated with “a sharp increase in settler violence and takeover of land across the West Bank. Since 7 October,” he continued, “nearly 1,000 Palestinians from at least 15 herding communities have been forced from their homes”.

 

23. The Secretary-General, in his most recent report, issued on 25 October 2023, expressly linked the expansion of Israeli settlements to the permanent acquisition of Palestinian territory:

 

“[S]uccessive Israeli Governments have consistently advanced and implemented policies of settlement expansion and takeover of Palestinian land.

 

The policies of the current Government in this regard are aligned, to an unprecedented extent, with the goals of the Israeli settler movement to expand long- term control over the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and, in practice, to further integrate those areas within the territory of the State of Israel.”

 

V. Application of the law to the facts

 

24. Mr President, Members of the Court, taking account of this evidence, as well as that described in the State of Palestine’s two written submissions, I turn to the law and how it applies to this occupation. The Written Statement of Switzerland is, once again, directly on point. It highlights the distinction between the law of occupation and the legality of a particular occupation:

 

“The law of occupation and the legality of occupation are two different questions. The law of occupation applies independently of the question of the legality of the occupation. Occupation is a situation subject to international humanitarian law, whereas its legality is covered by the United Nations Charter.”

 

25. In relation to the legality of the occupation under the Charter, Switzerland observes:

 

“The United Nations has consistently reaffirmed the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force, and condemned Israeli measures aimed at modifying the demographic composition, the character and the status of Jerusalem and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole, notably the construction and extension of settlements, the transfer of Israeli settlers, the confiscation of land, the demolition of homes and the displacement of Palestinian civilians.”

 

In Switzerland’s view:

 

“The measures taken by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory lead to fundamental changes, particularly demographic changes, that can have a permanent character.” In such circumstances, Switzerland expressly invites the Court “to rule on the consequences of the permanent character of the measures taken by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as to the status of the occupation under general international law, in particular the Charter of the United Nations”.

 

26. Many States agree with this approach. France, too, underscores the temporary character of lawful occupation. This is a requirement that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory plainly fails to meet. As France states:

 

“[I]f the restrictions authorised by a regime of occupation were justifiable in the period following the military operations, they are not any more today. These points have been reiterated by the Security Council and the General Assembly on numerous occasions concerning Israel’s obligation to withdraw from the ‘occupied’ territories.”

 

27. France calls out, in particular, Israel’s annexation of occupied territory:

 

“The status of occupying power does not confer any legal title justifying annexation . . . The passage of time is not sufficient, as regards the acquisition of territory by force, to render lawful a situation that is gravely unlawful.”

 

On Israel’s vast network of settlements and hundreds of thousands of settlers in the occupied territory, France states:

 

“These permanent establishments are obviously incompatible with the necessarily temporary character of the occupation.”

 

28. Thirty-five of the States and international organizations that submitted written statements have addressed the legality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. Only two of these 35, to which I will come, argued that the occupation is not unlawful. Key excerpts reflecting the views expressed by the overwhelming majority - that the occupation is unlawful as a whole and must be brought to an end - are collected in Chapter 2 of the State of Palestine’s Written Comments. Here are three brief but emblematic examples:

 

29. The African Union

 

“invites the Court to conclude that the prolonged Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is, in itself, unlawful . . . [T]he policies and practices associated with it amount to de facto and de jure annexation of the Palestinian territories, which violates the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force.”

 

30. Brazil observes that:

 

“Occupation is inherently temporary. This is the basic distinction between occupation and annexation.”

 

Brazil, here, hits the nail right on the head: unlike occupation, annexation is intended to be permanent, and it makes the occupation itself unlawful. In Brazil’s words, Israel’s policies and practices

 

“render the occupation unlawful as a whole, inasmuch as it would be tantamount to the acquisition of territory by force”.

 

31. Japan, too, emphasizes that the annexation of occupied territory is unlawful, referring to Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter:

 

“As the ICJ clarified in the Wall Advisory Opinion, the illegality of the acquisition of territory by force is a corollary of the prohibition of use of force incorporated in the UN Charter”,

 

which Japan calls

 

“the most fundamental rule of the post-war regime for peace based on the rule of law among nations”.

 

VI. The indefensibility of Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian territory

 

32. The two outliers are Fiji and the United States. Of all the States that submitted written statements to the Court, only Fiji attempted to defend the occupation as lawful. But even Fiji conceded that Israel has annexed East Jerusalem de jure and that the application of an occupying Power’s laws to the occupied territory, which is the case in the West Bank, constitutes an annexation de facto. Nor did Israel itself deny its annexations of Jerusalem and the West Bank. Its abbreviated written statement is mainly an attack on the General Assembly for its alleged bias. It makes no attempt to defend the legality of its occupation under international law.

 

33. The only State besides Fiji to defend Israel is the United States. This is not surprising. Whatever offences against international law Israel commits, the United States comes forward to shield it from accountability. Here, the United States attempts to defend Israel, not by arguing that the occupation is lawful, but that it is neither lawful nor unlawful. To reach this conclusion, the United States argues that belligerent occupation is governed exclusively by international humanitarian law and not by the United Nations Charter or general international law. In its own words:

 

“Although international humanitarian law imposes obligations on belligerents in their conduct of an occupation, it does not provide for the legal status of an occupation to be lawful or unlawful.”

 

34. Even assuming, arguendo, that this is a correct reading of international humanitarian law, which we dispute, it does not lead to the conclusion that an occupation cannot be unlawful under international law. What about Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter, and general international law, including the prohibition on acquisition of territory by force? For the United States, apparently, this peremptory norm does not exist when it comes to Israel’s annexation and settlement of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Only in such a lawless - and United Nations Charter-less - world could the Israeli occupation be described as “not unlawful”.

 

35. Notably, the United States ignores the part of the General Assembly’s request that the Court determine the legal status of the occupation under the United Nations Charter, in addition to international humanitarian law and other sources of law; and the United States fails to mention, let alone respond to, Switzerland’s Written Statement, asserting that belligerent occupation is covered both by international humanitarian law and by the United Nations Charter and general international law; and that the legality of the occupation itself is governed by the latter. The United States also ignores the written statements of the many other States which conclude that the Israeli occupation is unlawful as a whole, precisely because its annexation and settlement of the occupied territory constitute a permanent acquisition of territory by force in violation of Article 2 (4) and general international law.

 

36. Instead, in a single footnote, the United States responds only to those States which submitted that the Israeli occupation is unlawful under Articles 40 and 41 of the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. Remarkably, the United States contends that neither of those two articles reflects general international law. This is truly stunning! A persistent failure of a State to fulfil an obligation arising under a peremptory norm is not unlawful under general international law, as provided in Article 40? The injunction in Article 41 - that no State shall recognize as lawful a situation created by a serious breach of a peremptory norm - is not part of general international law? Just how far in disregarding the international legal order will the United States go to exempt Israel from the consequences of its ongoing violation of peremptory norms, including the prohibition on acquisition of territory by force?

 

37. Apparently, very far indeed. According to former US President Barack Obama, in the

memoir he published in 2020:

 

“[J]ust about every country in the world considered Israel’s continued occupation of the Palestinian territories to be a violation of international law. As a result, our diplomats found themselves in the awkward position of having to defend Israel for actions that we ourselves opposed.”

 

This is exactly what the United States is doing - again - in these proceedings.

 

VII. The occupation is unlawful and must be brought to an end

 

38. Mr President, Members of the Court, the evidence is before you - in the written submissions of the State of Palestine and dozens of other States and international organizations, and in the voluminous materials supplied to you by the Secretary-General - and it is indisputable. Under the umbrella of its prolonged military occupation, Israel has been steadily annexing the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and it continues to do so. Its undisguised objective is the permanent acquisition of this territory, and the exercise of sovereignty over it, in defiance of the prohibition on acquisition of territory by force.

 

39. The evidence is not only indisputable, it is of the highest probative value: investigative reports of authoritative United Nations agencies; reports of the Secretary-General; resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly; legislative and administrative acts by the Israeli Government; and public statements against interest by the most senior government officials admitting that Israel’s objective is sovereignty over all the territory east of the Green Line and its incorporation into a single Jewish State from the river to the sea. In this case, there is no reason not to take them at their word, because their deeds have been entirely consistent with it.

 

40. For Israel, as its successive governments have made clear, there is no Palestine. It simply does not exist. In November 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that his Government would never agree to a Palestinian State in the occupied territory. He later declared:

 

“I will not compromise on full security control over all the territory west of Jordan - and this is contrary to a Palestinian state.”

 

Israel’s intransigence was confirmed by its staunchest ally in December 2023, when US President Joe Biden publicly lamented that Israel’s leaders “don’t want anything remotely approaching a two-state solution”.

 

41. That is the very solution demanded by the Security Council, the General Assembly, the overwhelming majority of States and the State of Palestine itself. It is, in fact, the only solution that can lead to lasting peace and security for the Israeli people as well as the Palestinian people. And it is this very solution that has been frustrated by Israel’s defiant insistence on maintaining its dominion over Palestinian territory in perpetuity. This is why the Court’s advisory opinion is so critical and so urgent. The best, and possibly the last, hope for the two-State solution that is so vital to the needs of both peoples is for the Court to declare illegal the main obstacle to that solution - the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine - and for it to pronounce, in the clearest possible terms, that international law requires that this entire illegal enterprise be terminated: completely, unconditionally and immediately.

 

42. Mr President, the law is clear and it demands nothing less. A permanent occupation - one that is founded upon annexation and massive settlement of the occupied territory, and which aims to exercise sovereignty over it - is manifestly and gravely unlawful; it is an ongoing international wrong that must be brought to an immediate end. As the Court ruled in 1971:

 

“[T]he continued presence of South Africa in Namibia being illegal, South Africa is under obligation to withdraw its administration from Namibia immediately and thus put an end to its occupation of the Territory”.

 

43. The Secretary-General applied this principle directly to Palestine in his remarks to the Security Council one month ago:

 

“Palestinians must see their legitimate aspirations for a fully independent, viable and sovereign State realized, in line with United Nations resolutions, international law and previous agreements. Israel’s occupation must end.”

 

44. Mr President, the proverbial ball is now in your court. The General Assembly has asked you the critical questions. It is now your responsibility to answer them. Silence is not an option. As the immortal Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, wrote: “In silence we become accomplices.” But, he assured us, when we speak: “Every word has the power to change the world.”

 

45. Mr President, Members of the Court, your words have such power. In 2004, the Court affirmed the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. In 2024, it is time for you to enable them finally to exercise that right, by freeing them from the unlawful Israeli occupation of their territory, so that they may live in a sovereign and fully independent State of their own, in peaceful and secure coexistence with all their neighbours, including Israel. By upholding international law, which is all the State of Palestine asks you to do, your powerful words will change the world.

 

46. I thank you Mr President, Members of the Court, for your kind courtesy and patient attention. We are in your hands, Mr President, whether you would like to take the mid-morning break now or call our next speaker.

 

The PRESIDENT: I thank Mr Reichler. I will invite the next speaker to take the floor after a coffee break of ten minutes. The sitting is suspended.

 

The Court adjourned from 11.25 a.m. to 11.45 a.m.

Designed by North 1998

 

The somewhat mythological RAC guidelines. These intensely detailed and precise guidelines outline the new RAC identity (also by North) established in 1997.

 

Things I've come to know or stories I've heard:

 

— 250 copies were produced

— Printed four colour process with six spot colours and two varnishes

— The guidelines took one year to design and produce

— Without substantial experience in large corporate identity programmes (at the time), North simply 'winged it' throughout the identity development. Although:

— A copy of the BMW corporate design guidelines by Zintzmeyer & Lux acted as a primary design reference

— As an example of the rigour undertaken for the programme, tests of the hi-vis clothing designs were conducted by North on a hard shoulder of a highway in wet and windy, low visibility conditions

An abandoned slate quarry somewhere in the Argentina Valley (Imperia, Liguria - Italy): I prefer to avoid to give a more precise localization for safety reasons.

An abandoned quarry is a very dangerous place, because it is possible to be hit by a falling block. They are no more checked for their stability and they are pretty heavy: the specific weight of slate is 2.6 tons for a cubic meter (168 pounds for a cubic feet, if you prefer) and they can fall from many meters, so it would be like to be hit by a very concentrate Mercedes and you camera could be damaged, too.

If you want to visit these places don't forget to wear safety steeltoe shoes (it is dark and you can easily hit a stone on the ground), a helmet (for falling cobbles or in case you scare the bats on the ceiling, to avoid their drops) and a high visibility jacket.

A flashlight torch is mandatory for a good focusing, even if you disable the autofocus.

Before to go deeper into a cave wait until your eyes will become used to darkness (your eyes pupils must reach f/1.2 or so). This lapse of time will also bring the camera to a better temperature to avoid condensation, because very often the air of these places is pretty damp.

Have a tripod with you because the right stone to leave the camera for a long exposure shot is always in the wrong place, or it has too much dust, or there is a bat sleeping just over it.

If you can find a retired miner who can guide you in the visit it would be a lot better.

 

Una cava di ardesia abbandonata da qualche parte in Valle Argentina (IM): non fornisco una localizzazione precisa per motivi di sicurezza.

Una cava abbandonata è un luogo molto pericoloso, perché è possibile essere travolti da un blocco di pietra. La stabilità dei blocchi non è più soggetta a controlli, e si tratta di blocchi molto pesanti: il peso specifico dell'ardesia è di 2600 kg/m³ e possono cadere da un'altezza considerevole, quindi sarebbe come essere investiti da un Mercedes molto concentrato e anche la vostra macchina foto potrebbe danneggiarsi.

Se volete visitare uno di questi posti non dimenticate di indossare calzature antinfortunistiche con la punta in acciaio (è buio ed è facile colpire una pietra al suolo), un elmetto (per la caduta di piccoli sassi o, in caso spaventiate i pipistrelli sul soffitto, per evitare le loro deiezioni) e un giubbotto ad alta visibilità (quello che tenete sotto il sedile dell'auto va bene).

Una torcia elettrica è praticamente obbligatoria per la messa a fuoco, anche se disabilitate l'autofocus.

Prima di avventurarsi più in profondità in una cava aspettate fino a quando i vostri occhi siano abituati all'oscurità (le pupille arriveranno a f/1.2 più o meno). Questo intervallo di tempo serve anche per portare la macchina a una migliore temperatura per evitare condensazioni, perché molto spesso l'aria di questi posti è decisamente umida.

Portatevi un cavalletto perché la pietra giusta dove lasciare la macchina per una posa lunga è sempre nel posto sbagliato, o c'è troppa polvere sopra, oppure c'è un pipistrello che dorme proprio sulla verticale.

Se trovate un minatore in pensione che vi possa guidare nella visita sarebbe molto meglio.

Not a precise copy, but preserving the basic pose of the original

Stonemasonry or stonecraft is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. It is one of the oldest activities and professions in human history. Many of the long-lasting, ancient shelters, temples, monuments, artifacts, fortifications, roads, bridges, and entire cities were built of stone. Famous works of stonemasonry include the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Cusco's Incan Wall, Easter Island's statues, Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Tihuanaco, Tenochtitlan, Persepolis, the Parthenon, Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, Chartres Cathedral.

 

DEFINITION

Masonry is the craft of shaping rough pieces of rock into accurate geometrical shapes, at times simple, but some of considerable complexity, and then arranging the resulting stones, often together with mortar, to form structures.

 

Quarrymen split sheets of rock, and extract the resulting blocks of stone from the ground.

Sawyers cut these rough blocks into cuboids, to required size with diamond-tipped saws. The resulting block if ordered for a specific component is known as sawn six sides (SSS).

Banker masons are workshop-based, and specialize in working the stones into the shapes required by a building's design, this set out on templets and a bed mould. They can produce anything from stones with simple chamfers to tracery windows, detailed mouldings and the more classical architectural building masonry. When working a stone from a sawn block, the mason ensures that the stone is bedded in the right way, so the finished work sits in the building in the same orientation as it was formed on the ground. Occasionally though some stones need to be oriented correctly for the application; this includes voussoirs, jambs, copings, and cornices.

 

The basic tools, methods and skills of the banker mason have existed as a trade for thousands of years.

 

Carvers cross the line from craft to art, and use their artistic ability to carve stone into foliage, figures, animals or abstract designs.

Fixer masons specialize in the fixing of stones onto buildings, using lifting tackle, and traditional lime mortars and grouts. Sometimes modern cements, mastics, and epoxy resins are used, usually on specialist applications such as stone cladding. Metal fixings, from simple dowels and cramps to specialised single application fixings, are also used. The precise tolerances necessary make this a highly skilled job.

Memorial masons or monumental masons carve gravestones and inscriptions.

 

The modern stonemason undergoes comprehensive training, both in the classroom and in the working environment. Hands-on skill is complemented by an intimate knowledge of each stone type, its application, and best uses, and how to work and fix each stone in place. The mason may be skilled and competent to carry out one or all of the various branches of stonemasonry. In some areas, the trend is towards specialization, in other areas towards adaptability.

 

TYPES OF STONE

Stonemasons use all types of natural stone: igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary; while some also use artificial stone as well.

 

IGNEOUS STONES

Granite is one of the hardest stones, and requires such different techniques to sedimentary stones that it is virtually a separate trade. With great persistence, simple mouldings can and have been carved from granite, for example in many Cornish churches and in the city of Aberdeen. Generally, however, it is used for purposes that require its strength and durability, such as kerbstones, countertops, flooring, and breakwaters.

