The Arctic represents the northernmost area of the World, the Arctic Ocean and the land areas that surrounds it. The region is characterized but cold temperatures, and ice and snow. The summers are short, but with long periods of daylight (midnight sun). The winters are long and cold and with periods with no sun (polar night). The Arctic Ocean is one basin that is mostly covered by sea ice, and is connected to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The countries in this region are Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Greenland (Denmark), Canada and Alaska (USA).

 

For any form of publication, please include the link to this page:

www.grida.no/resources/5346

 

This photo has been graciously provided to be used in the GRID-Arendal resources library by: Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal

The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette Daily Telegraph published a full report on the tragedy, and the inquest into the deaths in its edition of 6th September 1882.

 

We reported a few days ago a sad bathing occurrence at Croyde, North Devon, by which three young gentlemen lost their lives.

They were visitors to the place, and belonged to a school of lads in London.

On Sunday last, a week after the occurrence - two of the bodies were picked up, and yesterday J. H. Toiler, Esq., held an inquest on them at the King's Arms Inn, Georgeham.

Thomas Heddon, a lodging-house-keeper, of Croyde, in the parish of Georgeham, said he had that day seen a body and identified it as that of Havelock McGeorge, a lad thirteen years of age, who had been staying with him, in charge of Miss Hardie. Deceased resided at No.5, Lansdowne Road, Wimbledon.

On Sunday morning last, between seven and eight o'clock, he went out on the beach to see if he could find any bodies. He saw something on the shore at high water, and on going to the spot found it was the body of Havelock McGeorge. The body was in the water, and was quite naked. He took charge of the body and took it to the mortuary with the assistance of two other men. He should say the deceased came to his death by drowning.

On Monday, the 28th August, the morning when the lads bathed, there was a heavy ground sea on.

Thomas Staddon, a labourer, of Croyde, said he had that morning seen the body of a lad whom be recognised as that of Herbert Maconaghey. He was about thirteen years of age he had heard, but he looked fifteen.

On Sunday evening last, about half-past five o'clock, he went out to look for the bodies. He was in company with James Lovering, and they saw a body, in a deep gully on the shore, which he afterwards recognized as that of Herbert Maconaghey.

He had it removed to the mortuary.

Death, he should say, was caused by drowning.

Mary Ellen Hardie said she resided at 5, Lansdowne-road, Wimbledon, and was governess to Miss Palmer

The deceased were staying with her at Croyde, and she last saw them alive on Monday, 28th August, about quarter-past ten in the morning.

They were leaving the house to go upon the sands. Seven of them went out together, but only four came back again. She thought they were going out to play. Besides the two whose bodies were found, that of Charles Binney was missing.

They had bathed every morning during the six weeks they had been at Croyde.

Mr. Flinch, who represented the friends of the deceased, said that where the lads bathed was not dangerous, but the ground sea took them to Glover's Pool, and there they were drowned.

He hoped the jury would make a recommendation to have a board placed near Glover's Pool.

He further stated that he should have wished the eldest of the seven boys (Cornford) to have been present, but he was too unwell to attend.

He would have told them that Maconoghey was in no danger, and that he lost his life while trying to save one of the deceased. He called out to Cornford, "You save one boy, and I'll save another."

The Coroner advised the jury as to their verdict, which was that the deceased met with their death accidentally while bathing, and they recommended a board to be placed on the sands, warning visitors only to bathe at half-tide.

The three unfortunate lads were not brothers, as has been stated, nor were they related to each other in any way.

Messrs. Symons and Son, of Barnstaple, made two coffins for the deceased lads, whose bodies will he interred in Georgeham Cemetery,Devon. The three friends were buried together.

 

1900 was when Postman's Park became the location for George Frederic Watts's Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, a memorial to ordinary people who died while saving the lives of others and who might otherwise be forgotten.

This takes the form of a loggia and long wall housing ceramic memorial tablets.

The Heroic act by Herbert took place 138 years ago & is a good reminder of all the people who are making sacrifices at present.

The Northwestern League was a professional, minor baseball league that lasted from 1905 to 1917. It was represented by teams based in Washington, Montana, Oregon and British Columbia. The league became the Pacific Coast International League in 1918 - Seattle Turks (1909), Seattle Giants (1910-1917),

 

The Seattle Turks were a minor league baseball team based in Seattle, Washington who played a single season (1909) in the Northwestern League. In their only year of existence, the team won a Northwestern League pennant with a record of 109-58.

 

The Seattle Giants were a minor league baseball team that played in various leagues from 1910 to 1920. Based in Seattle, Washington, United States, they played in the Northwestern League from 1910 to 1917, the Pacific Coast International League in 1918 and 1920, and the Northwest International League in 1919. Two of their ballparks were Yesler Way Park and Dugdale Field. In 1919, they were also known as the Seattle Drydockers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rhoddy Hendrix

Position: Pitcher

Bats: Unknown • Throws: Right

Height: Tall

Weight: Medium

Born: January 28, 1887 in Detroit, Red River County, Texas

Died: January 29, 1939 (Aged 52-002d) in Seattle, WA

Full Name: Rhoddy Kirkman James Hendrix

NIckname or different spelling: Rhody (this spelling was used until the end of the 1909 season)

 

Rhoddy Kirkman Hendrix was born on January 28, 1887, in Detroit, Texas, USA, his father, James, was 26 and his mother, Frances, was 23. He married Alice Birk / Boyd and they had one son together. He then married Elsie L Johnson on October 3, 1924, in King, Washington, USA. He died on January 29, 1939, in Seattle, Washington, USA, at the age of 52.

 

Link to Rhoddy Hendrix' baseball stats - www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=hendri...

 

(Not to be confused with another pitcher during this time period Claude Hendrix as some of the papers did)

Link to baseball stats for Claude Hendrix - www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=hendri...

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(The Daily Ardmoreite, June 23, 1907) - Hendrix to Joplin - Rhody Hendrix formerly of this city, who pitched winning ball for the Wichita Western association team last season, but has been out of the game for several weeks of the present season on account of ill health, has been loaned to the Joplin team by Wichita. It is stated that Wichita wants him for use again next year, being well fortified In the box at present.

 

(The Topeka State Journal, July 15, 1907) - Rhody Hendrix, the little Wichita pitcher who is with Wichita, did not make good with Joplin as he has just recovered from a severe spell of sickness. However, Holland will keep him with the Wichita team and attempt to make a winner out of him for next season.

 

(The Topeka State Journal, July 25, 1907) - Wichita Beacon: Pitcher Rhody Hendrix of the local baseball club arrived in the city this morning from Webb City. He has been released by the local management as he was unable to get into condition. Hendrix was popular with local fans, as he did great work for the locals last season in the pinches. Hendrix stated this morning that the fans of Webb City joined with Webb City players Saturday in their assault upon Umpire Guthrie, Hendrix said the umpire had been working In good style and the assault was entirely without cause. Hendrix left early this morning for his home In Oklahoma, where he will spend a few weeks in trying to get into condition. He has had offers from two Western association teams but does not think he can do himself justice at this time.

 

(The Topeka State Journal, May 16, 1908) - The Wichita team will probably sell Rhody Hendrix in a few days. Hutchinson, Enid and Dubuque have all made offers for him. Wichita has a number of good pitchers at the present time and Hendrix is not needed. He is a good pitcher, however. Wichita secured him from Tulsa in the fall of 1906. Last season he was out of the game most of the time on account of sickness.

 

(The Topeka State Journal, May 20, 1908) - Rhody Hendrix who has been with the Jobber twirler staff for the past two seasons has been signed up by Enid and yesterday succeeded, in winning the first game Enid has won during the past two phases of the moon. - Enid defeated Oklahoma City 4 to 3. in a ten-inning game. A wild throw by Kelsey over first brought in Bold when two men were out in the last half of the tenth and gave the Railroaders the game. Hendrix' pitching was the feature of the game.

 

(The Topeka State Journal, August 21, 1908) - Manager Cooley yesterday negotiated the purchase of Pitcher Rhody Hendrix from the Enid team, the same place from whence came Selby, the real star of the Topeka twirling staff. Hendrix should be In some time today, but it is not known whether he will be able to make connections or not.

 

(The Topeka State Journal., August 22, 1908) - Pitcher Rhody Hendrix, lately secured by Cooley from Enid, arrived here this

morning and will pitch against the Jobbers tomorrow afternoon.

 

(The Topeka State Journal, March 22, 1909) - Hendrix First to Report. - The locals are all due to be here Thursday. One of the players, Rhody Hendrix. is already here, having reported late Saturday night. He came from Texas but stopped off at Wichita for a few days en route. Rumor has it that Rhody is interested in Wichita to a certain extent, and the Wichita Beacon announced that his interest in Wichita would probably detain him right up to the time the train left and that his interests would be at the train to say goodby to him. Hendrix looks the picture of health and says he never felt better in his life. It's a cinch that he never looked better in his life. Hendrix has been pitching since about the first of the year. He lives in Texas where the weather is always warm. Hendrix is still a youngster and should do a lot for Mr. Cooley this season. Last season Hendrix was off color. He joined the team in mid season coming here from Enid where owing to trouble with the management he had been on the suspended list for some time. Then he was suffering from malaria, all of which is enough to take the stamina from any pitcher. He has had good records in the past and the dope looks pretty good on him. It's a safe bet that he will make some of them work hard for positions this season.