Igneous stone ranges from very soft rocks such as pumice and scoria to somewhat harder rocks such as tuff to the hardest rocks such as granite and basalt.

 

METAMORPHIC

Marble is a fine, easily worked stone, that comes in various colours, but mainly white. It has traditionally been used for carving statues, and for facings of many Byzantine and Italian Renaissance buildings. Prominent Greek sculptors, such as Antenor (6th century BC), Phidias and Critias (5th century BC), Praxiteles (4th century BC) and others used mainly the marble of Paros and Thassos islands, and the whitest and brightest of all (although not the finest), the Pentelikon marble. Their work was preceded by older sculptors from Mesopotamia and Egypt, but the Greeks were unmatched in plasticity and realistic (re)presentation, either of Gods (Apollo, Aphrodite, Hermes, Zeus, etc.), or humans (Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Phryne, etc.). The famous Acropolis of Athens is said to be constructed using the Pentelicon marble. The traditional home of the marble industry is the area around Carrara in Italy, from where a bright and fine, whitish marble is extracted in vast quantities.

Slate is a popular choice of stone for memorials and inscriptions, as its fine grain and hardness means it leaves details very sharp. Its tendency to split into thin plates has also made it a popular roofing material.

 

SEDIMENTARY

TYPES

TYPES OF STONEMASONRY ARE:

 

FIXER MASONS

This type of masons have specialized into fixing the stones onto the buildings. They might do this with grouts, mortars, and lifting tackle. They might also use things like single application specialized fixings, simple cramps, and dowels as well as stone cladding with things like epoxy resins, mastics, and modern cements.

 

MEMORIAL MASONS

These are the masons that make headstones and carve the inscriptions on them.

 

Today's stonemasons undergo training that is quite comprehensive and is done both in the work environment and in the classroom. It isn't enough to have hands-on skill anymore. One must also have knowledge of the types of stones as well as its best uses and how to work it as well as how to fix it in place.

 

RUBBLE MASONRY

When roughly dressed stones are laid in a mortar the result is a stone rubble masonry.

 

ASHLAR MASONRY

Stone masonry using dressed (cut) stones is known as ashlar masonry.

 

STONE VANEER

Stone veneer is used as a protective and decorative covering for interior or exterior walls and surfaces. The veneer is typically 2.54 cm thick and must weigh less than 73 kg m2, so that no additional structural supports are required. The structural wall is put up first, and thin, flat stones are mortared onto the face of the wall. Metal tabs in the structural wall are mortared between the stones to tie everything together, to prevent the stonework from separating from the wall.

Slipform stonemasonry

SLIPFORM STONEMASONRY

Slipform stonemasonry is a method for making stone walls with the aid of formwork to contain the rocks and mortar while keeping the walls straight. Short forms, up to two feet tall, are placed on both sides of the wall to serve as a guide for the stonework. Stones are placed inside the forms with the good faces against the formwork. Concrete is poured behind the rocks. Rebar is added for strength, to make a wall that is approximately half reinforced concrete and half stonework. The wall can be faced with stone on one side or both sides.

 

TRAINING

Traditionally medieval stonemasons served a seven-year apprenticeship. A similar system still operates today.

 

A modern apprenticeship lasts three years. This combines on-site learning through personal experience, the experience of the tradesmen, and college work where apprentices are given an overall experience of the building, hewing and theory work involved in masonry. In some areas, colleges offer courses which teach not only the manual skills but also related fields such as drafting and blueprint reading or construction conservation. Electronic Stonemasonry training resources enhance traditional delivery techniques. Hands-on workshops are a good way to learn about stonemasonry also. Those wishing to become stonemasons should have little problem working at heights, possess reasonable hand-eye coordination, be moderately physically fit, and have basic mathematical ability. Most of these things can be developed while learning.

Tools

TOOLS

Stonemasons use a wide variety of tools to handle and shape stone blocks (ashlar) and slabs into finished articles. The basic tools for shaping the stone are a mallet, chisels, and a metal straight edge. With these one can make a flat surface – the basis of all stonemasonry.

 

Chisels come in a variety of sizes and shapes, dependent upon the function for which they are being used and have many different names depending on locality. There are different chisels for different materials and sizes of material being worked, for removing large amounts of material and for putting a fine finish on the stone.

 

Mixing mortar is normally done today with mortar mixers which usually use a rotating drum or rotating paddles to mix the mortar.

 

The masonry trowel is used for the application of the mortar between and around the stones as they are set into place. Filling in the gaps (joints) with mortar is referred to as pointing. Pointing in smaller joints can be accomplished using tuck pointers, pointing trowels, and margin trowels, among other tools.

 

A mason's hammer has a long thin head and is called a Punch Hammer. It would be used with a chisel or splitter for a variety of purposes

 

A walling hammer (catchy hammer) can be used in place of a hammer and chisel or pincher to produce rubble or pinnings or snecks.

 

Stonemasons use a lewis together with a crane or block and tackle to hoist building stones into place.

 

Today power tools such as compressed-air chisels, abrasive spinners, and angle grinders are much used: these save time and money, but are hazardous and require just as much skill as the hand tools that they augment. But many of the basic tools of stonemasonry have remained virtually the same throughout vast amounts of time, even thousands of years, for instance when comparing chisels that can be bought today with chisels found at the pyramids of Giza the common sizes and shapes are virtually unchanged.

 

Stonemasonry is one of the earliest trades in civilization's history. During the time of the Neolithic Revolution and domestication of animals, people learned how to use fire to create quicklime, plasters, and mortars. They used these to fashion homes for themselves with mud, straw, or stone, and masonry was born.

 

The Ancients heavily relied on the stonemason to build the most impressive and long-lasting monuments to their civilizations. The Egyptians built their pyramids, the civilizations of Central America had their step pyramids, the Persians their palaces, the Greeks their temples, and the Romans their public works and wonders (See Roman Architecture). People of the Indus Valley Civilization, such as at Dholavira made entire cities characterized by stone architecture. Among the famous ancient stonemasons is Sophroniscus, the father of Socrates, who was a stone-cutter.

Castle building was an entire industry for the medieval stonemasons. When the Western Roman Empire fell, building in dressed stone decreased in much of Western Europe, and there was a resulting increase in timber-based construction. Stonework experienced a resurgence in the 9th and 10th centuries in Europe, and by the 12th-century religious fervour resulted in the construction of thousands of impressive churches and cathedrals in stone across Western Europe. Medieval stonemasons' skills were in high demand, and members of the guild, gave rise to three classes of stonemasons: apprentices, journeymen, and master masons. Apprentices were indentured to their masters as the price for their training, journeymen were qualified craftsmen who were paid by the day, and master masons were considered freemen who could travel as they wished to work on the projects of the patrons and could operate as self-employed craftsmen and train apprentices. During the Renaissance, the stonemason's guild admitted members who were not stonemasons, and eventually evolved into the Society of Freemasonry; fraternal groups which observe the traditional culture of stonemasons but are not typically involved in modern construction projects.

 

A medieval stonemason would often carve a personal symbol onto their block to differentiate their work from that of other stonemasons. This also provided a simple ‘quality assurance’ system.

 

The Renaissance saw stonemasonry return to the prominence and sophistication of the Classical age. The rise of the humanist philosophy gave people the ambition to create marvelous works of art. The centre stage for the Renaissance would prove to be Italy, where Italian city-states such as Florence erected great structures, including the Florence Cathedral, the Fountain of Neptune, and the Laurentian Library, which was planned and built by Michelangelo Buonarroti, a famous sculptor of the Renaissance.

 

When Europeans settled the Americas, they brought the stonemasonry techniques of their respective homelands with them. Settlers used what materials were available, and in some areas, stone was the material of choice. In the first waves, building mimicked that of Europe, to eventually be replaced by unique architecture later on.

 

In the 20th century, stonemasonry saw its most radical changes in the way the work is accomplished. Prior to the first half of the century, most heavy work was executed by draft animals or human muscle power. With the arrival of the internal combustion engine, many of these hard aspects of the trade have been made simpler and easier. Cranes and forklifts have made moving and laying heavy stones relatively easy for the stonemasons. Motor powered mortar mixers have saved much in time and energy as well. Compressed-air powered tools have made working of stone less time-intensive. Petrol and electric-powered abrasive saws can cut through stone much faster and with more precision than chiseling alone. Carbide-tipped chisels can stand up to much more abuse than the steel and iron chisels made by blacksmiths of old.

 

WIKIPEDIA

How precise is that! Taken on a drive around the South West in October, 1988. I doubt this mileage is 'as the crow flies', a ridiculous metaphor to any self respecting bird watcher! Still, some nice signage here!

Welcome to the most precise heart rate monitor available for Windows Phone 8.

Connect your HxM heart rate Monitor to your device, and track your heart rate over time!

 

Do you need one?

 

United states: www.amazon.com/Zephyr-Bluetooth-Wireless-Android-Windows/...

International: www.zephyranywhere.com/products/hxm-bluetooth-heart-rate-...

 

if you want to try the app

www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=91963007-5a66-4a48-974b-bd87...

(The precise date of the photo is uncertain, but it is probably before 1948.) The instrumentation that was carried aboard the aircraft to gather data is on display. The aircraft data was recorded on oscillograph film that was read, calibrated, and converted into meaningful parameters for the engineers to evaluate from each research flight-un-edited-Not part of my personal collection

After a few sunny spells, including one at the precise time that this train SHOULD have departed Workington Port, the heavens opened in West Cumbria to coincide with the arrival of today's 6C48 empty containers into Maryport.

My original intention was to shoot this train at Flimby but its exposed position meant "no chance" in the deluge and I hastily relocated here and stood under a large umbrella.

No.66099 heads the 2 hour late Carlisle-bound empty PTA containers 'twixt station and signal box in stair-rod rain.

The box lives on to oversee the station passing loop and the level-crossing at Grasslot.

 

Keith Haring used his journals to carefully document his aesthetic discoveries through precise notes and careful illustrations. One of the early artistic experiments that he detailed in his journal was his focused exploration on a set number of geometric forms. The group of twenty-five red gouache works on view here illustrates the diversity of the forms that he developed. The forms range from a simple L shape to more complicated designs. This alphabet of shapes could be assembled in various combinations to create patterns. Haring spent a good deal of time thinking about the spatial layout of the forms and how they could be combined or separated, leaving a negative form in between.

 

Keith Haring: 1978–1982, on display from March 16 to July 8, 2012 in the Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing of the Brooklyn Museum, was the first large-scale exhibition to explore the early career of the artist. Curated by Raphaela Platow, the exhibition includes 155 works on paper, numerous experimental videos, and over 150 archival objects, including rarely seen sketchbooks, journals, exhibition flyers, posters, subway drawings, and documentary photographs.

 

Keith Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990), a Pennsylvania native, moved to New York in 1978 and with his trademark creations across a variety of media, quickly made his mark in the thriving alternative art community that was developing outside the gallery and museum system. Haring was known for his subway graffiti, but instead of painting subway cars with spraypaint, he mostly drew with white chalk on the black paper pasted on unused advertising spaces. His distinctive style became widely known by those who never knew his identity. In his later years, he took on a more activist role, contributing works to hospitals and charities. In 1989, after being diagnosed with AIDS, he founded the Keith Haring Foundation, which supports organizations involved in AIDS education and outreach.

 

The Brooklyn Museum, sitting at the border of Prospect Heights and Crown Heights near Prospect Park, is the second largest art museum in New York City. Opened in 1897 under the leadership of Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences president John B. Woodward, the 560,000-square foot, Beaux-Arts building houses a permanent collection including more than one-and-a-half million objects, from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to contemporary art.

 

Precise trajectory by the Patrouille de France

LDD trick #12 Half LDU precise move quick template (0.5 LDraw Unit = 1/16 plate)

 

From left to right, simply make the green template by 4 steps. Please make sure that there is a gap between tile and technic brick.

The first Ford Capri to bear that precise name was introduced in January 1969 at the Brussels Motor Show, with sales starting the following month. The intention was to reproduce in Europe the success Ford had had with the North American Ford Mustang; to produce a European pony car. It was mechanically based on the Cortina and built in Europe at the Dagenham and Halewood plants in the United Kingdom, the Genk plant in Belgium, and the Saarlouis and Cologne plants in Germany. The car was named Colt during development stage, but Ford were unable to use the name, as it was trademarked by Mitsubishi.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

- - -

 

Der Capri wurde im Januar 1969 auf dem Brüsseler Autosalon offiziell präsentiert, der Verkauf begann im Februar. Mit dem Capri wollte Ford den Erfolg, den das Unternehmen mit dem Ford Mustang in den USA erzielt hatte, in Europa wiederholen und eine Art europäisches „Pony Car“ anbieten. Das Fahrwerk wurde vom englischen Ford Cortina übernommen, die Motoren zum Teil vom deutschen Ford Taunus. Hergestellt wurde er in den britischen Werken Dagenham und Halewood, im belgischen Genk und in den deutschen Ford-Fabriken Saarlouis und Köln. Der Entwicklungsname des Capri lautete Colt; da der Name aber rechtlich von Mitsubishi geschützt war, konnte Ford ihn für sein Serienmodell nicht verwenden.

 

(Wikipedia)

Tank Infantry Mark III, Valentine IX (E2000.577)

The precise identity of this tank is not clear, all identification marks having been removed many years ago. It stood outside the Army Base at Long Kesh in Northern Ireland for many years, subsequently moving to the Maze Prison and Lisanelly Camp, Omagh.

It was subsequently acquired by Vickers Defence Systems and restored to running order in Newcastle using the engine from our Valentine Archer (E1969.43). In due course it was offered to the Tank Museum on loan and ultimately, in March 2002 was gifted to the Museum.

The Valentine Mark IX was upgunned to fit a 57mm (six-pounder) gun into the turret although this did not leave enough room for a co-axial machine gun and in any case, with just a two-man turret crew the tank was very difficult to fight.

Our tank carried the number T123358 on the turret which is correct for the type but not necessarily for this actual vehicle. Mark IX Valentines saw service in North Africa and some may have been suppplied to Russia but by 1943 the Valentine had been replaced in front line service by more modern vehicles and was either being relegated to secondary roles or supplied to other countries such as Portugal.

The Valentine development started without a specification from the War Office (hence the absence of an army designation), as a private design by Sir John Carden, and was submitted on February, 10, 1938, to the authorities. By then, the Matilda II had been chosen for production, but the Valentine was something different.

Vickers engineers basically tried to enhance their A10 Cruiser tank design, with a dramatic increase in protection (up to 60 mm/2.36 in). This choice allowed the use most components and parts of the already produced Cruiser I and II, therefore creating an efficient and cheap solution to the need of new infantry tank models. By then, the Matilda II was found to be far costlier than the Matilda I, and not suitable for mass-production. Comparatively, the Valentine seemed a good compromise. The name itself still is a mystery. It could have originated either from Sir John Carden’s middle name, or the date of its first submission (St. Valentine day), or a composed Vickers factory codename, though most historians agree that Valentine was just a simple codename during development.

The Mark I set the tone for the entire series of eleven main variants, with many sub-variants, and a staggering total of 8300 units. The main armament and turret design, as well as the engine and protection, were continuously improved while keeping roughly the same general appearance until 1945. The Mk.I was recognizable by its original two-man turret and 2-pdr (40 mm/1.575 in) gun. From the start, a coaxial Besa machine-gun constitued the secondary armament. The crew consisted of only three men due to the cramped interior, and the commander was also busy as gun loader, machine-gunner and radio operator. The production was rushed to such point that many problems were later detected and fixed with the next Mk.II. The main engine was the AEG A189 petrol delivering only 135 hp, and the hull was riveted. 350 were delivered in all, most seeing action in Libya, while others stayed at home for training.

 

Tankfest by World of Tanks - 24.-25.6.2016

The Tank Museum - Bovington, UK

Worlds biggest and best live display of historic armour, living history, and much more at the Home of the Tank - The Tank Museum, Bovington, United Kingdom.

 

More from Tankfest:

www.flickr.com/photos/jukkaokauppinen2/albums/72157670621...

More from me:

www.flickr.com/photos/jukkaokauppinen

Tankfest videos:

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIGRHBJyGQb3PpXwFlOKve2OUJ...

My Imgur galleries:

grendelb.imgur.com/

   

To be precise, I was tagged 4 times. LOL

If I tag you and you have done this already or don't want to bother with it...then just ignore it. :) Okay, here we go:

 

1- I hate pictures of myself...so this took a little courage to upload 2 of these.

2- I studied Fine Arts with an emphasis in Illustration.

3- I work as a Production Artist at a printing company currently.

4- I love my husband so much! He makes me laugh and he is my best friend.

5- I am incredibly indecisive.

6- I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder not long after starting college. I used to have panic attacks on an almost daily basis and I dropped down to 85lbs before I got help. I am better now, in fact I need to lose weight now. :P

7- I LOVE to sing!!! I am one of those crazy people you see driving along with the music blaring and singing my heart out. I can sing though. Really! I was in choir for a number of years and did a little competition in high school as well. I love all kinds of music ( Rock, Heavy Metal, Gospel, Techno, Opera, Jazz...) except for Rap and Country...especially Country. BLEH!

8- I love to read. We could practically have a small library with how many books we have.

9- I am a sucker for Dark Chocolate!!! <3

10- I am a Christian woman, and I will never deny that.

11- I am very eclectic.

12- I have waaayyy too many unfinished projects lying around (arts and crafts that is).

13- I grew up with frogs as pets...love them! They are too cool and too cute.

14- I am a dog person. I don't mind cats, just not crazy about them.