 

(The Topeka State Journal, June 18, 1909) - HENDRIX DID IT - Topeka Pitcher Batted in Winning Run in Fourteenth - Splendid Pitching in Pinches Won From Wichita. - Mr. Rhody Hendrix was pretty much the whole show at Association park yesterday afternoon, when the home talent piloted by his brilliant pitching took the opener from the Witches in a 14 inning struggle. The defeat of the Chesty Leaders was the result the cause was too much Hendrix. For R. H. was the pitching kiddo, the pinch bitter, the cool collected master of the situation and above all the Real Hero of the afternoon. His stock is ace high already and some of his friends are talking of him for Judge of the supreme court.

 

(The Topeka State Journal, August 14, 1909) - Rhody Hendrix is getting away good in the Central Association. Wednesday

on the Jacksonville grounds, he held the Jacksonville team to three scattered hits, easily securing a shutout. Burlington won by a score of 6 to 0. Hendrix copped two of the eleven hits secured by Burlington.

 

(The Topeka State Journal, September 02, 1909) - Rhody Hendrix In a game against Kewanee at Burlington Monday, fanned 14 men, the record for that league.

 

(The Topeka State Journal, September 25, 1909) - COOLEY SOLD HENDRIX - Big Pitcher Goes to Seattle for Five Hundred Dollars - Manager Dick Cooley last night announced the sale of Pitcher Rhoddy Hendrix to the Seattle club of the Northwest League for $500. Hendrix will probably leave within a day or two to join that club. Shortly after supper last night D. E. Dugdale, an old friend of Cooley, who is owner of the Seattle club, wired Cooley Inquiring for an extra pitcher. Cooley wired back that he would tell Hendrix for $500 and the deal was consummated within two hours after it had been started. Seattle is in first place and the chances are that the club will win the pennant, but Dugdale wished to fortify himself with some more pitchers. Cooley does not think that Hendrix is up to the Western League standard. He gave him a good trial extending over the first half of the season, but Hendrix fell a little shy. Later he was loaned to the Burlington club of the Central Association, and his record was so good that Cooley thought it wise to give him another chance, yesterday, Hendrix didn't make a good showing. Accordingly when Dugdale's wire came, Cooley thought it a good plan to sell. Hendrix was purchased from the Enid club in 1908 for $150.

 

(Morning Oregonian), November 10, 1909 - The draft of Pitcher Allen of the Seattle Northwestern League Club by Memphis has been allowed. Allen is the leading pitcher of the Northwestern League for the last season. To replace Allen, Manager Dugdale, of Seattle, has purchased Pitcher Rhoddy Hendrix from the Topeka Western League Club.

 

(The Topeka State Journal, February 08, 1910) - "Rhody" Hendrix is already in training and by a process of his own, he is removing about four pounds a day from his manly form.

 

(East Oregonian, April 27, 1910) - Tacoma - April 27. The Tacoma Tigers opened the season at home yesterday before 3500 people and were beaten by the Seattle Giants in an interesting game, 3 to 2. Schmutz for Tacoma and Rhoddy Hendrix for Seattle, pitched great ball and the hits were few. Errors played an important part in the scoring. Bennett drove in the winning run for Seattle in the sixth inning.

 

(The Sunday Oregonian, May 01, 1910) - TACOMA POUNDS HENDRIX - Seattle Goes Down to 9 to 3 Defeat; SEATTLE, April 30. Tacoma won from Seattle by a score of 9 to 3 in a game where heavy hitting was the feature. All Hendrix had was his fast straight ball and Tacoma hammered It all over the lot.

Soda Cream Live

India. Benarés, actualmente llamada Varanasi, representa todo aquello que contrasta con nuestros principios y costumbres occidentales. El primer contacto con la India a través de Varanasi puede llegar a ser un shock para alguien que no esté acostumbrado al estilo de vida hinduista.

La ciudad sagrada, bañada por el Ganges, es un centro de peregrinación donde se cree que cada inmersión en el río sirve para expiar los pecados. Lanzar las cenizas de un cadáver, a su vez, rompe con el ciclo de las reencarnaciones del difunto. Montones de peregrinos llegan a la ciudad en busca de la paz redentora que ofrece la diosa Ganga y son centenares los ancianos que deambulan por las calles esperando el toque de gracia que los llevará al descanso eterno.

 

Vida y muerte se mezclan en este río donde se pueden ver niños jugando a la pelota mientras esquivan algún cuerpo surcando por sus aguas sagradas.

 

Cremaciones, incienso, excrementos, biriani, samosas, curry, asados, hierbas aromáticas… Andar por Varanasi es un menú completo para nuestro olfato. La riqueza de aromas y colores se mezclan en un sinfín de tonalidades y constituye un verdadero placer perderse entre el bullicio de sus estrechísimas calles para acabar en un ghat en el atardecer y presenciar uno de sus rituales sagrados con fuegos y pétalos lanzados al río.

( Imagen tomada con película negativa y cámara Canon analógica y luego escaneada de la copia de papel fotográfico ).

Julio 2004

The German national football team (German: Die deutsche Fußballnationalmannschaft) is the football team representing the country of Germany in international competition since 1908. It is governed by the German Football Association DFB (Deutscher Fußball-Bund) which was founded in 1900.

From 1950 to 1990, the team was called West Germany in English, as since World War II, the DFB is based in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) which was commonly referred to as West Germany from 1949 to 1990. The DFB continues to field the German national team that had been fully reinstated by FIFA after the 1950 FIFA World Cup, retaining all records and traditions. Under Allied occupation and division, two other separate national teams had also been recognized by FIFA, the Saarland team (1950–1956), and the East German team (1952–1990). Both have been absorbed into the current national team, along with their records (caps and goal scorers). The official name and code "Germany FR (FRG)" was shortened again to "Germany (GER)" in 1990.

Germany is one of the three most successful national teams at international competitions, having won a total of three World Cups and three European championships. They are also one of the most consistent teams. Aside from winning three world and continental titles, they were also runners-up three times in the European Championships, four times in the World Cup and won 3rd place in the World Cup three times as well. East Germany won Olympic Gold in 1976. Germany is the only nation to have won both the men's and women's World Cups.

The current coaching staff of the national team include head coach Joachim Löw, assistant coach Hans-Dieter Flick, goalkeeper coach Andreas Köpke, athletic coach Shad Forsythe, athletic coach Oliver Bartlett, scout Urs Siegenthaler, technical director Matthias Sammer

  

instagram @hanoverianqatar

I love challenges.I have no idea what this was supposed to represent...there was no explanation to this abstract sculpture posted near by. It was an interesting object to try to capture a fun angle of with a 50mm lens standing under it...but the original image was nothing but plain to me once I could see it on the computer. I liked the comp on this just as it was shot, but the colors were dull silver metal and lifeless blue sky. After trying several things, I thought I'd just abandon whatever I thought might work and head to the filter gallery in photoshop for whatever seem to 'work' best. Here are the steps I took (if anyone is interested) to achieve this effect.

 

In the Layers Palette - I unlocked the background layer and made a duplicate of it to apply the filters to. (That way, if all else failed, I could toss that one and start again.) With the copy layer selected, I opened the Filter Gallery and applyed first a Bas Relief filter and then added a second filter onto that one - a Graphic Pen filter with a stroke of 15 and light/dark balance of 50. After applying those two filters the layer copy now appeared B&W.

 

Again, in the layers palette, the B&W layer sat above the original. I adjusted the blend mode of the B&W layer to Overlay with 93% Opacity and 86% Fill selected for this.

 

And with those simple adjustments this image took on a whole different appeal, changing vasting the original, giving it some character and punch with that gradient sky especially.

 

Thanks for visiting and for your comments!

This photo is less dramatic then the other one. This is awhole armada of Stick-A-Things, ready to take over urban landscapes.

The sphinx represented the divine nature of the king. Lions were believed to be the animals that embody solar power. The king, who was believed to be the son of the sun god Ra, was often depicted in the form of a lion. During the Roman Period, sphinxes were placed near tombs as a symbol of protection.

Limestone

Roman Period

Provenance unknown

Cat. 1412 Museo Egizio

 

Egypt of Glory exhibition, Amos Rex Art Museum, Helsinki

From the collection of Museo Egizio, Turin, Italy

9.10.2020-21.3.2021

This piece, which (to me) represents a woman beating her fist against a closed door, expresses my outrage at the crime of rape, most often, but not always, perpetrated by men upon women and so often employed as a weapon of war (now combined with the passing on of HIV to the victems especially in Africa) .

 

"The word rape originates from the Latin verb rapere: to seize or take by force. The word originally had no sexual connotation and is still used generically in English. The history of rape, and the alterations of its meaning, is quite complex. The Latin terms for the crime of rape were iniuria (assault) or per vim stuprum (fornication achieved by force), but the ancient Romans regarded rape only as an extenuated form of adultery, and could punish the victim by execution while allowing the perpetrator a lesser punishment such as banishment. Raptus was a general term used to refer to abduction, elopement, or rape in its modern meaning. Confusion over the term led ecclesial commentators on the law to differentiate the terms into raptus seductionis (elopement without parental consent) and raptus violentiae (ravishment) during Late Antiquity. Both forms of raptus had a civil penalty and possible excommunication for the family and village receiving the abducted woman, although raptus violentiae also incurred punishments of mutilation or death.

 

Rape, in the course of war, also dates back to antiquity, ancient enough to have been mentioned in the Bible. The Israelite, Greek, Persian and Roman troops would routinely rape women and boys in the conquered towns. In the modern era, rape is considered to be a war crime when committed by soldiers in combat.

 

As many as 80,000 women were raped by the Japanese soldiers during the six weeks of the Nanking Massacre. The term "Comfort women" is a euphemism for the estimated 200,000 women who were forced into prostitution in Japanese military brothels during World War II. At the end of World War II, Red Army soldiers are estimated to have raped around 2,000,000 German women and girls. French Moroccan troops known as Goumiers, committed rapes and other war crimes after the Battle of Monte Cassino."

 

An estimated 200,000 women were raped during the Bangladesh Liberation War by the Pakistani army and at least 20,000 Bosnian Muslim women were raped by Serb forces during the Bosnian War.

 

In peacetime, at least, alcohol and/or other drug uses is frequently involved in rape. In 47% of rapes, both the victim and the perpetrator had been drinking. In 17%, only the perpetrator had been. 7% of the time, only the victim had been drinking. Rapes where neither the victim nor the perpetrator had been drinking were 29% of all rapes.

 

The issue of the rapist's motivation seems to be multifactoral and is controversial. Most experts assert the primary cause of rape is an aggressive desire to dominate the victim rather than an attempt to achieve sexual fulfillment. "We can think of no other assertion in the social sciences, that has achieved such wide acceptance based on so little evidence," wrote Felson and coauthor Tedeschi, pioneers of the controversial Social-Interactionist Perspective which asserts that sexual desire can be a motivating factor in rape. They consider rape an act of violence rather than principally a sexual encounter. Other groups, such as the Catholic Church, consider some rapes to be motivated by lust. Cundiff (2004) argued that the inavailability of another outlet for male sexual desires, such as prostitution, may contribute to the prevalance of rape.

 

Most rapists do not have a preference for rape over consensual sex. Around 90% of rapists who participated in a 1986 study by Baxter et al. were more aroused by depictions of mutually enjoyable sex than violent rape. There are not significant differences between the arousal patterns of rapists and nonrapists.

 

Contrary to widespread belief, rape outdoors is rare. Over two thirds of all rapes occur in someone's home. 30.9% occur in the perpetrators' homes, 26.6% in the victims' homes and 10.1% in homes shared by the victim and perpetrator. 7.2% occur at parties, 7.2% in vehicles, 3.6% outdoors and 2.2% in bars.

 

According to a news report on BBC1 channel presented in 12 November 2007, there were 85000 women raped in UK last year or about 230 cases every day. The report also showed that 800 persons only were convicted in rape crimes that year.

 

After being raped it is common for the victim to experience intense, and sometimes unpredictable, emotions, and they may find it hard to deal with their memories of the event. Victims can be severely traumatized by the assault and may have difficulty functioning as well as they had been used to prior to the assault, with disruption of concentration, sleeping patterns and eating habits, for example. They may feel jumpy or be on edge. In the month(s) immediately following the assault these problems may be severe and very upsetting and may prevent the victim from revealing their ordeal to friends or family, or seeking police or medical assistance. This may result in Acute Stress Disorder."

 

Adapted from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape

Nos encontramos ante una pintura de caballete de formato rectangular que muestra a varias figuras de cuerpo entero representadas al aire libre, en concreto en un bosque o huerto de árboles frutales, en concreto naranjos. Parece que se trata de una alegoría protagonizada por personajes mitológicos.

 

De izquierda a derecha se distinguen:

 

- Un joven vestido con una túnica roja que parece remover unas nubes con un bastón. Aparece calzado, en concreto con una especie de borceguíes.

- Tres doncellas descalzas y ataviadas con ropajes transparentes en actitud de baile.

- Otra mujer que lleva sandalias y que va vestida con túnica y manto rojo con forro azul. Esta figura parece presidir la escena.

- Un niño alado con los ojos cubiertos por una venda y que dispara una flecha en dirección a las doncellas. El pintor lo ubicó por encima de la mujer que se acaba de describir.

- Otra dama que avanza hacia el espectador y que destaca por su sonrisa, por su corona de flores y por su vestido estampado con motivos vegetales. Atrae nuestra atención por que es la única figura que mira hacia el espectador. Pisa el prado con sus pies desnudos.

- Por último un grupo que rompe la quietud de la escena. Está formado por otra joven descalza y vestida con túnica transparente que sufre el asalto de un personaje singular: un joven pintado enteramente de azul y que parece flotar o volar. Entre el ramaje de los árboles apenas se distinguen sus alas con alguna dificultad.

 

Pasando a la organización de la escena, el pintor integra la mayor parte de las figuras en un esquema triangular que tiene un vértice en el amorcillo, otro en las doncellas que bailan y el tercero en la figura acosada. Los dos varones quedan a un lado y a otro de este esquema, equilibrando la composición

 

En cuanto a la organización del espacio, todas las figuras se hallan en un mismo plano, menos la mujer que preside la escena, que se halla en un segundo plano, más retirada. Lógicamente, el niño alado se sitúa en otro nivel completamente distinto. De hecho se halla sobrevolando la escena.

 

La línea del horizonte, que apenas si se distingue, se halla algo más elevada de lo normal, en concreto al nivel de la cintura de los personajes situados en primer plano. La perspectiva que emplea el artista resulta puramente intuitiva: los personajes parecen flotar sobre un prado que a lo que más se parece es a un tapiz y el bosque del fondo se dispone como un telón. Esta relativa torpeza se revela muy útil para datar la obra, pues resulta habitual encontrar en los pintores del siglo XV, esta construcción del espacio realizada de forma más o menos espontánea y, sobre todo, la elección de ese punto de vista algo elevado, que permite representar el suelo con más altura de la conveniente, recurso que recuerda a la perspectiva caballera. Estos rasgos se encuentran tanto en los pintores renacentistas, como en los seguidores del gótico flamenco.

 

Las figuras y la vegetación se encuentran perfectamente delimitadas con un trazo fino, de tal forma que la línea predomina sobre la policromía. Los colores son nítidos, existiendo un claro contraste entre el de los personajes, más vivos y los de la vegetación, más apagados. Existe un cuidado equilibrio entre los tonos cálidos y los fríos. Parece que el artista pintó la escena con minuciosidad, usando una pincelada muy fina. Es de destacar lo bien conseguidas que están las veladuras en las vestiduras transparentes.

 

El uso de veladuras es típico de la pintura al óleo, pero este cuadro debe tratarse más bien de una pintura al temple, porque los colores parecen planos y relativamente apagados, predominando ese acabado de brillo mate típico de esta técnica.

 

El temple o témpera es un tipo de pintura de origen muy antiguo que emplea como disolvente el agua y como aglutinante una emulsión de yema de huevo, cola u otras materias orgánicas. Con frecuencia, la aplicación de esta técnica se combina con fondos de oro, en el que el metal era dispuesto en láminas extremadamente finas. En el caso de una pintura de caballete, como la que nos ocupa, el soporte habitual del temple es la tabla.

 

Volviendo al análisis del cuadro, señalemos que la luz está aplicada de forma uniforme, como conviene a una escena desarrollada al aire libre.

 

El volumen de las figuras se expresa mediante el plegado de los ropajes y la gradación tonal, esto es indicando la musculatura y las distintas texturas con ligeras variaciones de color, reflejando con un ligero claroscuro la musculatura o el plegado de las vestiduras. Estos recursos no se emplean en el prado y los árboles que, como queda dicho, parecen planos como si se tratase de un decorado.

 

Respecto a la plasmación de la figura humana, el artista representa a los personajes con corrección anatómica, bien que buscando la armonía y la idealización. El canon empleado alarga a los protagonistas de la escena haciéndoles parecer altos y esbeltos.

 

Menos la dama que centra la composición, todas las figuras se hallan en movimiento, bien que con actitudes reposadas y lánguidas. Un dinamismo particular expresan las tres doncellas y la dama de las flores, personajes que parecen encontrarse en la ejecución de los pasos de una danza. Hay que señalar que estas actitudes calmosas no se pueden aplicar al grupo de la izquierda que sorprende por lo brusco de las actitudes y la violencia que respira esta especie de asalto o rapto.

 

Parecido contraste se observa en los gestos: serenos y ensimismados en las figuras de la izquierda y del centro, y muy expresivos los de la derecha: la dama de las flores sonríe abiertamente, la doncella del vestido transparente mira con sorpresa y temor, mientras que su agresor la contempla con furia.

 

Respecto a las facciones, algunos autores han supuesto que en el cuadro figuran retratos de algunas personalidades, e incluso se han avanzado las identificaciones. Con todo, parecen rostros impersonales, dotados de una belleza ideal en consonancia con la armónica perfección de los cuerpos y la refinada elegancia de sus vestiduras.

 

Armonía, belleza ideal, reposo y una atmósfera de refinamiento son los valores que parece transmitir esta obra. Debe añadirse la erudición y la estimación por la cultura clásica, pues la imagen, aunque muy hermosa, permanece indescifrable para los ojos del espectador poco avezado.