15- When it comes to cute things...I am very two-faced. If that makes sense. Some things are just too cute and makes me think: BLEH!

16- I hate the color pink. I like some girly things like wearing dresses, but I CANNOT stand the color pink unless it is in small doses or has some sort of attitude in how it is presented. Like pink and brown or pink and skulls are good combos. Anything too girly or frilly makes me gag. LOL

17- Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love Christmas as much as the next person, but I love to dress up or be in costume.

18- I am an absolute perfectionist, but I am seriously unorganized. :P

19- I am addicted to Coke. No, not the illegal drug, the drink. LOL I have cut down though to one or two cans a day and I switched to caffeine free.

20- I could sleep all day. Seriously. Most weekends I don't wake up until 10am and that is because I asked my husband to wake me. Maybe I am just one of those odd people who need more sleep...I dunno. I just know I sleep like a rock and have to have multiple alarms to get up.

21- I could care less about sports...and I have never been good at them either.

22- Terrible at math, but I have always aced English and spelling.

23- I am VERY much a family person.

24- I am a very shy person (if you couldn't tell from my earlier comments).

25- ummm...I am a major geek? Kind of running out of steam. OH! I am 29.

 

25 things about me was more difficult than I thought it would be... and a LOT more personal. Wow...

FMX action from the Precise compound at Mackay,

The furious Fury, a name that rocked the American automotive industry for the best part of 20 years, powerful and precise, and a true car of evolution.

 

Originally when it was launched in 1956, the Plymouth Fury was a contemporary space-age looking runaround, similar in fashion to the Cadillacs and Chryslers of the time. It was a very pretty car, as were pretty much all cars from back then, but the change of style didn't do the Plymouth any favours. The fins and space lines of the 50's gave way to the angles of the early-60's, and many Chrysler products of this period were maligned heavily for it, the 3rd Generation Fury being no exception. A comeback however was made with the 4th Generation, which presented us with the symbolic vertical headlight layout that would be iconised in the Dukes of Hazzard, as a slew of Police Vehicles.

 

The 1969 models featured Chrysler's new round-sided "Fuselage" styling. The Fury was again available as a 2-door coupe, 2-door convertible, 4-door hardtop, 4-door sedan, and 4-door station wagon. For 1970, the VIP was discontinued and a 4-door hardtop was added to the Sport Fury range, which also gained a new hardtop coupe. This was available in "GT" trim; 1970–71 Sport Fury GT models were powered by the 7.2L engine, which in 1970 could be ordered "6-barrel" carburetion consisting of three 2-barrel carburetors.

 

With the introduction of the 1969 body style, trim lines once again included the fleet-intended Fury I, volume models Fury II and Fury III, the sport-model Sport Fury and the top-line VIP. For 1970, the VIP was dropped, with the Sport Fury line expanded to include a four-door hardtop sedan. An optional Brougham package, which included individually-adjustable split bench seats with passenger recliner and luxurious trim comparable to the former VIP series, was available on Sport Furys; a Sport Fury GT and S/23 models took over the sport model space in the lineup. The S/23 was dropped for 1971, with new options including an electric sunroof (for top-line models) and a stereo tape player with a microphone, to allow drivers to record off the radio or take dictation.

 

For 1972, the Fury was facelifted with a large chrome twin-loop bumper design with a small insignia space between the loops and hidden headlamps as standard equipment on the Sport Suburban, and the newly introduced Fury Gran Coupe and Gran Sedan, which eventually would become the Plymouth Gran Fury; the Sport Fury and GT models were dropped, with the new Fury Gran series having the Brougham package available. Later in the year, hidden headlamps became an option on all models.[citation needed] For 1973, the front end was redesigned again with a new grille and headlamp setup, along with federally mandated 5mph bumpers.

 

When the new bodystyle was introduced in 1969, the 225 cubic-inch six-cylinder engine continued as standard on the Fury I, II and select III models, with the 318 cubic-inch V8 standard on the Sport Fury, some Fury III models and all VIP models plus the station wagon; a three-speed manual transmission was standard, with TorqueFlite transmission optional. The six-cylinder engine/three-speed manual transmission power team, along with the three-speed manual transmission on the 318 cubic-inch V8, continued to be available until midway through the 1971 model year, after which all full-sized Plymouths were built with a V8 engine and TorqueFlite transmission. Unlike its Chevrolet and Ford full-sized rivals, it does not appear that any full-sized Plymouths had a six-cylinder/manual transmission power team available in 1972.

 

The Plymouth Fury would soldier on for another two generations before being killed off in 1978. The name was revived briefly in the 1980's as the Gran Fury, variants of the Dodge Diplomat four-door saloon. The Plymouth Fury however is most famously recognised in its first generation as Christine, the sentient and murderous car from Stephen King's novel and movie of the same name.

A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but the basic function is the same.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The word "loom" is derived from the Old English geloma, formed from ge-(perfective prefix) and loma, a root of unknown origin; this meant a utensil, tool, or machine of any kind. In 1404 it was used to mean a machine to enable weaving thread into cloth. By 1838, it had gained the meaning of a machine for interlacing thread.

 

WEAVING

Weaving is done by intersecting the longitudinal threads, the warp, i.e. "that which is thrown across", with the transverse threads, the weft, i.e. "that which is woven".

 

The major components of the loom are the warp beam, heddles, harnesses or shafts (as few as two, four is common, sixteen not unheard of), shuttle, reed and takeup roll. In the loom, yarn processing includes shedding, picking, battening and taking-up operations. These are the principal motions.

Shedding. Shedding is the raising of part of the warp yarn to form a shed (the vertical space between the raised and unraised warp yarns), through which the filling yarn, carried by the shuttle, can be inserted, forming the weft. On the modern loom, simple and intricate shedding operations are performed automatically by the heddle or heald frame, also known as a harness. This is a rectangular frame to which a series of wires, called heddles or healds, are attached. The yarns are passed through the eye holes of the heddles, which hang vertically from the harnesses. The weave pattern determines which harness controls which warp yarns, and the number of harnesses used depends on the complexity of the weave. Two common methods of controlling the heddles are dobbies and a Jacquard Head.

 

Picking. As the harnesses raise the heddles or healds, which raise the warp yarns, the shed is created. The filling yarn is inserted through the shed by a small carrier device called a shuttle. The shuttle is normally pointed at each end to allow passage through the shed. In a traditional shuttle loom, the filling yarn is wound onto a quill, which in turn is mounted in the shuttle. The filling yarn emerges through a hole in the shuttle as it moves across the loom. A single crossing of the shuttle from one side of the loom to the other is known as a pick. As the shuttle moves back and forth across the shed, it weaves an edge, or selvage, on each side of the fabric to prevent the fabric from raveling.

Battening. Between the heddles and the takeup roll, the warp threads pass through another frame called the reed (which resembles a comb). The portion of the fabric that has already been formed but not yet rolled up on the takeup roll is called the fell. After the shuttle moves across the loom laying down the fill yarn, the weaver uses the reed to press (or batten) each filling yarn against the fell. Conventional shuttle looms can operate at speeds of about 150 to 160 picks per minute.

 

There are two secondary motions, because with each weaving operation the newly constructed fabric must be wound on a cloth beam. This process is called taking up. At the same time, the warp yarns must be let off or released from the warp beams. To become fully automatic, a loom needs a tertiary motion, the filling stop motion. This will brake the loom if the weft thread breaks. An automatic loom requires 0.125 hp to 0.5 hp to operate.

 

TYPES OF LOOMS

BACK STRAP LOOM

The back strap loom is a simple loom that has its roots in ancient civilizations. It consists of two sticks or bars between which the warps are stretched. One bar is attached to a fixed object and the other to the weaver, usually by means of a strap around the back. The weaver leans back and uses their body weight to tension the loom. On traditional looms, the two main sheds are operated by means of a shed roll over which one set of warps pass, and continuous string heddles which encase each of the warps in the other set. To open the shed controlled by the string heddles, the weaver relaxes tension on the warps and raises the heddles. The other shed is usually opened by simply drawing the shed roll toward the weaver.

 

Both simple and complex textiles can be woven on this loom. Width is limited to how far the weaver can reach from side to side to pass the shuttle. Warp faced textiles, often decorated with intricate pick-up patterns woven in complementary and supplementary warp techniques are woven by indigenous peoples today around the world. They produce such things as belts, ponchos, bags, hatbands and carrying cloths. Supplementary weft patterning and brocading is practiced in many regions. Balanced weaves are also possible on the backstrap loom. Today, commercially produced backstrap loom kits often include a rigid heddle.[

 

WARP-WEIGHTED LOOM

The warp-weighted loom is a vertical loom that may have originated in the Neolithic period. The earliest evidence of warp-weighted looms comes from sites belonging to the Starčevo culture in modern Serbia and Hungary and from late Neolithic sites in Switzerland. This loom was used in Ancient Greece, and spread north and west throughout Europe thereafter. Its defining characteristic is hanging weights (loom weights) which keep bundles of the warp threads taut. Frequently, extra warp thread is wound around the weights. When a weaver has reached the bottom of the available warp, the completed section can be rolled around the top beam, and additional lengths of warp threads can be unwound from the weights to continue. This frees the weaver from vertical size constraint.

 

DRAWLOOM

A drawloom is a hand-loom for weaving figured cloth. In a drawloom, a "figure harness" is used to control each warp thread separately. A drawloom requires two operators, the weaver and an assistant called a "drawboy" to manage the figure harness. The earliest confirmed drawloom fabrics come from the State of Chu and date c. 400 BC. Most scholars attribute the invention of the drawloom to the ancient Chinese, although some speculate an independent invention from ancient Syria since drawloom fabrics found in Dura-Europas are thought to date before 256 AD The draw loom for patterned weaving was invented in ancient China during the Han Dynasty. Chinese weavers and artisans used foot-powered multi-harness looms and jacquard looms for silk weaving and embroidery; both of which were cottage industries with imperial workshops. The Chinese-invented drawloom enhanced and sped up the production of silk and play a significant role in Chinese silk weaving. The loom was later introduced to Persia, India, and Europe.

 

HANDLOOM

A handloom is a simple machine used for weaving. In a wooden vertical-shaft looms, the heddles are fixed in place in the shaft. The warp threads pass alternately through a heddle, and through a space between the heddles (the shed), so that raising the shaft raises half the threads (those passing through the heddles), and lowering the shaft lowers the same threads — the threads passing through the spaces between the heddles remain in place. This was a great invention in the 13th century.

 

FLYING SHUTTLE

Hand weavers could only weave a cloth as wide as their armspan. If cloth needed to be wider, two people would do the task (often this would be an adult with a child). John Kay (1704–1779) patented the flying shuttle in 1733. The weaver held a picking stick that was attached by cords to a device at both ends of the shed. With a flick of the wrist, one cord was pulled and the shuttle was propelled through the shed to the other end with considerable force, speed and efficiency. A flick in the opposite direction and the shuttle was propelled back. A single weaver had control of this motion but the flying shuttle could weave much wider fabric than an arm’s length at much greater speeds than had been achieved with the hand thrown shuttle.

 

The flying shuttle was one of the key developments in weaving that helped fuel the Industrial Revolution. The whole picking motion no longer relied on manual skill and it was just a matter of time before it could be powered.

 

HAUTE-LISSE AND BASSE-LISSE LOOMS

Looms used for weaving traditional tapestry are classified as haute-lisse looms, where the warp is suspended vertically between two rolls. In basse-lisse looms, however, the warp extends horizontally between the two rolls.

 

RIBBON WEAVING

TRADITIONAL LOOMS

Several other types of hand looms exist, including the simple frame loom, pit loom, free-standing loom, and the pegged loom. Each of these can be constructed, and provide work and income in developing economies.

 

POWER LOOMS

Edmund Cartwright built and patented a power loom in 1785, and it was this that was adopted by the nascent cotton industry in England. The silk loom made by Jacques Vaucanson in 1745 operated on the same principles but was not developed further. The invention of the flying shuttle by John Kay was critical to the development of a commercially successful power loom. Cartwright's loom was impractical but the ideas behind it were developed by numerous inventors in the Manchester area of England where, by 1818, there were 32 factories containing 5,732 looms.

 

Horrocks loom was viable, but it was the Roberts Loom in 1830 that marked the turning point. Incremental changes to the three motions continued to be made. The problems of sizing, stop-motions, consistent take-up, and a temple to maintain the width remained. In 1841, Kenworthy and Bullough produced the Lancashire Loom which was self-acting or semi-automatic. This enables a youngster to run six looms at the same time. Thus, for simple calicos, the power loom became more economical to run than the hand loom – with complex patterning that used a dobby or Jacquard head, jobs were still put out to handloom weavers until the 1870s. Incremental changes were made such as the Dickinson Loom, culminating in the Keighley-born inventor Northrop, who was working for the Draper Corporation in Hopedale producing the fully automatic Northrop Loom. This loom recharged the shuttle when the pirn was empty. The Draper E and X models became the leading products from 1909. They were challenged by synthetic fibres such as rayon. By 1942, faster, more efficient, and shuttleless Sulzer and rapier looms had been introduced. Modern industrial looms can weave at 2,000 weft insertions per minute.

 

WEFT INSERTION

Different types of looms are most often defined by the way that the weft, or pick, is inserted into the warp. Many advances in weft insertion have been made in order to make manufactured cloth more cost effective. There are five main types of weft insertion and they are as follows:

 

Shuttle: The first-ever powered looms were shuttle-type looms. Spools of weft are unravelled as the shuttle travels across the shed. This is very similar to projectile methods of weaving, except that the weft spool is stored on the shuttle. These looms are considered obsolete in modern industrial fabric manufacturing because they can only reach a maximum of 300 picks per minute.

Air jet: An air-jet loom uses short quick bursts of compressed air to propel the weft through the shed in order to complete the weave. Air jets are the fastest traditional method of weaving in modern manufacturing and they are able to achieve up to 1,500 picks per minute. However, the amounts of compressed air required to run these looms, as well as the complexity in the way the air jets are positioned, make them more costly than other looms.

Water jet: Water-jet looms use the same principle as air-jet looms, but they take advantage of pressurized water to propel the weft. The advantage of this type of weaving is that water power is cheaper where water is directly available on site. Picks per minute can reach as high as 1,000.

Rapier loom: This type of weaving is very versatile, in that rapier looms can weave using a large variety of threads. There are several types of rapiers, but they all use a hook system attached to a rod or metal band to pass the pick across the shed. These machines regularly reach 700 picks per minute in normal production.

Projectile: Projectile looms utilize an object that is propelled across the shed, usually by spring power, and is guided across the width of the cloth by a series of reeds. The projectile is then removed from the weft fibre and it is returned to the opposite side of the machine so it can get reused. Multiple projectiles are in use in order to increase the pick speed. Maximum speeds on these machines can be as high as 1,050 ppm.

 

SHEDDING

DOBBY LOOMS

A dobby loom is a type of floor loom that controls the whole warp threads using a dobby head. Dobby is a corruption of "draw boy" which refers to the weaver's helpers who used to control the warp thread by pulling on draw threads. A dobby loom is an alternative to a treadle loom, where multiple heddles (shafts) were controlled by foot treadles – one for each heddle.

 

JACQUARD LOOMS

The Jacquard loom is a mechanical loom, invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801, which simplifies the process of manufacturing textiles with complex patterns such as brocade, damask and matelasse. The loom is controlled by punched cards with punched holes, each row of which corresponds to one row of the design. Multiple rows of holes are punched on each card and the many cards that compose the design of the textile are strung together in order. It is based on earlier inventions by the Frenchmen Basile Bouchon (1725), Jean Baptiste Falcon (1728) and Jacques Vaucanson (1740) To call it a loom is a misnomer, a Jacquard head could be attached to a power loom or a hand loom, the head controlling which warp thread was raised during shedding. Multiple shuttles could be used to control the colour of the weft during picking. The Jacquard loom is the predecessor to the punch card computers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

 

CICULAR LOOMS

A circular loom is used to create a seamless tube of fabric for products such as hosiery, sacks, clothing, fabric hose (such as fire hose) and the like. Circular looms can be small jigs used for circular knitting or large high-speed machines for modern garments. Modern circular looms use up to ten shuttles driven from below in a circular motion by electromagnets for the weft yarns, and cams to control the warp threads. The warps rise and fall with each shuttle passage, unlike the common practice of lifting all of them at once.

 

SYMBOLISM AND CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

The loom is a symbol of cosmic creation and the structure upon which individual destiny is woven. This symbolism is encapsulated in the ancient Greek myth of Arachne who was changed into a spider by the goddess Athene, who was jealous of her skill at the godlike craft of weaving. In Maya Cultures the goddess Ixchel who is symbolized by the moon, taught the first woman how to weave at the beginning of time.

 

WIKIPEDIA

This conical snoot greatly reduces light dispersion and delivers light to a precise area. With a honeycomb grid (25-30 degrees) at the end, light spread is further reduced to create a more directional, shielded light onto your subject.

 

Made of metal, the exterior is black in color and the interior silver. All of these ensures that the light are not wasted but instead, trapped inside the snoot and illuminated onto your subject.

 

===================================================================

Set of Multiple images (51 images for this photograph) taken at different focus distances to give this resulting image using the Focus Stacking (bracketing) technique on a setting of aperture:F3 1, shutter speed:/160s

 

Nikon D90 @ Tokina 100mm Macro f2.8 lens @ SB 600 @ 24 mm @ left of camera @ Triggered with on-camera Pocket Wizard MiniTT1 and a FlexTT5 on each flash for the Main Pic.