 

Respecto a la clasificación de esta obra, el empleo de una perspectiva intuitiva y el uso del temple nos sitúan en el siglo XV, en el tránsito entre la Edad Media y el Renacimiento. Por otra parte el tema mitológico o alegórico y la atmósfera de lujo y elegancia aconsejan emplazar esta obra en el Quattrocento, la primera fase del arte renacentista.

 

Dentro de los artistas de este período la obra debe adscribirse a Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi) por esas figuras elegantes y cargadas de distinción, por esa ambiente de belleza ideal que presenta cierta melancolía y, también, por el pobre conocimiento de la perspectiva.

 

Este pintor vivió en Florencia en la segunda mitad del siglo XV y el primer decenio del siglo XVI. Se formó en el taller de Fra Filippo Lippi, en Prato, y en su obra, desarrollada casi por entero en Florencia, se distingue un largo período de plenitud con figuras elegantes, vaporosas y monumentales y un último período de gran intensidad religiosa con obras de ejecución nerviosa y composición excéntrica y descuidada.

 

Botticelli destacó como pintor de temática religiosa (tanto pinturas monumentales al fresco como pequeños cuadros de devoción), como retratista y, especialmente, como autor de temas profanos de contenido alegóricos y mitológicos, como «La calumnia de Apeles», «El Nacimiento de Venus» y la obra que nos ocupa que es «La Alegoría de la Primavera», conservada en la Galería Uffizi de Florencia.

 

Se trata de un cuadro monumental (Mide 203 cm de alto por 314 cm de ancho) y la técnica empleada es, como queda dicho el temple. El soporte empleado es la tabla. Se fecha por 1477 o 1476

 

El primer poseedor de la obra fue Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici, conocido como «Il Popolano» («El Populista»), fue miembro de la familia Médici, primo de Lorenzo el Magnífico. Dado que este personaje tenía 15 años cuando la obra se pintó, y para entonces se había quedado huérfano, se especula con que fue encargada por sus tutores, como estímulo para su formación en la filosofía neoplatónica o exhortación moral según los principios de esta doctrina. Tal vez fuera un regalo de su primo Lorenzo «el Magnífico», bajo cuya tutela se encontraba.

 

Posteriormente pasó a la colección de la rama principal de los Médici, que fueron primeros duques de Florencia y posteriormente grandes duques de Toscana). Vasari la contempló y la admiró en 1550, cuando pertenecía al duque Cosme I.

 

La interpretación de esta pintura requiere un amplio conocimiento de la mitología clásica, bien que algunas figuras como Cupido o las Tres Gracias se identifican con facilidad. De izquierda a derecha se reconoce a:

 

- El dios Mercurio (con un sombrero o casco denominado petaso y con la vara llamada caduceo). Con este objeto parece jugar con unas nubecillas, escena enigmática que sólo se comprende por un pasaje de la Eneida en el que describe al veloz mensajero de los dioses, dominando las nubes y los vientos con sólo alzar el mágico caduceo. Con todo, algunos especialistas creen que realmente representa al dios Marte.

- Las tres Gracias, divinidades menores que presiden el encanto, la belleza y la fertilidad.

- La diosa Venus, seguramente en su advocación de Venus Genetrix, esto es como madre, lo que explicaría que se hubieran destacado sus pechos y el que vientre aparezca abultado. Por detrás de esta figura el pintor dispuso un arbusto que se ha identificado como el mirto (o arrayán), planta consagrada a esta deidad, al igual que los naranjos.

- Cupido, hijo de Venus, otra divinidad menor considerado dios del amor.

- Flora, divinidad secundaria del panteón latino encargada de las flores y los jardines. Ese patronazgo explica su corona de flores y su vestido ornamentado con plantas y ramos. Su representación derramando flores se encuentra ya en las pinturas de Pompeya.

- Cloris, ninfa que en la mitología griega desempeña el mismo papel que Flora en el panteón latino, de ahí que a veces se consideren que son el mismo personaje. Su vínculo con la vegetación queda resaltado por las flores que salen de su boca.

- Céfiro o bien Bóreas, personificaciones del viento del oeste y del norte, respectivamente. Ambas deidades raptaron a Cloris, de ahí que su identificación permanezca dudosa. Aunque tradicionalmente se ha visto en él a Céfiro, la brusquedad con la que aparece y su color azul oscuro, propio de las tormentas, parece convenir mejor al tempestuoso Bóreas que al tranquilo y fecundante viento del oeste.

 

Si en la identificación existe cierto consenso, la crítica no se ha puesto de acuerdo sobre su verdadero significado y ninguna de las interpretaciones ha conseguido imponerse, bien que suele vincularse a la filosofía neoplatónica.

 

Una explicación bastante verosímil (y alternativa) es la que considera la obra una alegoría de los tres meses de la primavera: A la derecha marzo, mes caracterizado por los repentinos y negativos efectos del viento y del frío sobre la primera floración; en el centro abril mes consagrado a Venus; y a la izquierda mayo, mes vinculado a Mercurio, pues se creía que estaba dedicado a la madre del dios, la pléyade Maya.

 

La obra estaría inspirada en los tapices flamencos dedicados a las estaciones y meses del año, lo que explicaría la deficiente construcción del espacio y ese prado poblado por diminutas flores y plantas, muy similar a los fondos de tapiz de estilo «mille fleur» confeccionado en aquella época en Francia y en Flandes

 

Para situar el monumento en su contexto histórico, social, político y cultural señalemos que el arte renacentista surge en Italia en el siglo XV, difundiéndose por el resto de Europa en el siglo siguiente. La expansión colonial de españoles y portugueses extenderán este estilo por Iberoamérica y otros territorios que estas potencias incorporan a sus imperios.

 

La cronología de este estilo abarca, pues, desde el siglo XV hasta inicios del siglo XVII. Se distinguen varias fases: Quattrocento (siglo XV), Cinquecento (primer cuarto del siglo XVI) y Manierismo (resto del siglo XVI). Existe una suave etapa de transición hacia el Barroco conocida como protobarroco o arte tridentino (por hallarse marcado por la influencia del Concilio de Trento).

 

El mundo del Quattrocento se caracteriza en lo político por el predominio del sistema de la ciudad-estado en Italia. Se trata de una forma de gobierno oligárquica, pues unas pocas familias controlaban el poder de estas urbes. Estos linajes solían pertenecer a una burguesía mercantil que desarrolla un capitalismo inicial, basado en el comercio de tejidos y en las operaciones bancarias. Esta centuria se caracteriza por un período de expansión económica, caracterizada por el incremento de la circulación monetaria.

 

Respecto a la cultura, la Iglesia sigue desempeñando un papel preponderante, bien que se asiste a una recuperación de la herencia clásica, desarrollándose la filosofía neoplatónica, que fomenta el antropocentrismo y la estima por los números, la proporción y la armonía.

 

Socialmente, la valoración de los artistas comenzará a ser tenida en cuenta, y como se observa en esta obra, arquitectos, escultores y pintores colaboraran en el retorno de la Antigüedad clásica bien estudiando los restos arqueológicos, leyendo y comentando a los autores de la literatura grecorromana o frecuentando las academias filosóficas. Con todo, la producción artística siguió siendo considerada como un mero trabajo mecánico y manual, en el que sólo importaba la destreza, a diferencia de las artes liberales (la Gramática, la Retórica, la Dialéctica, la Aritmética, la Geometría, la Música y la Astronomía) en las que se hacía precisa la aplicación del intelecto.

 

El mecenazgo cobrará un gran impulso en este período como forma de distinción y prestigio. A los promotores de obras tradicionales en la Italia del momento (el Papado, las órdenes religiosas mendicantes y las corporaciones cívicas), se unirán la burguesía mercantil y los condottieros o capitanes de las tropas mercenarias.

 

Para terminar, señalemos que «la Primavera» y otras obras alegóricas y/o mitológicas de Botticelli han sido consideradas un retorno del arte profano, olvidado en la Edad Media o reducido en este período a la mínima expresión ante la preponderancia del arte sacro. Lo cierto es que aunque no puedan competir con el arte religioso, los temas y la decoración seculares tuvieron un amplio desarrollo en la Europa medieval cristiana, bien que los testimonios conservados son muy escasos. Destacaron los tapices (cuya pervivencia resulta muy difícil) o bien mosaicos, vidrieras, pinturas murales y otros ornamentos cuya suerte va ligada a los palacios para los que se realizaron.

 

Dado que estas construcciones sufrieron continuas renovaciones, o al contrario fueron abandonados o pasaron por los rigores de la guerra, los testimonios que nos han llegado de arte profano se han preservado en algunos casos por pasar a las colecciones de iglesias o monasterios, como el tapiz de Bayeux. Algunos otros, como las pinturas de las techumbres de la catedral de Teruel, albergan un contenido profano pese a que se realizaron para un templo.

 

Por tanto hay que recurrir muchas veces a las crónicas o a las representaciones contenidas en los libros miniados para reconstruir el esplendor decorativo de las residencias medievales y de algunos edificios como juzgados o casas consistoriales.

 

El repertorio era amplísimo: escenas de batallas más o menos históricas, o bien basadas en ciclos de romances y leyendas; series de personajes de la Antigüedad, en especial Alejandro Magno; complicadas alegorías mitológicas inspiradas en la obra de Marciano Capela y en Ovidio (bien que se trata del Ovidio «moralizado»); alegorías sobre el gobierno de la ciudad; fábulas protagonizadas por animales; episodios cinegéticos, bailes y otros esparcimientos de los nobles, entre ellos las escenas de baños, llamada de «estufa» (termas); representaciones cartográficas y de las constelaciones celestes, cargadas de los simbolismos propios de la época… En cambio el retrato tuvo un escaso desarrollo y, con alguna excepción, estuvo ligado más bien al arte religioso, apareciendo los personajes como donantes.

 

Estas obras suelen mostrar una originalidad sorprendente y un naturalismo desconocidos en el envarado arte sacro. Las pinturas (o tapices) sobre campañas militares están realizados con una óptica casi «periodística», en el que la narración histórica se presenta como un verdadero reportaje (bien que realizado en muchos casos con decenios de retraso). Por lo demás, los testimonios conservados asombran por su altísima calidad.

 

Se comprende que de la alta Edad Media se conserven muy pocos ejemplos. Destacan los mosaicos del pavimento del Palacio Sagrado de Constantinopla y la decoración anicónica de la iglesia de San Julián de los Prados de Oviedo.

 

De la etapa gótica, destacan en primer lugar los murales que relatan hazañas militares, como los frescos del monasterio de Santa María de Valbuena en Valladolid, las pinturas de la conquista de Mallorca del Palacio Aguilar en Barcelona, y otros frescos de la misma temática conservados en el Palacio Real de Barcelona, en Cardona, Alcañiz y Melfi, en el sur de Italia.

 

Con una temática más mundana, nos encontramos con la vidriera denominada «La cacería» de la catedral de León, las pinturas mudéjares de la catedral de Teruel, los frescos de la llamada Sala del Ciervo, en el Palacio de los Papas en Aviñón, las pinturas del Palacio Comunal de Siena, el ciclo pictórico de Castello della Manta, en el Piamonte y las imágenes de constelaciones realizadas por Fernando Gallego para la Universidad de Salamanca.

 

Mención aparte merecen las tapicerías conservadas: el mencionado tapiz de Bayeux, el ciclo de tapices de la Dama y el Unicornio del Museo de Cluny de París; el llamado tapiz «de las Naves» de la seo zaragozana y los cuatro tapices de Pastrana que describen las conquistas portuguesas en el Norte de África.

 

Las muestras de escultura profana son aún más escasas. Mencionaremos el misterioso Regisole de Pavía, destruido en el siglo XVIII y de cronología muy discutida. Otra obra no menos enigmática es la escultura ecuestre de Rávena (¿de Teodorico?) que Carlomagno mando trasladar a Aquisgrán. Se han conservado la estatuilla de Carlomagno ecuestre del Louvre, el León de Brunswick (Alemania) y el busto de Federico II Hohenstaufen de Barletta (Italia). En relieve, y ya en el arte gótico, hay que mencionar los marfiles franceses dedicados al Roman de la Rose y otros temas galantes y el coro bajo de la catedral de Toledo que talló Rodrigón Alemán y que está dedicado a la conquista del Reino de Granada.

 

Por lo demás los mosaicos de la mezquita omeya de Damasco, las pinturas del castillo sirio de Qusair Amra, Damasco o las conservadas en la Alhambra nos señalan que tampoco el mundo árabe fue ajeno a esta práctica de decorar con escenas libres de todo contenido religioso o doctrinal.

 

En conclusión las alegorías de Botticelli o los esposos Arnolfini de Jan van Eyck hay que verlos más bien como cambios de rumbo o renovaciones de la temática del arte civil y profano, más que la supuesta resurrección de esta vertiente del arte perdida en los mal llamados «siglos oscuros»

 

Procedencia de la imagen:

 

www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/b/botticel/index.html

 

Represented by SL Talent

 

Stroke my ego and follow me: Instagram ≈ 500px ≈ flickr ≈ tumblr

 

© Copyright 2015 Barrie Spence. All rights reserved.. All rights reserved and moral rights asserted. Theses images are not in the public domain and may not be used without licence.

 

Comments are very welcome and very much appreciated, but any with linked/embedded images will be removed.

The smaller psv sector was represented by EVM whno again had two vehicles at the trade show of the uk caoch rally , The first this Mercedes Benz Sprinter / EVM Exlusive C16F with Leather seats. Photo taken 11/05/14

Pavel Srníček (10 March 1968 – 29 December 2015) was a Czech football coach and former professional player who played as a goalkeeper.

 

In a career that lasted from 1990 to 2007, he notably played in the Premier League mainly for Newcastle United. In addition, he represented Sheffield Wednesday, Portsmouth and West Ham United in England's top flight, and also played in Serie A for Brescia, Serie B with Cosenza, in Portugal for Beira-Mar, and in his native country for Baník Ostrava. After retiring, he worked as a goalkeeping coach for his own private school and for AC Sparta Prague.

 

Srníček played internationally for the Czech Republic from 1994 to 2001, earning a total of 49 caps. He was part of their squad that came runners-up at UEFA Euro 96, and was their first-choice goalkeeper when they came third at the 1997 FIFA Confederations Cup and contested UEFA Euro 2000.

 

Srníček made 30 appearances in the Czechoslovak First League for Baník Ostrava spanning the 1989–90 and 1990–91 seasons. He was signed for English side Newcastle United in January 1991 by manager Jim Smith for a fee of £350,000, being one of 23 players signed by Smith in a 2+1⁄2-year period as manager. Smith left just two months after Srníček's arrival. Under manager Ossie Ardiles, Srníček established himself as Newcastle's first-choice goalkeeper ahead of John Burridge and Tommy Wright. Srníček experienced difficulty in the first 15 games of the 1991–92 season, conceding 32 goals in that period including six in a single match against Tranmere Rovers. Ardiles replaced Srníček as goalkeeper with Wright and by February 1992, the club was merely one place from last in the Second Division. This led to Kevin Keegan replacing Ardiles as manager, with the club winning seven of their remaining 16 games, only managing to confirm their future status in the division with an away win against Leicester City on the last day of the season. The club started the 1992–93 season in the new Football League First Division, winning all of their first 11 matches. Wright lost his place as goalkeeper to Srníček after 14 games of the season. At the end of the season, Keegan's first full one as manager, the club was promoted to the Premier League with 96 points. 1993 saw the arrival of Mike Hooper from Liverpool, who competed with Srníček for the position of goalkeeper.

 

Srníček marked the opening of the 1994–95 season, a 3–1 away victory against Leicester City, by being sent off. A "terrible error" by Srníček in a September 1994 match against Liverpool resulted in a goal for Liverpool striker Ian Rush, ending Newcastle's perfect start to the season and leading Glenn Moore of The Independent to question how much longer the goalkeeper would remain in the first team.

 

During Srníček's league suspension in 1995, former Reading man Shaka Hislop assumed position as the team's goalkeeper. Later an injury to Hislop enabled Srníček to return to the first team, upon which he entered into an impressive run of form. He was named man of the match in a December 1995 match against Everton, his team winning 1–0. During the 1990s, Srníček became the longest-serving foreign Newcastle player, passing the time spent at the club by Chilean brothers George and Ted Robledo.

 

Srníček played in the UEFA Cup, making a "vital save" from Amara Traoré and keeping a clean sheet as Newcastle beat Metz 2–0 in a December 1996 match in Newcastle, to qualify for the quarter finals of the competition.

 

Newcastle United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England. The team compete in the Premier League, the first level of the English football league system, as of the 2023–24 season. Since the formation of the club in 1892, when Newcastle East End absorbed the assets of Newcastle West End to become Newcastle United, the club has played its home matches at St James' Park. Located in the centre of Newcastle, it currently has a capacity of 52,305.

 

The club has been a member of the Premier League for all but three years of the competition's history, spending 91 seasons in the top flight as of May 2023, and has never dropped below English football's second tier since joining the Football League in 1893. Newcastle have won four League titles, six FA Cups and an FA Charity Shield, as well as the 1968–69 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the ninth-highest total of trophies won by an English club. The club's most successful period was between 1904 and 1910, when they won an FA Cup and three of their League titles. Their last major domestic trophy was in 1955. More recently the club have been League or FA Cup runners-up on four occasions in the 1990s. Newcastle were relegated in 2009, and again in 2016. The club won promotion at the first time of asking each time, returning to the Premier League, as Championship winners, in 2010 and 2017. In October 2021, a consortium led by the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, became majority owners of Newcastle United.

 

The team's traditional kit colours are black-and-white striped shirts, black shorts and black or white socks. Their crest has elements of the city coat of arms, which features two grey hippocamps. Before each home game, the team enters the field to "Going Home", with "Blaydon Races" also being sung during games. The 2005 film Goal! featured Newcastle United, and many signings mentioned the influence the film had on them.

 

The history of Newcastle United Football Club, an English professional association football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England, covers the club's entire history from its formation to the present day. Formed by a merger between Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End to become 'United' in 1892, the club was elected to the Football League, which they entered in 1893.