 

I shot one more single photograph in which I had the attached SB 900 & the pocket wizard ON to get the FLASH on a setting of aperture: f36, shutter speed: 15.00s.

 

The ISO 100 remains the same in both pics.

 

Both were merged to make this final pic.

HILL OF CROSSES

 

It was raining a lot, but I managed to visit this historical and religious place.

 

Hill of Crosses is a major site of Catholic pilgrimage near the city of Šiauliai. The precise origin of the practice of leaving crosses on the hill is uncertain, but it is believed that the first crosses were placed on the former Jurgaičiai or Domantai hill fort after the rebellion against Russian authorities in 1831. As families could not locate bodies of perished rebels, they started putting up symbolic crosses at the site of a former hill fort. Today there are more than 100,000 crosses and counting. Once Lithuania declared its independence, the Hill of Crosses was used as a place for Lithuanians to pray for peace, for their country, and for the loved ones they had lost during the Wars of Independence. In 1993, Pope John Paul II visited the Hill of Crosses, declaring it a place for hope, peace, love and sacrifice.

 

Šiauliai, Lithuania July 2022 #itravelanddance

HILL OF CROSSES

 

It was raining a lot, but I managed to visit this historical and religious place.

 

Hill of Crosses is a major site of Catholic pilgrimage near the city of Šiauliai. The precise origin of the practice of leaving crosses on the hill is uncertain, but it is believed that the first crosses were placed on the former Jurgaičiai or Domantai hill fort after the rebellion against Russian authorities in 1831. As families could not locate bodies of perished rebels, they started putting up symbolic crosses at the site of a former hill fort. Today there are more than 100,000 crosses and counting. Once Lithuania declared its independence, the Hill of Crosses was used as a place for Lithuanians to pray for peace, for their country, and for the loved ones they had lost during the Wars of Independence. In 1993, Pope John Paul II visited the Hill of Crosses, declaring it a place for hope, peace, love and sacrifice.

 

Šiauliai, Lithuania July 2022 #itravelanddance

Gentle

Quiet

Intelligent

Sharp

Precise

Witty

The Epilog laser amazes me with it's accurracy and repeatability.

A precise Europe manufactured 3D printer in cool stylish and practical design. See more here:

 

beeverycreative.creativetools.se/

AMPLIFIED SHOCK AND AWE

The 2014 Supra SA350, SA450 and SA550 combine shocking wakes, precise handling and an awesome interior, but in true Supra style this wake boat has upped its shock value. The Supra SA shines with new metal flake gel coat colors, Blacked-out and Verge hull graphic as well as new Pro Edge Tower Contrast color options. The SA has gone soft, but durable on the inside with the abrasion resistant stain protected SupraSkin vinyl from Spradling; bringing together new colors and textures for an even more luxurious look and feel. A new aggressive windshield lifts the eyes of the boat to the level of refinement shared by the lofty attitude of the Barrage Front End and powerfully calming Battle Prep Transom. The SA still attacks the water with 350-550 horses of Indmar power, depending on your engine choice, pro hull design and precision underwater gear. Snap-out carpet covers a fiberglass floor for a quiet convenient base to a plush interior. 900 pounds of hard tank sub structural floor Liquid Lead ballast, a loaded Roswell Pro Edge Tower, Zero Off GPS speed control, the SmartPlate, VISION Touch Rider Profiles and 1,300-pounds of available Flex ballast will wake-up dreams of going pro. The Supra SA is shock and awe.

 

Overall Length w/o Platform: 22' 6"

Overall Length w/ Platform: 24' 6"

Overall Length w/ Platform & Trailer: 27' 2"

Width (Beam): 100"

Overall Width w/ Trailer: 102"

Draft: 26"

Weight - Boat only: 4,300 lbs

Weight - Boat and Trailer: 5,600 lbs

Capacity - Passenger: 13

Capacity - Weight: 1,900 lbs

Capacity - Fuel: 50 gals

Capacity - Ballast: 900 lbs (S) 1,300 lbs (O) = 2,200 lbs available from factory.

Engine - Electronic Fuel Injection: 345 HP-SA350, 450 HP-SA450, 550HP-SA550

Autism spectrum disorder[a] (ASD), or simply autism, is a neurodevelopmental disorder "characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts" and "restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities".[11] Sensory abnormalities are also included in the diagnostic manuals. Common associated traits such as motor coordination impairment are typical of the condition but not required for diagnosis. A formal diagnosis requires that symptoms cause significant impairment in multiple functional domains, in addition to being atypical or excessive for the person's age and sociocultural context.[12][13]

 

Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning it manifests in various ways, with its severity and support needs varying widely across different autistic people.[12][13][14] For example, some autistic people are nonverbal, while others have proficient spoken language. Furthermore, the spectrum is multi-dimensional and not all dimensions have been identified as of 2024.[15][16]

 

Public health authorities and guideline developers classify autism as a neurodevelopmental disorder,[12][17][13][18][19] but the autism rights movement (and some researchers) disagree with the classification. From the latter point of view, autistic people may be diagnosed with a disability, but that disability may be rooted in the structures of a society rather than the person.[20][21][22] On the contrary, other scientists argue that autism impairs functioning in many ways that are inherent to the disorder itself and unrelated to society.[23][24] The neurodiversity perspective has led to significant controversy among those who are autistic and advocates, practitioners, and charities.[25][26]

 

The precise causes of autism are unknown in most individual cases. Research shows that the disorder is highly heritable and polygenic, and neurobiological risks from the environment are also relevant.[27][28][29] Boys are also significantly far more frequently diagnosed than girls.[30]

 

Autism frequently co-occurs with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), epilepsy, and intellectual disability.[31][32][33] Disagreements persist about what should be part of the diagnosis, whether there are meaningful subtypes or stages of autism,[34] and the significance of autism-associated traits in the wider population.[35][36]

 

The combination of broader criteria, increased awareness, and the potential increase of actual prevalence has led to considerably increased estimates of autism prevalence since the 1990s.[37][38] The WHO estimates about 1 in 100 children had autism between 2012 and 2021, as that was the average estimate in studies during that period, with a trend of increasing prevalence over time.[b][9][10] This increasing prevalence has contributed to the myth perpetuated by anti-vaccine activists that autism is caused by vaccines.[39]

 

There is no known cure for autism, and some advocates dispute the need to find one.[40][41] Interventions such as applied behavior analysis (ABA), speech therapy, and occupational therapy can help these children gain self-care, social, and language skills.[42][43] Guidelines from the Centres for Disease Control (CDC), and European Society for Child & Adolescent Psychiatry endorse the use of ABA on the grounds that it reduces symptoms impairing daily functioning and quality of life,[42][44] but the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence cites a lack of high-quality evidence to support its use.[45] Additionally, some in the autism rights movement oppose its application due to a perception that it emphasises normalisation.[46][47][48] No medication has been shown to reduce ASD's core symptoms,[44] but some can alleviate comorbid issues.[49][50][51]

 

Classification

Spectrum model

Before the DSM-5 (2013) and ICD-11 (2022) diagnostic manuals were adopted, ASD was found under the diagnostic category pervasive developmental disorder. The previous system relied on a set of closely related and overlapping diagnoses such as Asperger syndrome and the syndrome formerly known as Kanner syndrome. This created unclear boundaries between the terms, so for the DSM-5 and ICD-11, a spectrum approach was taken. The new system is also more restrictive, meaning fewer people qualify for diagnosis.[52]

 

The DSM-5 and ICD-11 use different categorization tools to define this spectrum. DSM-5 uses a "level" system, which ranks how in need of support the patient is, level 1 being the mildest and level 3 the severest,[53] while the ICD-11 system has two axes, intellectual impairment and language impairment,[54] as these are seen as the most crucial factors.

 

Autism is currently defined as a highly variable neurodevelopmental disorder[55] that is generally thought to cover a broad and deep spectrum, manifesting very differently from one person to another. Some have high support needs, may be nonspeaking, and experience developmental delays; this is more likely with other co-existing diagnoses. Others have relatively low support needs; they may have more typical speech-language and intellectual skills but atypical social/conversation skills, narrowly focused interests, and wordy, pedantic communication.[56] They may still require significant support in some areas of their lives. The spectrum model should not be understood as a continuum running from mild to severe, but instead means that autism can present very differently in each person.[57] How it presents in a person can depend on context, and may vary over time.[58]

 

While the DSM and ICD greatly influence each other, there are also differences. For example, Rett syndrome was included in ASD in the DSM-5, but in the ICD-11 it was excluded and placed in the chapter on Developmental Anomalies. The ICD and the DSM change over time, and there has been collaborative work toward a convergence of the two since 1980 (when DSM-III was published and ICD-9 was current), including more rigorous biological assessment—in place of historical experience—and a simplification of the classification system.[59][60][61][62]

 

As of 2023, empirical and theoretical research is leading to a growing consensus among researchers that the established ASD criteria are ineffective descriptors of autism as a whole, and that alternative research approaches must be encouraged, such as going back to autism prototypes, exploring new causal models of autism, or developing transdiagnostic endophenotypes.[63] Proposed alternatives to the current disorder-focused spectrum model deconstruct autism into at least two separate phenomena: (1) a non-pathological spectrum of behavioral traits in the population,[64][65] and (2) the neuropathological burden of rare genetic mutations and environmental risk factors potentially leading to neurodevelopmental and psychological disorders,[64][65] (3) governed by an individual's cognitive ability to compensate.[64]

 

ICD

The World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (11th revision), ICD-11, was released in June 2018 and came into full effect as of January 2022.[66][59] It describes ASD as follows:[67]

 

Autism spectrum disorder is characterised by persistent deficits in the ability to initiate and to sustain reciprocal social interaction and social communication, and by a range of restricted, repetitive, and inflexible patterns of behaviour, interests or activities that are clearly atypical or excessive for the individual's age and sociocultural context. The onset of the disorder occurs during the developmental period, typically in early childhood, but symptoms may not become fully manifest until later, when social demands exceed limited capacities. Deficits are sufficiently severe to cause impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning and are usually a pervasive feature of the individual's functioning observable in all settings, although they may vary according to social, educational, or other context. Individuals along the spectrum exhibit a full range of intellectual functioning and language abilities.

 

— ICD-11, chapter 6, section A02

ICD-11 was produced by professionals from 55 countries out of the 90 involved and is the most widely used reference worldwide.

 

DSM

The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR), released in 2022, is the current version of the DSM. It is the predominant mental health diagnostic system used in the United States and Canada, and is often used in Anglophone countries.

 

Its fifth edition, DSM-5, released in May 2013, was the first to define ASD as a single diagnosis,[68] which is still the case in the DSM-5-TR.[69] ASD encompasses previous diagnoses, including the four traditional diagnoses of autism—classic autism, Asperger syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS)—and the range of diagnoses that included the word "autism".[70] Rather than distinguishing among these diagnoses, the DSM-5 and DSM-5-TR adopt a dimensional approach with one diagnostic category for disorders that fall under the autism spectrum umbrella. Within that category, the DSM-5 and the DSM include a framework that differentiates each person by dimensions of symptom severity, as well as by associated features (i.e., the presence of other disorders or factors that likely contribute to the symptoms, other neurodevelopmental or mental disorders, intellectual disability, or language impairment).[69] The symptom domains are (a) social communication and (b) restricted, repetitive behaviors, and there is the option of specifying a separate severity—the negative effect of the symptoms on the person—for each domain, rather than just overall severity.[71] Before the DSM-5, the DSM separated social deficits and communication deficits into two domains.[72] Further, the DSM-5 changed to an onset age in the early developmental period, with a note that symptoms may manifest later when social demands exceed capabilities, rather than the previous, more restricted three years of age.[73] These changes remain in the DSM-5-TR.[69]

 

Signs and symptoms

See also: Outline of autism

Pre-diagnosis

For many autistic people, characteristics first appear during infancy or childhood and follow a steady course without remission (different developmental timelines are described in more detail below).[74] Autistic people may be severely impaired in some respects but average, or even superior, in others.[75][76][77]

 

Clinicians consider assessment for ASD when a patient shows:

 

Regular difficulties in social interaction or communication

Restricted or repetitive behaviors (often called "stimming")

Resistance to changes or restricted interests

These features are typically assessed with the following, when appropriate:

 

Problems in obtaining or sustaining employment or education

Difficulties in initiating or sustaining social relationships

Connections with mental health or learning disability services

A history of neurodevelopmental conditions (including learning disabilities and ADHD) or mental health conditions[78][79]

There are many signs associated with autism; the presentation varies widely. Common signs and symptoms include:[80][81]

 

Abnormalities in eye contact

Little or no babbling as an infant

Not showing interest in indicated objects

Delayed language skills (e.g., having a smaller vocabulary than peers or difficulty expressing themselves in words)

Reduced interest in other children or caretakers, possibly with more interest in objects

Difficulty playing reciprocal games (e.g., peek-a-boo)

Hyper- or hypo-sensitivity to or unusual response to the smell, texture, sound, taste, or appearance of things

Resistance to changes in routine

Repetitive, limited, or otherwise unusual usage of toys (e.g., lining up toys)

Repetition of words or phrases, including echolalia

Repetitive motions or movements, including stimming

Broader autism phenotype

The broader autism phenotype describes people who may not have ASD but do have autistic traits, such as abnormalities in eye contact and stimming.[82]

  

In 1996, American academic Temple Grandin published Emergence: Labeled Autistic, describing her life experiences as an autistic person.

Social and communication skills

According to the medical model, autistic people experience social communications impairments. Until 2013, deficits in social function and communication were considered two separate symptom domains.[83] The current social communication domain criteria for autism diagnosis require people to have deficits across three social skills: social-emotional reciprocity, nonverbal communication, and developing and sustaining relationships.[69]

 

A deficit-based view predicts that autistic–autistic interaction would be less effective than autistic–non-autistic interactions or even non-functional.[84] But recent research has found that autistic–autistic interactions are as effective in information transfer as interactions between non-autistics are, and that communication breaks down only between autistics and non-autistics.[84][85] Also contrary to social cognitive deficit interpretations, recent (2019) research recorded similar social cognitive performances in autistic and non-autistic adults, with both of them rating autistic individuals less favorably than non-autistic individuals; however, autistic individuals showed more interest in engaging with autistic people than non-autistic people did, and learning of a person's ASD diagnosis did not influence their interest level.[86]

 

Thus, there has been a recent shift to acknowledge that autistic people may simply respond and behave differently than people without ASD.[87] So far, research has identified two unconventional features by which autistic people create shared understanding (intersubjectivity): "a generous assumption of common ground that, when understood, led to rapid rapport, and, when not understood, resulted in potentially disruptive utterances; and a low demand for coordination that ameliorated many challenges associated with disruptive turns."[85] Autistic interests, and thus conversational topics, seem to be largely driven by an intense interest in specific topics (monotropism).[88][89]

 

Historically, autistic children were said to be delayed in developing a theory of mind, and the empathizing–systemizing theory has argued that while autistic people have compassion (affective empathy) for others with similar presentation of symptoms, they have limited, though not necessarily absent, cognitive empathy.[90] This may present as social naïvety,[91] lower than average intuitive perception of the utility or meaning of body language, social reciprocity,[92] or social expectations, including the habitus, social cues, and some aspects of sarcasm,[93] which to some degree may also be due to comorbid alexithymia.[94] But recent research has increasingly questioned these findings, as the "double empathy problem" theory (2012) argues that there is a lack of mutual understanding and empathy between both non-autistic persons and autistic individuals.[95][96][97][98][99]

 

As communication is bidirectional,[100] research on communication difficulties has since also begun to study non-autistic behavior, with researcher Catherine Crompton writing in 2020 that non-autistic people "struggle to identify autistic mental states, identify autistic facial expressions, overestimate autistic egocentricity, and are less willing to socially interact with autistic people. Thus, although non-autistic people are generally characterised as socially skilled, these skills may not be functional or effectively applied when interacting with autistic people."[84] Any previously observed communication deficits of autistic people may thus have been constructed through a neurotypical bias in autism research, which has come to be scrutinized for "dehumanization, objectification, and stigmatization".[101] Recent research has proposed that autistics' lack of readability and a neurotypical lack of effort to interpret atypical signals may cause a negative interaction loop, increasingly driving both groups apart into two distinct groups with different social interaction styles.[100]

 

Differences in verbal communication begin to be noticeable in childhood, as many autistic children develop language skills at an uneven pace. Verbal communication may be delayed or never developed (nonverbal autism), while reading ability may be present before school age (hyperlexia).[102][103] Reduced joint attention seem to distinguish autistic from non-autistic infants.[104] Infants may show delayed onset of babbling, unusual gestures, diminished responsiveness, and vocal patterns that are not synchronized with the caregiver. In the second and third years, autistic children may have less frequent and less diverse babbling, consonants, words, and word combinations; their gestures are less often integrated with words. Autistic children are less likely to make requests or share experiences and are more likely to simply repeat others' words (echolalia).[105] The CDC estimated in 2015 that around 40% of autistic children do not speak at all.[106] Autistic adults' verbal communication skills largely depend on when and how well speech is acquired during childhood.[102]

 

Autistic people display atypical nonverbal behaviors or show differences in nonverbal communication. They may make infrequent eye contact, even when called by name, or avoid it altogether. This may be due to the high amount of sensory input received when making eye contact.[107] Autistic people often recognize fewer emotions and their meaning from others' facial expressions, and may not respond with facial expressions expected by their non-autistic peers.[108][103] Temple Grandin, an autistic woman involved in autism activism, described her inability to understand neurotypicals' social communication as leaving her feeling "like an anthropologist on Mars".[109] Autistic people struggle to understand the social context and subtext of neurotypical conversational or printed situations, and form different conclusions about the content.[110] Autistic people may not control the volume of their voice in different social settings.[111] At least half of autistic children have atypical prosody.[111]

 

What may look like self-involvement or indifference to non-autistic people stems from autistic differences in recognizing how other people have their own personalities, perspectives, and interests.[110][112] Most published research focuses on the interpersonal relationship difficulties between autistic people and their non-autistic counterparts and how to solve them through teaching neurotypical social skills, but newer research has also evaluated what autistic people want from friendships, such as a sense of belonging and good mental health.[113][114] Children with ASD are more frequently involved in bullying situations than their non-autistic peers, and predominantly experience bullying as victims rather than perpetrators or victim-perpetrators, especially after controlling for comorbid psychopathology.[115] Prioritizing dependability and intimacy in friendships during adolescence, coupled with lowered friendship quantity and quality, often lead to increased loneliness in autistic people.[116] As they progress through life, autistic people observe and form a model of social patterns, and develop coping mechanisms, referred to as "masking",[117][118] which have recently been found to come with psychological costs and a higher increased risk of suicidality.[100]

 

Restricted and repetitive behaviors

Sleeping boy beside a dozen or so toys arranged in a line

A young autistic boy who has arranged his toys in a row

ASD includes a wide variety of characteristics. Some of these include behavioral characteristics, which widely range from slow development of social and learning skills to difficulties creating connections with other people. Autistic people may experience these challenges with forming connections due to anxiety or depression, which they are more likely to experience, and as a result isolate themselves.[119][120]

 

Other behavioral characteristics include abnormal responses to sensations (such as sights, sounds, touch, taste and smell) and problems keeping a consistent speech rhythm. The latter problem influences social skills, leading to potential problems in understanding for interlocutors. Autistic people's behavioral characteristics typically influence development, language, and social competence. Their behavioral characteristics can be observed as perceptual disturbances, disturbances of development rate, relating, speech and language, and motility.[121]

 

The second core symptom of autism spectrum is a pattern of restricted and repetitive behaviors, activities, and interests. In order to be diagnosed with ASD under the DSM-5-TR, a person must have at least two of the following behaviors:[69][122]

  

An autistic boy arranging brads on a cork coaster

Repetitive behaviors – Repetitive behaviors such as rocking, hand flapping, finger flicking, head banging, or repeating phrases or sounds.[123] These behaviors may occur constantly or only when the person gets stressed, anxious, or upset. These behaviors are also known as stimming.