 

Newcastle are England's 9th most successful club of all time. They have been English champions four times (in 1905, 1907, 1909, 1927) and FA Cup winners six times (in 1910, 1924, 1932, 1951, 1952, 1955). The club have also won the 1909 Charity Shield, the 1968–69 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, and the 2006 Intertoto Cup. Newcastle have reached the League Cup final twice, finishing runners-up in both years ( 1976 and 2023). They have played in England's top league from 1898–1934, 1948–61, 1965–78, 1984–89, 1993–2009, 2010–2016, and 2017–present, playing in the second tier at all other times.

 

The first record of football being played on Tyneside dates from 3 March 1877 at Elswick Rugby Club. Later that year, Newcastle's first association football club, Tyne Association, was formed. The origins of Newcastle United Football Club itself can be traced back to the formation of a football club by the Stanley Cricket Club of Byker in November 1881. They won their first match 5–0 against Elswick Leather Works 2nd XI. The team was renamed Newcastle East End F.C. in October 1882, to avoid confusion with the cricket club in Stanley, County Durham.

 

Shortly after this, another Byker side, Rosewood FC, merged with East End to form an even stronger side. Meanwhile, across the city, West End Cricket Club began to take an interest in football and in August 1882, they formed Newcastle West End F.C. West End played their early football on their cricket pitch, but in May 1886, the club moved into St James' Park. The two clubs became rivals in the Northern League. In 1889, Newcastle East End became a professional team, before becoming a limited company the following March.

 

West End soon became the city's premier club. East End were anxious not to be left behind and lured Tom Watson into becoming the club secretary/manager in the close season of 1888 and from that point, never looked back; Watson made several good signings, especially from Scotland, and the Heaton club went from strength to strength, while West End's fortunes slipped dramatically.

 

The region's first league competition was formed in 1889 and the FA Cup began to cause interest. Ambitious East End turned professional in 1889, a huge step for a local club, and in March 1890, they made an even more adventurous move by becoming a limited company with capital of 1,000 pounds in ten shilling notes. During the spring of 1892, in a season during which their results were at an all-time low, and in which they had lost to their bitter rivals, East End, five times, West End found themselves in serious trouble. They approached East End with a view to a take over, the directors having decided that the club could no longer continue.

 

What actually happened was that West End wound up, while some of its players and most of its backroom staff joined East End. East End also took over the lease on St. James' Park in May 1892.

 

With only one senior club in the city for fans to support, development of the club was much more rapid. Despite being refused entry to the Football League's First Division at the start of the 1892–93 season, they were invited to play in their new Second Division. However, with no big names playing in the Second Division, they turned down the offer and remained in the Northern League, stating "gates would not meet the heavy expenses incurred for travelling". In a bid to start drawing larger crowds, Newcastle East End decided to adopt a new name in recognition of the merger. Suggested names included Newcastle F.C., Newcastle Rangers, Newcastle City and City of Newcastle, but Newcastle United was decided upon on 9 December 1892, to signify the unification of the two teams. The name change was accepted by the Football Association on 22 December, but the club was not legally constituted as Newcastle United Football Club Co. Ltd. until 6 September 1895. At the start of the 1893–94 season, Newcastle United were once again refused entry to the First Division and so joined the Second Division, along with Liverpool and Woolwich Arsenal. They played their first competitive match in the division that September against Woolwich Arsenal, with a score of 2–2.

 

Turnstile numbers were still low, and the incensed club published a statement claiming "The Newcastle public do not deserve to be catered for as far as professional football is concerned". However, eventually figures picked up by 1895–96, when 14,000 fans watched the team play Bury. That season Frank Watt became secretary of the club, and he was instrumental in promotion to the First Division for the 1898–99 season. However, they lost their first game 4–2 at home to Wolves and finished their first season in thirteenth place.

 

In 1903–04, the club built up a promising squad of players, and went on to dominate English football for almost a decade, the team known for their "artistic play, combining team-work and quick, short passing". Newcastle started to purchase talented players, especially from Scotland, and soon had a squad to rival all of England. With players like Colin Veitch, Jackie Rutherford, Jimmy Lawrence and Albert Shepherd, Newcastle had a team of international talent. Bill McCracken, Jimmy Howie, Peter McWilliam and Andy Aitken were also household names in their day. Long after his retirement, defender Peter McWilliam said "The Newcastle team of the 1900s would give any modern side a two goal start and beat them, and further more, beat them at a trot".

 

Newcastle United went on to win the League on three occasions during the 1900s: in 1904–05, 1906–07 and 1908–09. Newcastle reached five FA Cup finals in the years leading up to World War I. In 1904–05, they nearly did the double, losing to Aston Villa in the 1905 FA Cup Final. They were beaten again the following year by Everton in the 1906 FA Cup Final. They reached the final again in 1908 where they lost to Wolves. In 1908 the team suffered a record 9–1 home defeat to local rivals Sunderland in the league but still won that season's league title. They finally won the FA Cup in 1910 when they beat Barnsley in the final. They lost again the following year in the final against Bradford City.

 

The team returned to the FA Cup final in 1924, in the second final held at the then new Wembley Stadium. They defeated Aston Villa, winning the club's second FA Cup.Three years later they won the First Division championship a fourth time in 1926–27. Record signing & Scottish international centre-forward Hughie Gallacher, one of the most prolific goal scorers in the club's history, captained the championship-winning team. Other key players in this period were Neil Harris, Stan Seymour and Frank Hudspeth. Seymour was to become an influential figure for the next 40 years as player, manager and director.

 

In 1930, Newcastle United came close to relegation, and at the end of the season Gallacher left the club for Chelsea, and at the same time Andy Cunningham became the club's first team manager. In 1931–32, the club won the FA Cup a third time in the infamous 'Over the Line' final. United won the game 2–1 after scoring a goal following a cross from Jimmy Richardson which appeared to be hit from out of play - over the line. There were no action replays then and the referee allowed the goal, a controversial talking point in FA Cup history.

 

Newcastle boasted master players like Sam Weaver and Jack Allen, as well as the first player-manager in the top division in Scottish international Andy Cunningham. But at the end of the 1933–34 season, the team were relegated to the Second Division after 32 seasons in the First. Cunningham left as manager and Tom Mather took over. Amazingly in the same season as they fell into the Second Division, United defeated Liverpool 9–2 and Everton 7–3 within the space of a week.

 

The club found it difficult to adjust to the Second Division and were nearly further relegated in the 1937–38 season, when they were spared on goal averages.

 

When World War II broke in 1939, Newcastle had a chance to regroup, and in the War period, they brought in Jackie Milburn, Tommy Walker and Bobby Cowell.

 

Newcastle United won no Wartime League trophies, but Jackie Milburn made his debut in 1943 in a "Stripes vs Blues" match. Milburn's side was losing at half-time 3–0, but following a switch from midfielder to centre forward, he scored 6 goals to help them win the match 9–3. Jackie went on to score 38 goals in the next 3 years of the league's life.

 

By the time peace was restored in 1945, Seymour was at the forefront of Newcastle's affairs, manager in all but name. He ensured that the Magpies possessed an entertaining eleven full of stars, a mix of home-grown talent like Jackie Milburn, Bobby Cowell and Ernie Taylor, as well as big signings in the shape of George Robledo, Bobby Mitchell, Joe Harvey, Len Shackleton and Frank Brennan.

 

Newcastle spent the first couple of years post-war in the Second Division. Crowds were extremely high after the return to football, and in 1946 Newcastle recorded the joint-highest victory in English League Football history, defeating Newport County 13–0. Len Shackleton, playing his debut in that match, scored 6 goals in the match, another record for Newcastle United.

 

Newcastle returned to the First Division in double of the time. Promotion was achieved in 1948 in front of vast crowds. An average of almost 57,000 at every home game saw United's fixtures that year, a national record for years to come. That was just the start of another period of success.

 

During the Fifties decade United lifted the FA Cup trophy on three occasions within a five-year period. In 1951 they defeated Blackpool 2–0, a year later Arsenal were beaten 1–0 and in 1955 United crushed Manchester City 3–1. The Magpies were known in every corner of the country, and so were their players; 'Wor Jackie' Milburn and Bobby 'Dazzler' Mitchell the pick of a side that was renowned the nation over. Other players of this time were Frank Brennan (like Mitchell a Scot), Ivor Broadis, Len White and Welshman Ivor Allchurch.

 

Despite having quality players throughout the era, stars like Allchurch, White and George Eastham during the latter years of the decade, United slipped from the First Division in 1961 under the controversial management of ex-Manchester United star, Charlie Mitten. It was a huge blow to the club.

 

An old war-horse returned to revitalise the Magpies in the shape of Joe Harvey, who had skippered the club to much of their post-war success. He teamed up with Stan Seymour to rebuild United and the Black'n'Whites returned to the elite as Second Division Champions in 1965. United then became very much an unpredictable side, always capable of defeating the best, but never quite realising their huge potential until very recently.

 

Joe Harvey's side qualified for Europe for the first time in 1968 and stunned everyone the following year by lifting the Inter Cities Fairs Cup; the forerunner of the UEFA Cup. United possessed a solid eleven and Newcastle's tradition of fielding a famous Number 9 at centre-forward since earliest years continued as big Welshman Wyn Davies was prominent along with the likes of Pop Robson, Bobby Moncur and Frank Clark.