Resistance to change – A strict adherence to routines such as eating certain foods in a specific order or taking the same path to school every day.[123] The person may become distressed if there is a change or disruption to their routine.

Restricted interests – An excessive interest in a particular activity, topic, or hobby, and devoting all their attention to it. For example, young children might completely focus on things that spin and ignore everything else. Older children might try to learn everything about a single topic, such as the weather or sports, and perseverate or talk about it constantly.[123]

Sensory reactivity – An unusual reaction to certain sensory inputs, such as negative reaction to specific sounds or textures, fascination with lights or movements, or apparent indifference to pain or heat.[124]

Autistic people can display many forms of repetitive or restricted behavior, which the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised (RBS-R) categorizes as follows.[125]

 

Stereotyped behaviors: Repetitive movements, such as hand flapping, head rolling, or body rocking.

Compulsive behaviors: Time-consuming behaviors intended to reduce anxiety, that a person feels compelled to perform repeatedly or according to rigid rules, such as placing objects in a specific order, checking things, or handwashing.

Sameness: Resistance to change; for example, insisting that the furniture not be moved or refusing to be interrupted.

Ritualistic behavior: Unvarying pattern of daily activities, such as an unchanging menu or a dressing ritual. This is closely associated with sameness and an independent validation has suggested combining the two factors.[125]

Self-injurious behaviors: Behaviors such as eye-poking, skin-picking, hand-biting and head-banging.[104]

Self-injury and suicide

Self-injurious behaviors are relatively common in autistic people, and can include head-banging, self-cutting, self-biting, and hair-pulling.[126] Some of these can result in serious injury or death.[126] Autistic people are about three times as likely as non-autistic people to engage in self-injury.[127]

 

Theories about the cause of self-injurious behavior in children with developmental delay, including autistic children, include:[128]

 

Frequency or continuation of self-injurious behavior can be influenced by environmental factors (e.g., reward in return for halting self-injurious behavior). This theory does not apply to younger children with autism. There is some evidence that frequency of self-injurious behavior can be reduced by removing or modifying environmental factors that reinforce the behavior.[128]: 10–12 

Higher rates of self-injury are noted in socially isolated autistic people. Studies have shown that socialization skills are related factors to self-injurious behavior for autistic people.[129]

Self-injury could be a response to modulate pain perception when chronic pain or other health problems that cause pain are present.[128]: 12–13 

Abnormal basal ganglia connectivity may predispose to self-injurious behavior.[128]: 13 

Risk factors for self-harm and suicidality include circumstances that could affect anyone, such as mental health problems (e.g., anxiety disorder) and social problems (e.g., unemployment and social isolation), plus factors that affect only autistic people, such as actively trying to behave like like a neurotypical person, which is called masking.[130]

 

Rates of suicidality vary significantly depending upon what is being measured.[130] This is partly because questionnaires developed for neurotypical subjects are not always valid for autistic people.[130] As of 2023, the Suicidal Behaviours Questionnaire–Autism Spectrum Conditions (SBQ-ASC) is the only test validated for autistic people.[130] According to some estimates, about a quarter of autistic youth[131] and a third of all autistic people[130][132] have experienced suicidal ideation at some point. Rates of suicidal ideation are the same for people formally diagnosed with autism and people who have typical intelligence and are believed to have autism but have not been diagnosed.[130]

 

Although most people who attempt suicide are not autistic,[130] autistic people are about three times as likely as non-autistic people to make a suicide attempt.[127][133] Less than 10% of autistic youth have attempted suicide,[131] but 15% to 25% autistic adults have.[130][132] The rates of suicide attempts are the same among people formally diagnosed with autism and those who have typical intelligence and are believed to have autism but have not been diagnosed.[130] The suicide risk is lower among cisgender autistic males and autistic people with intellectual disabilities.[130][133] The rate of suicide results in a global excess mortality among autistic people equal to approximately 2% of all suicide deaths each year.[133]

 

Burnout

Main article: Autistic burnout

 

This section should include a summary of Autistic burnout. See Wikipedia:Summary style for information on how to incorporate it into this article's main text. (August 2024)

Studies have supported the common belief that autistic people become exhausted or burnt out in some situations.[134][135][136][137]

  

In 2021, screenwriter and actor Wentworth Miller revealed his autism diagnosis in a now-deleted Instagram post, stating it was "a shock" but "not a surprise".[138]

Other features

Autistic people may have symptoms that do not contribute to the official diagnosis, but that can affect the person or the family.[139]

 

Some autistic people show unusual or notable abilities, ranging from splinter skills (such as the memorization of trivia) to rare talents in mathematics, music, or artistic reproduction, which in exceptional cases are considered a part of the savant syndrome.[140][141][142] One study describes how some autistic people show superior skills in perception and attention relative to the general population.[143] Sensory abnormalities are found in over 90% of autistic people, and are considered core features by some.[144]

More generally, autistic people tend to show a "spiky skills profile", with strong abilities in some areas contrasting with much weaker abilities in others.[145]

Autistic people are less likely to show cognitive or emotional biases, and usually process information more rationally.[146] On the other hand, most autistic people exhibit lower levels of emotional intelligence, the ability to understand nonverbal clues about other people's feelings.[147]

Differences between the previously recognized disorders under the autism spectrum are greater for under-responsivity (for example, walking into things) than for over-responsivity (for example, distress from loud noises) or for sensation seeking (for example, rhythmic movements).[148] An estimated 60–80% of autistic people have motor signs that include poor muscle tone, poor motor planning, and toe walking;[144][149] deficits in motor coordination are pervasive across ASD and are greater in autism proper.[150][151]

Pathological demand avoidance can occur. People with this set of autistic symptoms are more likely to refuse to do what is asked or expected of them, even to activities they enjoy.

Unusual or atypical eating behavior occurs in about three-quarters of children with ASD, to the extent that it was formerly a diagnostic indicator.[139] Selectivity is the most common problem, although eating rituals and food refusal also occur.[152]

Problematic digital media use

See also: Screen time, Internet addiction disorder, and Video game addiction

This section is an excerpt from Digital media use and mental health § Autism.[edit]

In September 2018, the Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders published a systematic review of 47 studies published from 2005 to 2016 that concluded that associations between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and screen time was inconclusive.[153] In May 2019, the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics published a systematic review of 16 studies that found that children and adolescents with ASD are exposed to more screen time than typically developing peers and that the exposure starts at a younger age.[154] In April 2021, Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders published a systematic review of 12 studies of video game addiction in ASD subjects that found that children, adolescents, and adults with ASD are at greater risk of video game addiction than those without ASD, and that the data from the studies suggested that internal and external factors (sex, attention and oppositional behavior problems, social aspects, access and time spent playing video games, parental rules, and game genre) were significant predictors of video game addiction in ASD subjects.[155] In March 2022, the Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders published a systematic review of 21 studies investigating associations between ASD, problematic internet use, and gaming disorder where the majority of the studies found positive associations between the disorders.[156]

 

In August 2022, the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction published a review of 15 studies that found that high rates of video game use in boys and young males with ASD was predominantly explained by video game addiction, but also concluded that greater video game use could be a function of ASD restricted interest and that video game addiction and ASD restricted interest could have an interactive relationship.[157] In December 2022, the Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders published a systematic review of 10 studies researching the prevalence of problematic internet use with ASD that found that ASD subjects had more symptoms of problematic internet use than control group subjects, had higher screen time online and an earlier age of first-time use of the internet, and also greater symptoms of depression and ADHD.[158] In July 2023, Cureus published a systematic review of 11 studies that concluded that earlier and longer screen time exposure for children was associated with higher probability of a child "developing" ASD.[159] In December 2023, JAMA Network Open published a meta-analysis of 46 studies comprising 562,131 subjects that concluded that while screen time may be a developmental cause of ASD in childhood, associations between ASD and screen time were not statistically significant when accounting for publication bias.[160]

Possible causes

Main article: Causes of autism

Exactly what causes autism remains unknown.[161][162][163][164] It was long mostly presumed that there is a common cause at the genetic, cognitive, and neural levels for the social and non-social components of ASD's symptoms, described as a triad in the classic autism criteria.[165] But it is increasingly suspected that autism is instead a complex disorder whose core aspects have distinct causes that often cooccur.[165][166] It is unlikely that ASD has a single cause;[166] many risk factors identified in the research literature may contribute to ASD. These include genetics, prenatal and perinatal factors (meaning factors during pregnancy or very early infancy), neuroanatomical abnormalities, and environmental factors. It is possible to identify general factors, but much more difficult to pinpoint specific ones. Given the current state of knowledge, prediction can only be of a global nature and so requires the use of general markers.[clarification needed][167]

 

Biological subgroups

Research into causes has been hampered by the inability to identify biologically meaningful subgroups within the autistic population[168] and by the traditional boundaries between the disciplines of psychiatry, psychology, neurology and pediatrics.[169] Newer technologies such as fMRI and diffusion tensor imaging can help identify biologically relevant phenotypes (observable traits) that can be viewed on brain scans, to help further neurogenetic studies of autism;[170] one example is lowered activity in the fusiform face area of the brain, which is associated with impaired perception of people versus objects.[171] It has been proposed to classify autism using genetics as well as behavior.[172]

 

Syndromic autism and non-syndromic autism

Main article: Syndromic autism

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be classified into two categories: "syndromic autism" and "non-syndromic autism".

 

Syndromic autism refers to cases where ASD is one of the characteristics associated with a broader medical condition or syndrome, representing about 25% of ASD cases. The causes of syndromic autism are often known, and monogenic disorders account for approximately 5% of these cases.

 

Non-syndromic autism, also known as classic or idiopathic autism, represents the majority of cases, and its cause is typically polygenic and unknown.

 

Genetics

Main articles: Heritability of autism and Epigenetics of autism

See also: Missing heritability problem

 

Hundreds of different genes are implicated in susceptibility to developing autism,[173] most of which alter the brain structure in a similar way.

Autism has a strong genetic basis, although the genetics of autism are complex and it is unclear whether ASD is explained more by rare mutations with major effects, or by rare multi-gene interactions of common genetic variants.[174][175] Complexity arises due to interactions among multiple genes, the environment, and epigenetic factors which do not change DNA sequencing but are heritable and influence gene expression.[176] Many genes have been associated with autism through sequencing the genomes of affected people and their parents.[177] But most of the mutations that increase autism risk have not been identified. Typically, autism cannot be traced to a Mendelian (single-gene) mutation or to a single chromosome abnormality, and none of the genetic syndromes associated with ASD have been shown to selectively cause ASD.[174] Numerous genes have been found, with only small effects attributable to any particular gene.[174] Most loci individually explain less than 1% of cases of autism.[178] As of 2018, it appeared that between 74% and 93% of ASD risk is heritable.[122] After an older child is diagnosed with ASD, 7% to 20% of subsequent children are likely to be as well.[122] If parents have one autistic child, they have a 2% to 8% chance of having a second child who is autistic. If the autistic child is an identical twin, the other will be affected 36% to 95% of the time. A fraternal twin is affected up to 31% of the time.[179] The large number of autistic people with unaffected family members may result from spontaneous structural variation, such as deletions, duplications or inversions in genetic material during meiosis.[180][181] Hence, a substantial fraction of autism cases may be traceable to genetic causes that are highly heritable but not inherited: that is, the mutation that causes the autism is not present in the parental genome.[182]

 

As of 2018, understanding of genetic risk factors had shifted from a focus on a few alleles to an understanding that genetic involvement in ASD is probably diffuse, depending on a large number of variants, some of which are common and have a small effect, and some of which are rare and have a large effect. The most common gene disrupted with large effect rare variants appeared to be CHD8, but less than 0.5% of autistic people have such a mutation. The gene CHD8 encodes the protein chromodomain helicase DNA binding protein 8, which is a chromatin regulator enzyme that is essential during fetal development. CHD8 is an adenosine triphosphate (ATP)–dependent enzyme.[183][184][185] The protein contains an Snf2 helicase domain that is responsible for the hydrolysis of ATP to adenosine diphosphate (ADP).[185] CHD8 encodes a DNA helicase that functions as a repressor of transcription, remodeling chromatin structure by altering the position of nucleosomes. CHD8 negatively regulates Wnt signaling. Wnt signaling is important in the vertebrate early development and morphogenesis. It is believed that CHD8 also recruits the linker histone H1 and causes the repression of β-catenin and p53 target genes.[183] The importance of CHD8 can be observed in studies where CHD8-knockout mice died after 5.5 embryonic days because of widespread p53-induced apoptosis. Some studies have determined the role of CHD8 in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). CHD8 expression significantly increases during human mid-fetal development.[183] The chromatin remodeling activity and its interaction with transcriptional regulators have shown to play an important role in ASD aetiology.[184] The developing mammalian brain has conserved CHD8 target regions that are associated with ASD risk genes.[186] The knockdown of CHD8 in human neural stem cells results in dysregulation of ASD risk genes that are targeted by CHD8.[187] Recently CHD8 has been associated with the regulation of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs),[188] and the regulation of X chromosome inactivation (XCI) initiation, via regulation of Xist long non-coding RNA,[ambiguous] the master regulator of XCI,[ambiguous] though competitive binding to Xist regulatory regions.[189]

 

Some ASD is associated with clearly genetic conditions, like fragile X syndrome, but only around 2% of autistic people have fragile X.[122] Hypotheses from evolutionary psychiatry suggest that these genes persist because they are linked to human inventiveness, intelligence or systemising.[190][191]

 

Current research suggests that genes that increase susceptibility to ASD are ones that control protein synthesis in neuronal cells in response to cell needs, activity and adhesion of neuronal cells, synapse formation and remodeling, and excitatory to inhibitory neurotransmitter balance. Therefore, although up to 1,000 different genes are thought to increase the risk of ASD, all of them eventually affect normal neural development and connectivity between different functional areas of the brain in a similar manner that is characteristic of an ASD brain. Some of these genes are known to modulate production of the GABA neurotransmitter, the nervous system's main inhibitory neurotransmitter. These GABA-related genes are under-expressed in an ASD brain. On the other hand, genes controlling expression of glial and immune cells in the brain, e.g. astrocytes and microglia, respectively, are overexpressed, which correlates with increased number of glial and immune cells found in postmortem ASD brains. Some genes under investigation in ASD pathophysiology are those that affect the mTOR signaling pathway, which supports cell growth and survival.[192]

 

All these genetic variants contribute to the development of the autism spectrum, but it cannot be guaranteed that they are determinants for the development.[193]

 

ASD may be under-diagnosed in women and girls due to an assumption that it is primarily a male condition,[194] but genetic phenomena such as imprinting and X linkage have the ability to raise the frequency and severity of conditions in males, and theories have been put forward for a genetic reason why males are diagnosed more often, such as the imprinted brain hypothesis and the extreme male brain theory.[195][196][197]

 

Early life

See also: Refrigerator mother theory

Several prenatal and perinatal complications have been reported as possible risk factors for autism. These risk factors include maternal gestational diabetes, maternal and paternal age over 30,[198][199][200] bleeding during pregnancy after the first trimester, use of certain prescription medication (e.g. valproate) during pregnancy, and meconium in the amniotic fluid. Research is not conclusive on the relation of these factors to autism, but each of them has been identified more frequently in children with autism compared to their siblings who do not have autism and other typically developing youth.[201] While it is unclear if any single factors during the prenatal phase affect the risk of autism,[202] complications during pregnancy may be a risk.[202]

 

There are also studies being done to test whether certain types of regressive autism have an autoimmune basis.[203]

 

Maternal nutrition and inflammation during preconception and pregnancy influences fetal neurodevelopment. Intrauterine growth restriction is associated with ASD, in both term and preterm infants.[204] Maternal inflammatory and autoimmune diseases may damage fetal tissues, aggravating a genetic problem or damaging the nervous system.[205] Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have found that maternal prenatal infections, prenatal antibiotic exposure, and post-term pregnancies are associated with increased risk of ASD in children.[206][207][208]

 

Exposure to air pollution during child pregnancy, especially heavy metals and particulates, may increase the risk of autism.[209][210] Environmental factors that have been claimed without evidence to contribute to or exacerbate autism include certain foods, infectious diseases, solvents, PCBs, phthalates and phenols used in plastic products, pesticides, brominated flame retardants, alcohol, smoking, illicit drugs, vaccines,[211] and prenatal stress. Some, such as the MMR vaccine, have been completely disproven.[212][213][214][215]

 

Disproven vaccine hypothesis

Main articles: Vaccines and autism and MMR vaccine and autism

Parents may first become aware of ASD symptoms in their child around the time of a routine vaccination. This has led to unsupported and disproven theories blaming vaccine "overload", the vaccine preservative thiomersal, or the MMR vaccine for causing autism spectrum disorder.[216] In 1998, British physician and academic Andrew Wakefield led a fraudulent, litigation-funded study that suggested that the MMR vaccine may cause autism.[217][218][219][220][221]

 

Two versions of the vaccine causation hypothesis were that autism results from brain damage caused by either the MMR vaccine itself, or by mercury used as a vaccine preservative.[222] No convincing scientific evidence supports these claims.[39] They are biologically implausible,[216] and further evidence continues to refute them, including the observation that the rate of autism continues to climb despite elimination of thimerosal from most routine vaccines given to children from birth to 6 years of age.[223][224][225][226][227]

 

A 2014 meta-analysis examined ten major studies on autism and vaccines involving 1.25 million children worldwide; it concluded that neither the vaccine preservative thimerosal (mercury), nor the MMR vaccine, which has never contained thimerosal,[228] lead to the development of ASDs.[229] Despite this, misplaced parental concern has led to lower rates of childhood immunizations, outbreaks of previously controlled childhood diseases in some countries, and the preventable deaths of several children.[230][231]

 

Etiological hypotheses

Several hypotheses have been presented that try to explain how and why autism develops by integrating known causes (genetic and environmental effects) and findings (neurobiological and somatic). Some are more comprehensive, such as the Pathogenetic Triad, which proposes and operationalizes three core features (an autistic personality, cognitive compensation, neuropathological burden) that interact to cause autism,[232] and the Intense World Theory, which explains autism through a hyper-active neurobiology that leads to an increased perception, attention, memory, and emotionality.[233] There are also simpler hypotheses that explain only individual parts of the neurobiology or phenotype of autism, such as mind-blindness (a decreased ability for theory of mind), the weak central coherence theory, or the extreme male brain and empathising–systemising theory.

 

Evolutionary hypotheses

See also: Evolutionary psychology and Pleiotropy § Autism and schizophrenia

Research exploring the evolutionary benefits of autism and associated genes has suggested that autistic people may have played a "unique role in technological spheres and understanding of natural systems" in the course of human development.[234][235] It has been suggested that autism may have arisen as "a slight trade off for other traits that are seen as highly advantageous", providing "advantages in tool making and mechanical thinking", with speculation that the condition may "reveal itself to be the result of a balanced polymorphism, like sickle cell anemia, that is advantageous in a certain mixture of genes and disadvantageous in specific combinations".[236] In 2011, a paper in Evolutionary Psychology proposed that autistic traits, including increased spatial intelligence, concentration and memory, could have been naturally selected to enable self-sufficient foraging in a more (although not completely) solitary environment. This is called the "Solitary Forager Hypothesis".[237][238][239] A 2016 paper examines Asperger syndrome as "an alternative prosocial adaptive strategy" that may have developed as a result of the emergence of "collaborative morality" in the context of small-scale hunter-gathering, i.e., where "a positive social reputation for making a contribution to group wellbeing and survival" becomes more important than complex social understanding.[240]

 

Some research suggests that recent human evolution may be a driving force in the rise of autism in recent human populations. Studies in evolutionary medicine indicate that as cultural evolution outpaces biological evolution, disorders linked to bodily dysfunction increase in prevalence due to lack of contact with pathogens and negative environmental conditions that once widely affected ancestral populations. Because natural selection favors reproduction over health and longevity, the lack of this impetus to adapt to certain harmful circumstances creates a tendency for genes in descendant populations to over-express themselves, which may cause a wide array of maladies, ranging from mental disorders to autoimmune diseases.[241] Conversely, noting the failure to find specific alleles that reliably cause autism or rare mutations that account for more than 5% of the heritable variation in autism established by twin and adoption studies, research in evolutionary psychiatry has concluded that it is unlikely that there is selection pressure for autism when considering that, like schizophrenics, autistic people and their siblings tend to have fewer offspring on average than non-autistic people, and instead that autism is probably better explained as a by-product of adaptive traits caused by antagonistic pleiotropy and by genes that are retained due to a fitness landscape with an asymmetric distribution.[242][243][244]

 

Pathophysiology

Main articles: Mechanism of autism and Pathophysiology of autism

[icon]

This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (October 2024)

Diagnosis

Main article: Diagnosis of autism

 

This section should include a summary of Diagnosis of autism. See Wikipedia:Summary style for information on how to incorporate it into this article's main text. (August 2024)

This section is an excerpt from Diagnosis of autism.[edit]

The diagnosis of autism is based on a person's reported and directly observed behavior.[245] There are no known biomarkers for autism spectrum conditions that allow for a conclusive diagnosis.[246]

 

In most cases, diagnostic criteria codified in the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (ICD) or the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) are used. These reference manuals are regularly updated based on advances in research, systematic evaluation of clinical experience, and healthcare considerations. Currently, the DSM-5 published in 2013 and the ICD-10 that came into effect in 1994 are used, with the latter in the process of being replaced by the ICD-11 that came into effect in 2022 and is now implemented by healthcare systems across the world. Which autism spectrum diagnoses can be made and which criteria are used depends on the local healthcare system's regulations.

 

According to the DSM-5-TR (2022), in order to receive a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, one must present with "persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction" and "restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities."[247] These behaviors must begin in early childhood and affect one's ability to perform everyday tasks. Furthermore, the symptoms must not be fully explainable by intellectual developmental disorder or global developmental delay.

Conditions correlated or comorbid to autism

Main article: Conditions comorbid to autism spectrum disorders

 

Euler diagram showing overlapping clinical phenotypes in genes associated with monogenic forms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), dystonia, epilepsy and schizophrenia:

Genes associated with epilepsy

Genes associated with schizophrenia

Genes associated with autism spectrum disorder

Genes associated with dystonia

Autism is correlated or comorbid with several personality traits/disorders.[171] Comorbidity may increase with age and may worsen the course of youth with ASDs and make intervention and treatment more difficult. Distinguishing between ASDs and other diagnoses can be challenging because the traits of ASDs often overlap with symptoms of other disorders, and the characteristics of ASDs make traditional diagnostic procedures difficult.[248][249]

 

Correlations

Research indicates that autistic people are significantly more likely to be LGBT than the general population.[33] There is tentative evidence that gender dysphoria occurs more frequently in autistic people.[250][251] A 2021 anonymized online survey of 16- to 90-year-olds revealed that autistic males are more likely to identify as bisexual than their non-autistic peers, while autistic females are more likely to identify as homosexual than non-autistic females do.[252][non-primary source needed]

 

People on the autism spectrum are significantly more likely to be non-theistic than members of the general population.[253]

 

Comorbidities

 

A 2024 Danish cohort study found increased risks for a multitude of comorbid physical diseases, especially in infancy.

The most common medical condition occurring in autistic people is seizure disorder or epilepsy, which occurs in 11–39% of autistic people.[254] The risk varies with age, cognitive level, and type of language disorder.[255]

Tuberous sclerosis, an autosomal dominant genetic condition in which non-malignant tumors grow in the brain and on other vital organs, is present in 1–4% of autistic people.[256]

Intellectual disabilities are some of the most common comorbid disorders with ASDs. As diagnosis is increasingly being given to people with higher functioning autism, there is a tendency for the proportion with comorbid intellectual disability to decrease over time. In a 2019 study, it was estimated that approximately 30–40% of people diagnosed with ASD also have intellectual disability.[257] Recent research has suggested that autistic people with intellectual disability tend to have rarer, more harmful, genetic mutations than those found in people solely diagnosed with autism.[258] A number of genetic syndromes causing intellectual disability may also be comorbid with ASD, including fragile X, Down, Prader-Willi, Angelman, Williams syndrome,[259] branched-chain keto acid dehydrogenase kinase deficiency,[260][261] and SYNGAP1-related intellectual disability.[262][263]

Learning disabilities are also highly comorbid in people with an ASD. Approximately 25–75% of people with an ASD also have some degree of a learning disability.[264] In particular, attention deficit disorder, which is generally more prevalent than autism (ca. 8% vs. 1%), is not directly related, though it is sometimes comorbid with autism.[265]

Various anxiety disorders tend to co-occur with ASDs, with overall comorbidity rates of 7–84%.[266] They are common among children with ASD; there are no firm data, but studies have reported prevalences ranging from 11% to 84%. Many anxiety disorders have symptoms that are better explained by ASD itself or are hard to distinguish from ASD's symptoms.[267]

Rates of comorbid depression in people with an ASD range from 4–58%.[268]

The relationship between ASD and schizophrenia remains a controversial subject under continued investigation, and recent meta-analyses have examined genetic, environmental, infectious, and immune risk factors that may be shared between the two conditions.[269][270][271] Oxidative stress, DNA damage and DNA repair have been postulated to play a role in the aetiopathology of both ASD and schizophrenia.[272]

Deficits in ASD are often linked to behavior problems, such as difficulties following directions, being cooperative, and doing things on other people's terms.[273] Symptoms similar to those of ADHD can be part of an ASD diagnosis.[274]

Sensory processing disorder is also comorbid with ASD, with comorbidity rates of 42–88%.[275]

Starting in adolescence, some people with Asperger syndrome (26% in one sample)[276] fall under the criteria for the similar condition schizoid personality disorder, which is characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency towards a solitary or sheltered lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness, detachment and apathy.[276][277][278] Asperger syndrome was traditionally called "schizoid disorder of childhood".

Genetic disorders – about 10–15% of autism cases have an identifiable Mendelian (single-gene) condition, chromosome abnormality, or other genetic syndromes.[279]

Several metabolic defects, such as phenylketonuria, are associated with autistic symptoms.[280]

Gastrointestinal problems are one of the most commonly co-occurring medical conditions in autistic people.[281] These are linked to greater social impairment, irritability, language impairments, mood changes, and behavior and sleep problems.[281][282][283] A 2015 review proposed that immune, gastrointestinal inflammation, malfunction of the autonomic nervous system, gut flora alterations, and food metabolites may cause brain neuroinflammation and dysfunction.[282] A 2016 review concludes that enteric nervous system abnormalities might play a role in neurological disorders such as autism. Neural connections and the immune system are a pathway that may allow diseases originated in the intestine to spread to the brain.[283]

Sleep problems affect about two-thirds of autistic people at some point in childhood. These most commonly include symptoms of insomnia, such as difficulty falling asleep, frequent nocturnal awakenings, and early morning awakenings. Sleep problems are associated with difficult behaviors and family stress, and are often a focus of clinical attention over and above the primary ASD diagnosis.[284]

Dysautonomia is common in ASD, affecting heart rate and blood pressure and causing symptoms such as brain fog, blurry vision, and bowel dysfunction.[285] It can be diagnosed through a Tilt table test.[286]

The frequency of ASD is 10 times higher in mast cell activation syndrome patients than in the general population. This immunological condition causes cardiovascular, dermatological, gastrointestinal, neurological, and respiratory problems.[287]

Management

Main article: Autism therapies

See also: Autism-friendly

There is no treatment as such for autism,[288] and many sources advise that this is not an appropriate goal,[289][290] although treatment of co-occurring conditions remains an important goal.[291] There is no cure for autism, nor can any of the known treatments significantly reduce brain mutations caused by autism, although those who require little to no support are more likely to experience a lessening of symptoms over time.[292][293][294] Several interventions can help children with autism,[295] and no single treatment is best, with treatment typically tailored to the child's needs.[296] Studies of interventions have methodological problems that prevent definitive conclusions about efficacy,[297] but the development of evidence-based interventions has advanced.[298]

 

The main goals of treatment are to lessen associated deficits and family distress, and to increase quality of life and functional independence. In general, higher IQs are correlated with greater responsiveness to treatment and improved treatment outcomes.[299][298] Behavioral, psychological, education, and skill-building interventions may be used to assist autistic people to learn life skills necessary for living independently,[300] as well as other social, communication, and language skills. Therapy also aims to reduce challenging behaviors and build upon strengths.[301]

 

Intensive, sustained special education programs and behavior therapy early in life may help children acquire self-care, language, and job skills.[296] Although evidence-based interventions for autistic children vary in their methods, many adopt a psychoeducational approach to enhancing cognitive, communication, and social skills while minimizing problem behaviors. While medications have not been found to help with core symptoms, they may be used for associated symptoms, such as irritability, inattention, or repetitive behavior patterns.[302]

 

Non-pharmacological interventions

Intensive, sustained special education or remedial education programs and behavior therapy early in life may help children acquire self-care, social, and job skills. Available approaches include applied behavior analysis, developmental models, structured teaching, speech and language therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy,[303] social skills therapy, and occupational therapy.[304] Among these approaches, interventions either treat autistic features comprehensively, or focus treatment on a specific area of deficit.[298] Generally, when educating those with autism, specific tactics may be used to effectively relay information to these people. Using as much social interaction as possible is key in targeting the inhibition autistic people experience concerning person-to-person contact. Additionally, research has shown that employing semantic groupings, which involves assigning words to typical conceptual categories, can be beneficial in fostering learning.[305]

 

There has been increasing attention to the development of evidence-based interventions for autistic young children. Three theoretical frameworks outlined for early childhood intervention include applied behavior analysis (ABA), the developmental social-pragmatic model (DSP) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).[303][298] Although ABA therapy has a strong evidence base, particularly in regard to early intensive home-based therapy, ABA's effectiveness may be limited by diagnostic severity and IQ of the person affected by ASD.[306] The Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology has published a paper deeming two early childhood interventions "well-established": individual comprehensive ABA, and focused teacher-implemented ABA combined with DSP.[298]

 

Many people have criticized ABA, calling it unhelpful and unethical.[307][308][309] Sandoval-Norton et al. also discuss the "unintended but damaging consequences, such as prompt dependency, psychological abuse and compliance" that result in autistic people facing challenges as they transition into adulthood.[307] Some ABA advocates have responded to such critiques that, instead of stopping ABA, there should be movement to increase protections and ethical compliance when working with autistic children.[310]

 

Another evidence-based intervention that has demonstrated efficacy is a parent training model, which teaches parents how to implement various ABA and DSP techniques themselves.[298] Various DSP programs have been developed to explicitly deliver intervention systems through at-home parent implementation.

 

In October 2015, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) proposed new evidence-based recommendations for early interventions in ASD for children under 3.[311] These recommendations emphasize early involvement with both developmental and behavioral methods, support by and for parents and caregivers, and a focus on both the core and associated symptoms of ASD.[311] But a Cochrane review found no evidence that early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) is effective in reducing behavioral problems associated with autism in most autistic children, though it did improve IQ and language skills. The Cochrane review acknowledged that this may be due to the low quality of studies available on EIBI and therefore providers should recommend EIBI based on their clinical judgment and the family's preferences. No adverse effects of EIBI treatment were found.[312] A meta-analysis in that same database indicates that due to the heterology in ASD, children progress to differing early intervention modalities based on ABA.[313]

 

ASD treatment generally focuses on behavioral and educational interventions to target its two core symptoms: social communication deficits and restricted, repetitive behaviors. If symptoms continue after behavioral strategies have been implemented, some medications can be recommended to target specific symptoms or co-existing problems such as restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs), anxiety, depression, hyperactivity/inattention and sleep disturbance.[314] Melatonin, for example, can be used for sleep problems.[315]

 

Several parent-mediated behavioral therapies target social communication deficits in children with autism, but their efficacy in treating RRBs is uncertain.[316]

 

Education

A young child points, in front of a woman who smiles and points in the same direction.