 

In the years that followed European success, manager Harvey brought in a string of talented entertainers who thrilled the Gallowgate crowd. Pleasers like Jimmy Smith, Tony Green and Terry Hibbitt. And especially a new centre-forward by the name of Malcolm Macdonald.

 

Nicknamed 'Supermac', Macdonald was one of United's greatest hero figures. Brash, arrogant and devastating in front of goal, he led United's attack to Wembley in 1974, against Liverpool in the FA Cup. But the Magpies failed to bring the trophy back to Tyneside, and a complete lack of success in any of the competitions the next season resulted in Joe Harvey being sacked in mid-1975.

 

Blackburn manager Gordon Lee was appointed to replace Harvey, and despite a mediocre league campaign in 1975–76, led the club to its first League Cup final, which ended in defeat by Manchester City. Despite Macdonald controversially being sold to Arsenal for a cut price deal, the following season saw United's best League campaign for years, and by Christmas the club looked to have an outside chance of winning the title. However, Lee walked out on the club to take over at Everton at the start of 1977, and inexperienced coach Richard Dinnis was put in charge of the team after the players demanded that he be given the job. United's form initially remained quite consistent under Dinnis, and they secured 5th place and a UEFA Cup spot at the end of the season. However, the team totally fell apart the following season, and Dinnis was sacked after a run of ten straight League defeats and a thumping UEFA Cup exit at the hands of French team SC Bastia. Bill McGarry took over as manager, but was powerless to prevent United from being relegated in statistically their worst season ever. The only mercy they had was Leicester City's terrible goal difference preventing United from finishing bottom of the table.

 

McGarry remained in charge of the club, but only managed two midtable finishes before being sacked in the wake of an uninspiring start to the 1980–81 season, and it was his successor Arthur Cox who steered United back again to the First Division with ex England captain Kevin Keegan leading the attack, having joined the Magpies in a sensational deal in 1982.

 

The football inspired by Keegan captivated Tyneside and United stormed into the top division in a style only bettered by Kevin's own brand of football when he returned to the club as manager a decade later. Cox had also signed young winger Chris Waddle out of non-league football, as well as young striker Peter Beardsley, Liverpool midfielder Terry McDermott and former Manchester United midfielder David McCreery. The club was rocked however when Cox resigned after the board refused to offer him an improved contract in the aftermath of promotion, and, surprisingly, accepted an offer to take charge of Derby County - who had been relegated from the Second Division.

 

One of English footballs greatest talents, Paul Gascoigne or 'Gazza', emerged as an exciting 18-year-old midfielder in 1985-86, under Newcastle's next manager Jack Charlton, who left after only one season despite Newcastle achieving a secure mid-table finish on their return to the First Division. His successor was former player Willie McFaul. Newcastle consolidated their place in Division One but then a period of selling their best players (Beardsley to Liverpool, and Waddle and eventually Gascoigne both to Tottenham), rocked the club and led to supporter unrest, as did a share-war for control of the boardroom. The effect of this on the pitch soon proved evident, as McFaul was sacked after a dismal start to the 1988–89 season, and new boss Jim Smith was unable to turn Newcastle around, resulting in them finishing at the foot of the First Division in 1989 and dropping back into the Second Division.

 

Smith then signed Portsmouth striker Mick Quinn and Newcastle began the 1989–90 season on a high note, beating promotion favourites Leeds United 5–2 on the opening day with Quinn scoring four goals, and Newcastle appeared to be on the path to a revival. However, they missed out on automatic promotion by one place, before enduring a humiliating play-off exit at the hands of local rivals Sunderland. The intensifying boardroom battle soon took its toll on the club, and Smith resigned early in the following season with the side stuck in mid-table. Ossie Ardiles became the club's new manager, and despite being initially being the club's most popular manager since Joe Harvey, Newcastle dropped to the bottom of the Second Division in October 1991. Results failed to improve, despite the acquisition of a new striker in David Kelly and the efforts of promising young players including Steve Howey, Steve Watson and Gavin Peacock, and in February 1992 Ardiles was sacked. Despite being the best-supported side in the division and frequently still managing to pull in crowds of more than 20,000, Newcastle were also millions of pounds in debt and faced with the real prospect of third-tier football for the first time ever. A saviour was needed, and in came new chairman John Hall, who offered the manager's job to Kevin Keegan. Despite having vowed never to enter management following his retirement as a player, Keegan accepted the offer to manage Newcastle. His first task was to deliver Second Division survival.

 

Kevin Keegan returned as manager in the 1991–92 season, and survived relegation from the Second Division. The club's finances were transformed, with Hall aiming to put Newcastle among Europe's biggest clubs, and signings like Rob Lee and Andy Cole helped Newcastle to promotion the following season, 1992–93, as champions of the new First Division. The finish also secured qualification for the 1993–94 UEFA Cup upon return to the top flight in the 1993–94 Premier League season.

 

St James' Park was redeveloped during this time into an all-seated stadium with a capacity of 36,000. This increased to 52,000 in the late 1990s, after the rejection of Hall's proposal to build a larger stadium at Castle Leazes.

 

Keegan stunned fans and critics alike in 1995 when prolific striker Andy Cole was sold to Manchester United in exchange for £6 million and midfielder Keith Gillespie, leaving many to blame the sale to have affected Newcastle's title chances for the 1994–95 season, in which they finished sixth. The club, however, continued to build up a reputation for playing attacking football under Keegan. In the 1995–96 season, high-profile foreign stars David Ginola and Faustino Asprilla, in addition to British players Peter Beardsley and striker Les Ferdinand, guided the team to a second-place finish. During the 1996–97 season, Keegan made one signing, securing the services of England striker Alan Shearer for a then-world record transfer fee of £15 million to produce a shrewd partnership with Les Ferdinand, and claim a 5–0 victory over title rivals Manchester United. whilst remaining in contention to win the league.

 

With the team having failed to win any trophies under his reign, Keegan resigned as manager on 8 January 1997, saying, "I feel that I have taken the club as far as I can."

 

Kenny Dalglish replaced Keegan as manager, and maintained the club's good form through to the end of the season, finishing second. In the 1997–98 season, Les Ferdinand and David Ginola both left the club, whilst Alan Shearer broke his ankle in a pre-season friendly, keeping him out for the first half of the season. Dalglish signed Ian Rush, John Barnes, Duncan Ferguson and Stuart Pearce to bolster the squad, and achieved a 3–2 victory over Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League through a Faustino Asprilla hat-trick, but Dalglish's cautious brand of football, as opposed to the attacking style played under Keegan, did not prove successful—the club failed to progress beyond the Champions League group stage, finished 13th in the Premier League, and lost the FA Cup final to Arsenal. Dalglish began the 1998–99 season signing Nolberto Solano and Dietmar Hamann, but was soon dismissed following the club's declining form.

 

Ruud Gullit replaced him, however the club again finished the league in 13th place and again lost in the FA Cup final, this time to Manchester United F.C. Gullit resigned early in the 1999–2000 season, having fallen out with several senior players, including Alan Shearer and captain Rob Lee. Keith Gillespie later blamed Gullit's arrogance for his failure as manager of the club.

 

Ex-England manager Bobby Robson was brought in to replace Gullit in September 1999. He ensured Newcastle's survival in the Premiership, but the club remained in the bottom half of the table, finishing 11th in 1999–2000 and 2000–01. Robson, however, built up an exciting young squad, and an unlikely top four challenge emerged in 2001–02 season—Newcastle finished in fourth place.

 

Playing in the Champions League in 2002–03, Newcastle progressed to the second group stage in unlikely circumstances, beating Italian squad Juventus 1–0 along the way. United finished the 2002–03 season third in the Premier League, but lost their Champions League qualifier and played in the 2003–04 UEFA Cup instead, reaching the semi-final. In 2003–04, Newcastle finished fifth in the Premiership, lower than in previous seasons, and outside of Champions League contention.

 

Robson was then sacked following a poor start to the 2004–05 season and alleged discontent in the dressing room. In his autobiography, Robson was critical of Shepherd, claiming that while manager he was denied information regarding the players' contracts and transfer negotiations. He had previously publicly criticised the club's highly financed offer for Wayne Rooney, which the club later claimed they could not afford, stating young players were making excessive demands without first proving themselves on the pitch. He also criticised Shepherd and the club's deputy chairman Douglas Hall for their focus on the first team and St James' Park, causing them to neglect less glamorous issues, such as the training ground, youth development and talent scouts.

 

Graeme Souness replaced Robson and finished the season 14th in the league. Souness' arrival, however, was met with mixed reactions, with many expecting Robson being a hard task to improve upon, despite insisting he was aware of Sir Bobby's admiration and was ready for the role. In the January transfer window, Souness caused controversy in securing an £8 million bid for France international Jean-Alain Boumsong, who had joined Rangers for free just months before, prior to which Sir Bobby had travelled to France to review Boumsong but declined to sign him. The Stevens inquiry in 2007 documented that in this purchase Souness was accused of lack of consistency and was reviewed over the large media speculation the transfer received, but was eventually exonerated from any illegal participations. Going into 2005–06 season, despite signing several new players, including the return of Nolberto Solano from Aston Villa as well as Albert Luque from Deportivo de La Coruña for £10 million, Souness struggled with the opening games. He later blamed the state of the club's training ground for injuries suffered to players. The signing of Michael Owen (for a club record £17 million from Real Madrid) and his strike partnership with Alan Shearer produced goals at the end of 2005, but an injury caused Owen to miss the rest of the season and following a poor start to the new year, Souness was sacked in February 2006. Robbie Elliiot and Shay Given announced regret over his exit in the club's Season Review DVD but acknowledged his seeming favouritism of players and the amounting pressure on him damaged morale, whilst Alan Shearer blamed the injury crisis to first-team players.