An autistic three-year-old points to fish in an aquarium, as part of an experiment on the effect of intensive shared-attention training on language development.[317]

Educational interventions often used include applied behavior analysis (ABA), developmental models, structured teaching, speech and language therapy and social skills therapy.[296] Among these approaches, interventions either treat autistic features comprehensively, or focalize treatment on a specific area of deficit.[298]

 

The quality of research for early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI)—a treatment procedure incorporating over 30 hours per week of the structured type of ABA that is carried out with very young children—is low; more vigorous research designs with larger sample sizes are needed.[312] Two theoretical frameworks outlined for early childhood intervention include structured and naturalistic ABA interventions, and developmental social pragmatic models (DSP).[298] One interventional strategy utilizes a parent training model, which teaches parents how to implement various ABA and DSP techniques, allowing for parents to disseminate interventions themselves.[298] Various DSP programs have been developed to explicitly deliver intervention systems through at-home parent implementation. Despite the recent development of parent training models, these interventions have demonstrated effectiveness in numerous studies, being evaluated as a probable efficacious mode of treatment.[298] Early, intensive ABA therapy has demonstrated effectiveness in enhancing communication and adaptive functioning in preschool children;[296][318] it is also well-established for improving the intellectual performance of that age group.[296]

 

In 2018, a Cochrane meta-analysis database concluded that some recent research is beginning to suggest that because of the heterology of ASD, there are two different ABA teaching approaches to acquiring spoken language: children with higher receptive language skills respond to 2.5 to 20 hours per week of the naturalistic approach, whereas children with lower receptive language skills require 25 hou

Demonstrating the small-scale, precise inoculation by spraying of wheat seedlings with stem rust using a stored spore sample in the laboratory, at the Njoro research station, part of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI).

 

The demonstration was carried out by Matthew Rouse, a PhD student at the University of Minnesota, working with the USDA. It was part of a two-week international training course on “Stem Rust Note Taking and Evaluation of Germplasm” hosted by KARI at Njoro from 28 September to 7 October 2009. The course was attended by scientists from over 20 countries, many of whom are collaborators with the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI). It was jointly organized by CIMMYT, the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat Project, KARI, and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).

 

Njoro is home to an ongoing screening program, working in close partnership with CIMMYT to identify sources of resistance to the Ug99 race of stem rust. This virulent new strain of the disease, which emerged in Uganda in 1999, is already endemic in the area, making it possible to use Njoro as a testing ground for wheats from many different partner countries all over the world. More than 30,000 wheat lines are now being screened each year.

 

For more about the training course, see CIMMYT's blog story at: blog.cimmyt.org/?p=2224

 

For more information on stem rust, see CIMMYT's Wheat Doctor: wheatdoctor.cimmyt.org/en/pests-a-diseases/list/122?task=....

 

For information on collection and inoculation techniques, see the CIMMYT publication "Rust diseases of wheat: Concepts and methods of disease management", available as a pdf at: libcatalog.cimmyt.org/download/cim/38487.pdf.

 

For more on CIMMYT's ongoing work on Ug99, see the following e-news stories:

2010, "Planting for the future: New rust resistant wheat seed on its way to farmers": www.cimmyt.org/newsletter/231-2010/716-planting-for-the-f....

October 2009, "From Cairo to Kabul: Rust resistant wheat seed just in time": www.cimmyt.org/newsletter/38-2009/460-from-cairo-to-kabul....

December 2008, "Report from the field: Wheat stem rust resistance screening at Njoro, Kenya": www.cimmyt.org/newsletter/37-2008/110-genetic-resources-p....

December 2006, "Threat level rising": www.cimmyt.org/newsletter/82-2006/263-threat-level-rising.

September 2005, "The World’s Wheat Crop is Under Threat from New Disease": www.cimmyt.org/newsletter/86-2005/331-the-worlds-wheat-cr....

 

Photo credit: Petr Kosina/CIMMYT.

Church of St Lawrence Bidford on Avon, Warwickshire - The precise date of the founding of the church is unknown, No priest is mentioned here in the 1086 Domesday Survey and if there was a church here then, it was probably a chapelry of Salford.. It appears as such in Henry I's time when Bernard, the first Prior of Kenilworth (1122–30), successfully claimed it for his house and the Canons of Kenilworth presented until the Dissolution . - The first named incumbent is of 1206 followed by a second 75 years later.

After the mid 16c Dissolution of Kenilworth Abbey, certain lands were granted in 1544 to Thomas Broke, merchant, of London. in 1602 Rice Griffin of Brome Court flic.kr/p/2ff6ysh sold the advowson and rectory to Sir John Sedley …...

 

Standing at the crossing of an ancient trade route, the area has long been inhabited, The remains of a Roman bridge have been found and also an Anglo-Saxon graveyard.

The present church dates largely from 1835 when the old nave was pulled down and a new, wider one built by architect Joseph Lattimore of Stratford. The nave pews were taken out in the 1960s

The c1250 tower and chancel both survive . The tower battlements probably dating from the 1835 rebuilding.

 

On the south chancel wall is a portrait in stone of Dorothy Skipwith who died 3rd February, 1655, she was the 1st wife of Fulwar Skipworth d1678 of Newbold Hall, who bought the manor in 1654 from Sir John Clarke , and in whose family it descended until 1840- Dorothy was the daughter of Thomas Parker of Bottesham by Elizabeth daughter of Thomas Hobson.

Also on the same wall is a memorial to Woodchurch Clarke d1647 - Sadly there is not picture of these to be had, and the church is usually locked.

 

There are 8 bells in the tower which are still rung regularly, six dating from 1791 with two added in 1954. The clock dates from 1683 and was rebuilt in 1887. An automatic winding mechanism being installed in 2005.

Public Domain Book: The history of magic : including a clear and precise exposition of its procedure, its rites and its mysteries

by Lévi, Eliphas, 1810-1875

 

Published 1922

 

archive.org/details/historyofmagicin00lv

 

Tank Infantry Mark III, Valentine IX (E2000.577)

The precise identity of this tank is not clear, all identification marks having been removed many years ago. It stood outside the Army Base at Long Kesh in Northern Ireland for many years, subsequently moving to the Maze Prison and Lisanelly Camp, Omagh.

It was subsequently acquired by Vickers Defence Systems and restored to running order in Newcastle using the engine from our Valentine Archer (E1969.43). In due course it was offered to the Tank Museum on loan and ultimately, in March 2002 was gifted to the Museum.

The Valentine Mark IX was upgunned to fit a 57mm (six-pounder) gun into the turret although this did not leave enough room for a co-axial machine gun and in any case, with just a two-man turret crew the tank was very difficult to fight.

Our tank carried the number T123358 on the turret which is correct for the type but not necessarily for this actual vehicle. Mark IX Valentines saw service in North Africa and some may have been suppplied to Russia but by 1943 the Valentine had been replaced in front line service by more modern vehicles and was either being relegated to secondary roles or supplied to other countries such as Portugal.

The Valentine development started without a specification from the War Office (hence the absence of an army designation), as a private design by Sir John Carden, and was submitted on February, 10, 1938, to the authorities. By then, the Matilda II had been chosen for production, but the Valentine was something different.

Vickers engineers basically tried to enhance their A10 Cruiser tank design, with a dramatic increase in protection (up to 60 mm/2.36 in). This choice allowed the use most components and parts of the already produced Cruiser I and II, therefore creating an efficient and cheap solution to the need of new infantry tank models. By then, the Matilda II was found to be far costlier than the Matilda I, and not suitable for mass-production. Comparatively, the Valentine seemed a good compromise. The name itself still is a mystery. It could have originated either from Sir John Carden’s middle name, or the date of its first submission (St. Valentine day), or a composed Vickers factory codename, though most historians agree that Valentine was just a simple codename during development.

The Mark I set the tone for the entire series of eleven main variants, with many sub-variants, and a staggering total of 8300 units. The main armament and turret design, as well as the engine and protection, were continuously improved while keeping roughly the same general appearance until 1945. The Mk.I was recognizable by its original two-man turret and 2-pdr (40 mm/1.575 in) gun. From the start, a coaxial Besa machine-gun constitued the secondary armament. The crew consisted of only three men due to the cramped interior, and the commander was also busy as gun loader, machine-gunner and radio operator. The production was rushed to such point that many problems were later detected and fixed with the next Mk.II. The main engine was the AEG A189 petrol delivering only 135 hp, and the hull was riveted. 350 were delivered in all, most seeing action in Libya, while others stayed at home for training.

 

Tankfest by World of Tanks - 24.-25.6.2016

The Tank Museum - Bovington, UK

Worlds biggest and best live display of historic armour, living history, and much more at the Home of the Tank - The Tank Museum, Bovington, United Kingdom.

 

More from Tankfest:

www.flickr.com/photos/jukkaokauppinen2/albums/72157670621...

More from me:

www.flickr.com/photos/jukkaokauppinen

Tankfest videos:

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIGRHBJyGQb3PpXwFlOKve2OUJ...

My Imgur galleries:

grendelb.imgur.com/

   

At the precise second of writing this, this is the 1,761,320th flower photo posted on flickr. I had been hoping for a special surprise prize for the 2 million-th flower photo ! Keep on shooting ... :-)

trying to figure out how to put the next can on without knocking all the other ones down....

21x10

21x11.5

 

COR Classic Series: Precise

 

Finished in Anodized Grey Centers and Polished Step Lips

(le français suit l'anglais)

 

Theodolite

Thomas Cooke and Sons

York, England

1910

Artifact No. 2011.0002

 

This theodolite, a precise survey instrument used to determine horizontal and vertical angles belonged to the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-1913 under the leadership of Capt. Robert Falcon Scott.

 

The expedition became as infamous in the annals of polar exploration, as had the Franklin expedition to the Canadian Arctic, both because Scott’s team was beaten to the South Pole by Norwegian Roald Amundsen and because of the fate of Scott and the four members who accompanied him to the South Pole.

 

Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation

www.technomuses.ca/our_corporation/index_e.asp

Photo: CSTMC

________________________________

 

Théodolite

Thomas Cooke and Sons

York (ANGLETERRE)

1910

N° d’artefact : 2011.0002

 

Ce théodolite, un instrument de précision utilisé en arpentage pour mesurer les angles horizontaux et verticaux a servit lors de l’expédition britannique en Antarctique de 1910-1913, dirigée par le capitaine Robert Falcon Scott.

 

L'expédition est devenue aussi tristement célèbre dans les annales de l’exploration polaire que l’expédition Franklin dans l’Arctique canadien, non seulement parce que le Norvégien Roald Amundsen a atteint le pôle Sud avant l’équipe de Scott, mais aussi à cause du sort de Scott et des quatre membres de l’expédition qui l’ont accompagné jusqu’au pôle.

 

Société des musées de sciences et technologies du Canada

www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca/francais/index.cfm

Photo : SMSTC

 

1974 Chevy Caprice w/ 26" COR Precise Wheels.

 

Contact Info

Web: www.corwheels.com/precise-super-concave/

Phone: 305.477.5850

Email: info@corwheels.com

 

Stay in the loop

www.facebook.com/CORForged

twitter.com/cor_forged

Precise parking.

Kaminakazato, Tokyo.

Nikon D300S + SIGMA 17-70/2.8-4 DC MACRO OS HSM

Field Trip - Roughdown Common - 13/06/17

 

I had an eventful trip to Roughdown Common whereby we planned to run as many traps as possible, conditions were absolutely perfect, warm and humid with some cloud cover.

We started the evening setting the first trap up in the field where there were three Cattle, Belted Galloways to be precise.

They greeted us and then seemed to leave us alone for a bit after cleaning the cars with their tongues and having a good old itch on Steve's rear bumper.

We left the field to set up a few more traps and then returned back to the car for more equipment, to our agony the trap had been thoroughly inspected by the cattle and there was slobber all over the trap and they did a mighty fine job of smashing the bulb but it could have been A LOT worse as the fragile plastic collar (the second most important part of the trap after the bulb) was still intact! How on earth it escaped being trodden on I do not know.

Luckily Ian said he would nip back home and grab his spare bulb and we moved the trap through the gate and shut the gate....but they had done their 'investigating' and moved off for the rest of the night down the bottom of the field.

 

After setting all the traps were set up, the battery operated one was low on juice..another minor set-back as we would only get possibly 2 hours life out of the tracer lithium ion battery.

 

Things come in three's and of course nothing could be worse than a generator stopping, yep that's what happened...trying to get it started again flooded the spark plug and luckily I could use the spare that I had brought with me.

 

Onto the moths and boy were we in for a night! The species just kept coming and coming and at one stage I couldn't keep typing the list.

 

There are a few to check but best species so far were singles of Obscure Wainscot, Anania perlucidalis, Anarsia innoxiella and two good plume species (one to be checked) Merrifieldia leucodactyla/baliodactylus and Gillmeria pallidactyla.

 

Thanks to Roger, Steve and Ian for helping out until the small hours, another successful trip with at least 160 species seen!

 

Catch Report - 13/06/17 - Roughdown Common - West Herts - 7 traps in total - 2x 125w MV Robinson Trap 1x 160w MBT Robinson Trap 1x 40w Actinic + 15w LED Trap 1x 80w Actinic Trap 2x 20w Wemlite Actinic Trap 1x 15w Actinic Portable Heath Trap

 

85 Macros & 75 Micros

 

160 species

 

Numbers approximate

 

Macro Moths

 

Alder Moth 2

Beautiful Hook-tip 6

Blue bordered Carpet 1

Brimstone 4

Broken-barred Carpet 2

Brown Rustic 5

Brown Scallop 2

Buff Ermine 1

Buff-tip 1

Cinnabar 1

Clay 1

Clouded Border 4

Clouded Brindle 1

Clouded Silver 8

Common Carpet 2

Common Marbled Carpet 4

Common Pug 1

Common Swift 3

Common White Wave 2

Coronet 12

Dark Arches 4

Double Square-spot 2

Double-striped Pug 1

Elephant Hawk-moth 2

Fern 3

Figure of Eighty 2

Flame 3

Flame Shoulder 2

Freyer's Pug 1

Garden Carpet 1

Ghost Moth 1

Green Carpet 5

Green Pug 5

Green Silver-lines 1

Grey Pug 5

Haworth's Pug 1

Heart & Club 1

Heart & Dart 10+

Ingrailed Clay 10

July Highflyer 1

Knot Grass 1

Large Nutmeg 4

Large Yellow Underwing 2

Lesser Yellow Underwing 1

Light Arches 1

Light Emerald 5

Lime-speck Pug 2

Maiden's Blush 1

Maple Prominent 2

Marbled White-spot 3

Middle-barred Minor 3

Miller 1

Mottled Beauty 5

Mottled Pug 1

Mottled Rustic 5

Obscure Wainscot 1

Orange Footman 1

Pale Prominent 1

Peppered Moth 2

Poplar Grey 1

Privet Hawk-moth 1

Purple Bar 2

Riband Wave 2

Rustic Shoulder-knot 2

Scorched Wing 2

Setaceous Hebrew Character 2

Shoulder-striped Wainscot 1

Shuttle-shaped Dart 2

Silver-ground Carpet 2

Small Angle Shades 1

Small Dusty Wave 1

Small Elephant Hawk-moth 1

Small Fan-foot 2

small Square-spot 1

Small Yellow Wave 1

Snout 2

Straw Dot 10

Swallow Prominent 1

Sycamore 2

Tawny Marbled Minor 2

Treble Lines 3

Turnip Moth 1

Uncertain 3

White Pinion-spotted 1

Wormwood Pug 1

 

Micro Moths

 

Agapeta hamana 4

Agapeta zoegana 10

Agonopterix arenella 2

Agonopterix purpurea 1

Aleimma loeflingiana 10

Anania hortulata 3

Anania perlucidalis 1

Anarsia innoxiella 1

Anthophila fabriciana 1

Aphomia sociella 1

Archips podana 2

Archips xylosteana 3

Argyresthia conjugella 2

Argyresthia curvella 2

Blastobasis lacticolella 3

Blastodacna hellerella 1

Bryotropha terrella 5

Caloptilia populetorum 1

Caloptilia robustella alchimiella 2

Caloptilia syringella 1

Celypha lacunana 15

Celypha striana 5

Chrysoteuchia culmella 5

Clepsis consimilana 5

Cnephasia sp 10

Cochylimorpha straminea 5

Cochylis dubitana 2

Cochylis molliculana 1

Crambus lathoniellus 5

Cydia fagiglandana 2

Dichrorampha sp 4

Ditula angustiorana 2

Emmetia marginea 1

Endothenia gentianaeana marginea 2

Epinotia bilunana 2

Epiphyas postvittana 1

Eucosma cana 10

Eudonia lacustrata 5

Eudonia pallida 3

Eulamprotes unicolorella 5

Eupoecilia angustana 15

Gillmeria pallidactyla 1

Grapholita funebrana 1

Gypsonoma sociana 1

Hedya nubiferana 5

Hedya pruniana 5

Homoeosoma sinuella 2

Merrifieldia leucodactyla or baliodactylus 1

Metzneria metzneriella 10+

Mompha ochraceella 1

Mompha subbistrigella 3

Nemophora degeerella 1

Nephopterix angustana 2

Notocelia trimaculana 15+

Notocelia uddmanniana 2

Pammene albuginana 1

Pandemis cerasana 10+

Pandemis cinnamomeana 1

Pandemis heparana 5

Paraswammerdamia albicapitella 1

Parornix sp 1

Phycita roborella 1

Prays fraxinella 2

Pseudargyrotoza conwagana 10+

Pseudoswammerdamia combinella 1

Scoparia ambigualis 5

Scoparia pyralella 10+

Scythropia crataegella 1

Stigmella sp 1

Strophedra weirana 1

Teleiodes luculella 5

Thiotricha subocellea 3

Tinea semifulvella 1

Tortrix viridana 10+

Udea olivalis 3

A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but the basic function is the same.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The word "loom" is derived from the Old English geloma, formed from ge-(perfective prefix) and loma, a root of unknown origin; this meant a utensil, tool, or machine of any kind. In 1404 it was used to mean a machine to enable weaving thread into cloth. By 1838, it had gained the meaning of a machine for interlacing thread.

 

WEAVING

Weaving is done by intersecting the longitudinal threads, the warp, i.e. "that which is thrown across", with the transverse threads, the weft, i.e. "that which is woven".

 

The major components of the loom are the warp beam, heddles, harnesses or shafts (as few as two, four is common, sixteen not unheard of), shuttle, reed and takeup roll. In the loom, yarn processing includes shedding, picking, battening and taking-up operations. These are the principal motions.

Shedding. Shedding is the raising of part of the warp yarn to form a shed (the vertical space between the raised and unraised warp yarns), through which the filling yarn, carried by the shuttle, can be inserted, forming the weft. On the modern loom, simple and intricate shedding operations are performed automatically by the heddle or heald frame, also known as a harness. This is a rectangular frame to which a series of wires, called heddles or healds, are attached. The yarns are passed through the eye holes of the heddles, which hang vertically from the harnesses. The weave pattern determines which harness controls which warp yarns, and the number of harnesses used depends on the complexity of the weave. Two common methods of controlling the heddles are dobbies and a Jacquard Head.

 

Picking. As the harnesses raise the heddles or healds, which raise the warp yarns, the shed is created. The filling yarn is inserted through the shed by a small carrier device called a shuttle. The shuttle is normally pointed at each end to allow passage through the shed. In a traditional shuttle loom, the filling yarn is wound onto a quill, which in turn is mounted in the shuttle. The filling yarn emerges through a hole in the shuttle as it moves across the loom. A single crossing of the shuttle from one side of the loom to the other is known as a pick. As the shuttle moves back and forth across the shed, it weaves an edge, or selvage, on each side of the fabric to prevent the fabric from raveling.

Battening. Between the heddles and the takeup roll, the warp threads pass through another frame called the reed (which resembles a comb). The portion of the fabric that has already been formed but not yet rolled up on the takeup roll is called the fell. After the shuttle moves across the loom laying down the fill yarn, the weaver uses the reed to press (or batten) each filling yarn against the fell. Conventional shuttle looms can operate at speeds of about 150 to 160 picks per minute.

 

There are two secondary motions, because with each weaving operation the newly constructed fabric must be wound on a cloth beam. This process is called taking up. At the same time, the warp yarns must be let off or released from the warp beams. To become fully automatic, a loom needs a tertiary motion, the filling stop motion. This will brake the loom if the weft thread breaks. An automatic loom requires 0.125 hp to 0.5 hp to operate.

 

TYPES OF LOOMS

BACK STRAP LOOM

The back strap loom is a simple loom that has its roots in ancient civilizations. It consists of two sticks or bars between which the warps are stretched. One bar is attached to a fixed object and the other to the weaver, usually by means of a strap around the back. The weaver leans back and uses their body weight to tension the loom. On traditional looms, the two main sheds are operated by means of a shed roll over which one set of warps pass, and continuous string heddles which encase each of the warps in the other set. To open the shed controlled by the string heddles, the weaver relaxes tension on the warps and raises the heddles. The other shed is usually opened by simply drawing the shed roll toward the weaver.

 

Both simple and complex textiles can be woven on this loom. Width is limited to how far the weaver can reach from side to side to pass the shuttle. Warp faced textiles, often decorated with intricate pick-up patterns woven in complementary and supplementary warp techniques are woven by indigenous peoples today around the world. They produce such things as belts, ponchos, bags, hatbands and carrying cloths. Supplementary weft patterning and brocading is practiced in many regions. Balanced weaves are also possible on the backstrap loom. Today, commercially produced backstrap loom kits often include a rigid heddle.[

 

WARP-WEIGHTED LOOM

The warp-weighted loom is a vertical loom that may have originated in the Neolithic period. The earliest evidence of warp-weighted looms comes from sites belonging to the Starčevo culture in modern Serbia and Hungary and from late Neolithic sites in Switzerland. This loom was used in Ancient Greece, and spread north and west throughout Europe thereafter. Its defining characteristic is hanging weights (loom weights) which keep bundles of the warp threads taut. Frequently, extra warp thread is wound around the weights. When a weaver has reached the bottom of the available warp, the completed section can be rolled around the top beam, and additional lengths of warp threads can be unwound from the weights to continue. This frees the weaver from vertical size constraint.

 

DRAWLOOM

A drawloom is a hand-loom for weaving figured cloth. In a drawloom, a "figure harness" is used to control each warp thread separately. A drawloom requires two operators, the weaver and an assistant called a "drawboy" to manage the figure harness. The earliest confirmed drawloom fabrics come from the State of Chu and date c. 400 BC. Most scholars attribute the invention of the drawloom to the ancient Chinese, although some speculate an independent invention from ancient Syria since drawloom fabrics found in Dura-Europas are thought to date before 256 AD The draw loom for patterned weaving was invented in ancient China during the Han Dynasty. Chinese weavers and artisans used foot-powered multi-harness looms and jacquard looms for silk weaving and embroidery; both of which were cottage industries with imperial workshops. The Chinese-invented drawloom enhanced and sped up the production of silk and play a significant role in Chinese silk weaving. The loom was later introduced to Persia, India, and Europe.

 

HANDLOOM

A handloom is a simple machine used for weaving. In a wooden vertical-shaft looms, the heddles are fixed in place in the shaft. The warp threads pass alternately through a heddle, and through a space between the heddles (the shed), so that raising the shaft raises half the threads (those passing through the heddles), and lowering the shaft lowers the same threads — the threads passing through the spaces between the heddles remain in place. This was a great invention in the 13th century.

 

FLYING SHUTTLE

Hand weavers could only weave a cloth as wide as their armspan. If cloth needed to be wider, two people would do the task (often this would be an adult with a child). John Kay (1704–1779) patented the flying shuttle in 1733. The weaver held a picking stick that was attached by cords to a device at both ends of the shed. With a flick of the wrist, one cord was pulled and the shuttle was propelled through the shed to the other end with considerable force, speed and efficiency. A flick in the opposite direction and the shuttle was propelled back. A single weaver had control of this motion but the flying shuttle could weave much wider fabric than an arm’s length at much greater speeds than had been achieved with the hand thrown shuttle.

 

The flying shuttle was one of the key developments in weaving that helped fuel the Industrial Revolution. The whole picking motion no longer relied on manual skill and it was just a matter of time before it could be powered.

 

HAUTE-LISSE AND BASSE-LISSE LOOMS

Looms used for weaving traditional tapestry are classified as haute-lisse looms, where the warp is suspended vertically between two rolls. In basse-lisse looms, however, the warp extends horizontally between the two rolls.

 

RIBBON WEAVING

TRADITIONAL LOOMS

Several other types of hand looms exist, including the simple frame loom, pit loom, free-standing loom, and the pegged loom. Each of these can be constructed, and provide work and income in developing economies.

 

POWER LOOMS

Edmund Cartwright built and patented a power loom in 1785, and it was this that was adopted by the nascent cotton industry in England. The silk loom made by Jacques Vaucanson in 1745 operated on the same principles but was not developed further. The invention of the flying shuttle by John Kay was critical to the development of a commercially successful power loom. Cartwright's loom was impractical but the ideas behind it were developed by numerous inventors in the Manchester area of England where, by 1818, there were 32 factories containing 5,732 looms.

 

Horrocks loom was viable, but it was the Roberts Loom in 1830 that marked the turning point. Incremental changes to the three motions continued to be made. The problems of sizing, stop-motions, consistent take-up, and a temple to maintain the width remained. In 1841, Kenworthy and Bullough produced the Lancashire Loom which was self-acting or semi-automatic. This enables a youngster to run six looms at the same time. Thus, for simple calicos, the power loom became more economical to run than the hand loom – with complex patterning that used a dobby or Jacquard head, jobs were still put out to handloom weavers until the 1870s. Incremental changes were made such as the Dickinson Loom, culminating in the Keighley-born inventor Northrop, who was working for the Draper Corporation in Hopedale producing the fully automatic Northrop Loom. This loom recharged the shuttle when the pirn was empty. The Draper E and X models became the leading products from 1909. They were challenged by synthetic fibres such as rayon. By 1942, faster, more efficient, and shuttleless Sulzer and rapier looms had been introduced. Modern industrial looms can weave at 2,000 weft insertions per minute.

 

WEFT INSERTION

Different types of looms are most often defined by the way that the weft, or pick, is inserted into the warp. Many advances in weft insertion have been made in order to make manufactured cloth more cost effective. There are five main types of weft insertion and they are as follows:

 

Shuttle: The first-ever powered looms were shuttle-type looms. Spools of weft are unravelled as the shuttle travels across the shed. This is very similar to projectile methods of weaving, except that the weft spool is stored on the shuttle. These looms are considered obsolete in modern industrial fabric manufacturing because they can only reach a maximum of 300 picks per minute.

Air jet: An air-jet loom uses short quick bursts of compressed air to propel the weft through the shed in order to complete the weave. Air jets are the fastest traditional method of weaving in modern manufacturing and they are able to achieve up to 1,500 picks per minute. However, the amounts of compressed air required to run these looms, as well as the complexity in the way the air jets are positioned, make them more costly than other looms.

Water jet: Water-jet looms use the same principle as air-jet looms, but they take advantage of pressurized water to propel the weft. The advantage of this type of weaving is that water power is cheaper where water is directly available on site. Picks per minute can reach as high as 1,000.

Rapier loom: This type of weaving is very versatile, in that rapier looms can weave using a large variety of threads. There are several types of rapiers, but they all use a hook system attached to a rod or metal band to pass the pick across the shed. These machines regularly reach 700 picks per minute in normal production.

Projectile: Projectile looms utilize an object that is propelled across the shed, usually by spring power, and is guided across the width of the cloth by a series of reeds. The projectile is then removed from the weft fibre and it is returned to the opposite side of the machine so it can get reused. Multiple projectiles are in use in order to increase the pick speed. Maximum speeds on these machines can be as high as 1,050 ppm.

 

SHEDDING

DOBBY LOOMS

A dobby loom is a type of floor loom that controls the whole warp threads using a dobby head. Dobby is a corruption of "draw boy" which refers to the weaver's helpers who used to control the warp thread by pulling on draw threads. A dobby loom is an alternative to a treadle loom, where multiple heddles (shafts) were controlled by foot treadles – one for each heddle.

 

JACQUARD LOOMS

The Jacquard loom is a mechanical loom, invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801, which simplifies the process of manufacturing textiles with complex patterns such as brocade, damask and matelasse. The loom is controlled by punched cards with punched holes, each row of which corresponds to one row of the design. Multiple rows of holes are punched on each card and the many cards that compose the design of the textile are strung together in order. It is based on earlier inventions by the Frenchmen Basile Bouchon (1725), Jean Baptiste Falcon (1728) and Jacques Vaucanson (1740) To call it a loom is a misnomer, a Jacquard head could be attached to a power loom or a hand loom, the head controlling which warp thread was raised during shedding. Multiple shuttles could be used to control the colour of the weft during picking. The Jacquard loom is the predecessor to the punch card computers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

 

CICULAR LOOMS

A circular loom is used to create a seamless tube of fabric for products such as hosiery, sacks, clothing, fabric hose (such as fire hose) and the like. Circular looms can be small jigs used for circular knitting or large high-speed machines for modern garments. Modern circular looms use up to ten shuttles driven from below in a circular motion by electromagnets for the weft yarns, and cams to control the warp threads. The warps rise and fall with each shuttle passage, unlike the common practice of lifting all of them at once.

 

SYMBOLISM AND CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

The loom is a symbol of cosmic creation and the structure upon which individual destiny is woven. This symbolism is encapsulated in the ancient Greek myth of Arachne who was changed into a spider by the goddess Athene, who was jealous of her skill at the godlike craft of weaving. In Maya Cultures the goddess Ixchel who is symbolized by the moon, taught the first woman how to weave at the beginning of time.

 

WIKIPEDIA

530

Exercise PRECISE RESPONSE, is an annual chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) exercise hosted by Defence Research and Development Canada at Canadian Forces Base Suffield where the Canadian Armed Forces along with NATO allies and partner Nations can practice essential CBRN defence skills in a multinational training environment.

Year of the Dragon - to be precise, 35 of them. That's the number of years that the 3-axle variant of the Dennis Dominator in its Dragon iteration operated in service in Hong Kong, so as February 2024 marks the start of the latest Lunar New Year, a good excuse to illustrate some of the type.

 

Citybus placed their first examples in service in 1994, with 20 single-doorway 86 seaters assembled in Portugal by Caetano and their Duple-Metsec body kits incorporating an Alexander-style frontal treatment to present a common 'face' across almost all of the active double-deck fleet - Atlanteans, Olympians and Dragons alike.

 

702 was the oldest of the type in use when this shot was taken at Pacific Place on Hong Kong Island, sister bus 701 having been taken out of service and modified several years earlier to an experimental trolleybus, in which configuration it remained long after the project ended.

 

This image is copyright and must not be reproduced or downloaded without the permission of the photographer.

Luca Giordano (1634-1705), active in Naples

Visitation of Mary, c. 1696

Giordano was famous for the speed with which he carried out his assignments. In his later Spanish work, however, he shows particular care in the classifying, balanced composition and the precise drawing as well as in the subtle, painterly-fluid elaborateness of the figures. The composition of the painting is based on an engraving after Rubens' Visitation on the side wing of the altar with the Descent from the Cross in the Antwerp chapel.

 

Luca Giordano (1634-1705), tätig in Neapel

Heimsuchung Mariae, um 1696

Giordano war für die Schnelligkeit berühmt, mit der er seine Aufträge ausführte. Gerade in seinem spanischen Spätwerk zeigt er jedoch besondere Sorgfalt in der klassizierenden, ausgewogenen Komposition und der präzisen Zeichnung ebenso wie in der subtilen, malerisch-flüssigen Durchgestaltung der Figuren. Die Komposition des Bildes geht auf einen Stich nach Rubens' Heimsuchung auf dem Seitenflügel des Altares mit der Kreuzabnahme in der Antwerpener Kapelle zurück.

 

Austria Kunsthistorisches Museum

Federal Museum

Logo KHM

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

Founded 17 October 1891

Headquartered Castle Ring (Burgring), Vienna 1, Austria

Management Sabine Haag

www.khm.at website

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

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

The museum

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

History

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Gallery

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

Architectural History

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

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

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

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

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

Kuppelhalle

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

Grand staircase

Hall

Empire

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

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

Directorate of coins, medals and antiquities collection

The Egyptian Collection

The Antique Collection

The coins and medals collection

Management of the collection of weapons, art and industrial objects

Weapons collection

Collection of industrial art objects

Directorate of Art Gallery and Restaurieranstalt (Restoration Office)

Collection of watercolors, drawings, sketches, etc.

Restoration Office

Library

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

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

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

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

First Republic

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

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

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

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

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

Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection (with the Oriental coins)

Collection of Classical Antiquities

Collection of ancient coins

Collection of modern coins and medals

Weapons collection

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

Picture Gallery

The Museum 1938-1945

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

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

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

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

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

The museum today

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

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

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

Management

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

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

1933: Arpad Weixlgärtner first director

1934-1938: Alfred Stix first director

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

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

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

1949-1950: Hans Demel as administrative director

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

1951-1952: Fritz Eichler as administrative director

1953-1954: Ernst H. Buschbeck as administrative director

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

1967: Edward Holzmair as managing director

1968-1972: Erwin Auer first director

1973-1981: Friderike Klauner first director

1982-1990: Hermann Fillitz first director

1990: George Kugler as interim first director

1990-2008: Wilfried Seipel as general director

Since 2009: Sabine Haag as general director

Collections

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

Kunsthistorisches Museum (main building)

Picture Gallery

Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection

Collection of Classical Antiquities

Vienna Chamber of Art

Numismatic Collection

Library

New Castle

Ephesus Museum

Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments

Arms and Armour

Archive

Hofburg

The imperial crown in the Treasury

Imperial Treasury of Vienna

Insignia of the Austrian Hereditary Homage

Insignia of imperial Austria

Insignia of the Holy Roman Empire

Burgundian Inheritance and the Order of the Golden Fleece

Habsburg-Lorraine Household Treasure

Ecclesiastical Treasury

Schönbrunn Palace

Imperial Carriage Museum Vienna

Armory in Ambras Castle

Ambras Castle

Collections of Ambras Castle

Major exhibits

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

Jan van Eyck: Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, 1438

Martin Schongauer: Holy Family, 1475-80

Albrecht Dürer : Trinity Altar, 1509-16

Portrait Johann Kleeberger, 1526

Parmigianino: Self Portrait in Convex Mirror, 1523/24

Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Summer 1563

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

Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary (1606-1607)

Titian: Nymph and Shepherd to 1570-75

Portrait of Jacopo de Strada, 1567/68

Raffaello Santi: Madonna of the Meadow, 1505 /06

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

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

The Little Fur, about 1638

Jan Vermeer: The Art of Painting, 1665/66

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

Kids, 1560

Tower of Babel, 1563

Christ Carrying the Cross, 1564

Gloomy Day (Early Spring), 1565

Return of the Herd (Autumn), 1565

Hunters in the Snow (Winter) 1565

Bauer and bird thief, 1568

Peasant Wedding, 1568/69

Peasant Dance, 1568/69

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

Cabinet of Curiosities:

Saliera from Benvenuto Cellini 1539-1543

Egyptian-Oriental Collection:

Mastaba of Ka Ni Nisut

Collection of Classical Antiquities:

Gemma Augustea

Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós

Gallery: Major exhibits

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunsthistorisches_Museum