 

Caretaker manager Glenn Roeder was issued the role of temporary first-team manager, seeing his first game against Portsmouth secure Alan Shearer's 201st goal for Newcastle United, becoming the club's all-time highest-scoring player. Roeder guided Newcastle from 15th to seventh place securing 32 league points from a possible 45 by the end of 2005–06, as well as securing a place in the UEFA Intertoto Cup and was given a two-year contract by chairman Freddy Shepherd. His appointment caused controversy, as at the time he did not hold the necessary UEFA Pro Licence to manage in the UEFA leagues and cup tournaments His role, however, was approved by UEFA who acknowledged that Roeder's diagnosis with a brain tumour in 2003 prevented him from developing his career, whilst Chairman Freddy Shepherd also fulfilled UEFA's request that he gain backing from all 19 other Premier League clubs to appoint him as manager. Alan Shearer retired at the end of the 2005–06 season scoring a record 206 goals.

 

Roeder encountered a difficult 2006–07 season, losing many players to injury, in particular Michael Owen, who had severely damaged his ligaments during the 2006 FIFA World Cup seeing him only play the final two games of the season. Newcastle won the 2006 Intertoto Cup, but a 5–1 exit to Birmingham City in the FA Cup, a round of 16 exit in the UEFA Cup and poor league results seeing a 13th-place finish led Roeder to resign in May 2007.

 

As the 2007 season drew to a close, St James Holdings Limited, the bid vehicle of billionaire businessman Mike Ashley, was reported to be in the process of buying the club. Ashley successfully acquired Sir John Hall's majority stake in the club in May 2007, leaving many to believe chairman Freddie Shepherd was set to depart after stepping down as chairman, should Ashley acquire more than 50 percent, which would see Shepherd no longer in control of the club and Ashley able to replace the board. Shepherd dismissed all speculation and proceeded to appoint ex-Bolton Wanderers boss Sam Allardyce as Newcastle manager, but eventually met with Mike Ashley and the board on 29 May. On 7 June 2007, Shepherd ended his 11 years with the club after Mike Ashley accepted his bid to buy his shares and in his role as chairman of the board, also having Shepherd advise the remaining shareholders to sell to Ashley. Ashley then announced he would be delisting the club from the London Stock Exchange upon completion of the takeover. The club officially ceased trading on the Stock Exchange as of 8 am on 18 July 2007 at 5p a share. Ashley brought in lawyer Chris Mort as the new club "deputy chairman".

 

Despite signing and building a seemingly strong squad, Sam Allardyce soon became widely unpopular with fans and players alike, and was surprisingly sacked by Ashley halfway through his first season after underwhelming results and pressure from the fans. Ashley, however, defended his decision to sack Allardyce, stating he made a mistake in not appointing his own choice of manager before the season started.

 

Kevin Keegan then made a sensational surprise return as manager. His return had an instant impact on club ticket sales as he sat with the fans, Mike Ashley and Chris Mort for the FA Cup replay 4–1 win against Stoke City. Following his return, Keegan had a disappointing first ten games back, with the club not winning a single game until his decision to include strikers Obafemi Martins, Michael Owen and Mark Viduka into a 4–3–3 formation, which saw the club back on goal-scoring and winning form and eventually finishing 12th in 2007–08. In May Keegan met with Mike Ashley and Director of Football Dennis Wise after he had suggested Champions League qualification was out of Newcastle United's reach and expressed dissatisfaction with the board's financial backing. Ashley was battling reports that he had lost hundreds of millions of pounds in a disastrous attempt to rescue bank HBOS. The morning following, after the club's 3–0 defeat to Arsenal, rumours were circulating that Keegan had either been sacked or resigned as Newcastle boss, citing board interference and his lack of control over transfers. Keegan confirmed the reports the same week, and reportedly held unsuccessful resolution talks with Mike Ashley the following week, leading to fan fury and protests around St James' Park, and marring the club's home defeat to Hull City, with fans accusing Ashley and club executives Dennis Wise, Tony Jimenez and Derek Llambias of forcing Keegan out.

 

Following mass media coverage of Keegan's departure, the club struggled to find a replacement, with the majority of managers showing no interest in the role. Ashley released a statement to the club's fans that in fear of his and his families reputation and safety, he was placing the club for sale. It was then announced that former Nottingham Forest manager Joe Kinnear was appointed temporary manager His appointment, however, saw a backlash from fans, prompting a verbal tirade from Kinnear at the media, who questioned his decision to take the job at such a time. By the end of the year, Ashley took the club off the market claiming he was unable to find a suitable buyer.

 

In the remainder of 2008–09, Kinnear won four out of 18 matches before stepping down due to reported heart problems. Chris Hughton then took temporary charge before Alan Shearer returned to Newcastle United as manager in April with Iain Dowie as his assistant. After winning only one out of eight games, the club was relegated to the Championship for the first time since 1992. Mike Ashley then re-issued his desire to sell the club once again and issued a £100 million sale price tag.

 

Prior to the start of the 2009–10 season, Keegan's dispute with the club was resolved after a Premier League Arbitration Panel ruled that he had been misled to believe he had the final word on the club's transfer policy when in fact Director of Football Dennis Wise had been handed such control. The signings of Xisco and Nacho González were ruled to have been made without the manager's approval; with González, Dennis Wise signed him only after viewing him off of YouTube. Wise and Derek Llambias were ruled to have deliberately misled the media to believe Keegan had the final say, which amounted to constructive dismissal. Keegan was awarded £2 million in compensation and re-offered his job as Newcastle United manager under fresh new terms, though in response to the offer, he stated the fans had "had enough" for the time being and declined. He stated in 2013 he would consider a return should Mike Ashley leave the club.

 

Chris Hughton was appointed full-time manager early in the 2009–10 season. The club dominated the Championship, winning 30 games, drawing 12 and losing only four, scoring a total of 90 goals and finishing top of the league with 102 points, thus re-gaining Premier League status at the first attempt.

 

Beginning 2010–11, Hughton remained on course to secure survival from relegation with the club's first win at the Emirates over Arsenal, and a memorable 5–1 defeat over Sunderland. However, fury once again was caused by the board, as the club controversially sacked Chris Hughton after a 3–1 defeat to West Bromwich Albion on 6 December 2010. Critics players and fans alike were shocked by Hughton's dismissal, leading to protests prior to the club's game against Liverpool in a bid to thank him for his work and support. Alan Pardew was then announced as being appointed manager on a five-and-a-half-year contract, with the club announcing they wanted a manager with more experience. Pardew stated he had nothing but respect for Chris Hughton and acknowledged the fact that other managers questioned his appointment. He secured his first win on his debut as manager with a 3–1 win over Liverpool On 31 January 2011, Newcastle sold striker Andy Carroll to Liverpool for a club record of £35 million. The sale of a young player at a high value proved controversial for Liverpool, with Alan Shearer ridiculing the price Liverpool paid as well as expressing sorrow at Newcastle for losing Carroll. Carroll himself stated that he did not want to leave the club but was forced out by the club's directors after Liverpool's final offer of £35 million; the board responded that Carroll had previously handed in a transfer request. Pardew said he was disappointed to lose Carroll, but pledged to invest in the club's summer transfer window. The remainder of the season saw Leon Best score a hat-trick on his debut in a 5–0 defeat of West Ham United, a memorable 4–4 comeback against Arsenal, and a 4–1 defeat of Wolverhampton Wanderers, eventually finishing 12th in the league.

 

Entering 2011–12, Pardew was reportedly denied the £35 million from the sale of Andy Carroll for transfers and told to sell players to raise funds, having claimed he had been assured the finances upon Carroll's departure. Kevin Keegan had previously stated Alan Pardew should not have expected the money following his issues with the board in 2008. The club signed many French-speaking players in the transfer window, including Yohan Cabaye, Mathieu Debuchy, Sylvain Marveaux and Demba Ba. and with impressive results throughout the season, Newcastle finished fifth.

 

In the 2012–13 UEFA Europa League, Newcastle reached the quarter-finals, and in the January transfer window, the French revolution continued into the new year, with Moussa Sissoko and Yoan Gouffran joining the squad. The team, however, had a poor 2012–13 Premier League and finished 16th in the Premier League.

 

Beginning the 2013–14 season, in a surprise move Joe Kinnear returned to the club as Director of Football, instantly causing fan fury following his outburst that he was "more intelligent" than the fans and critics, as well as mispronouncing various players names during a radio interview. However, he resigned after just eight months on the job following further critique for managing to sign only two players on loan—Loïc Rémy and Luuk de Jong—throughout the season's summer and January transfer windows, as well selling Yohan Cabaye to Paris Saint-Germain for £20 million, considered to be one of the most influential players at the time. Following the lack of transfer activity, Mike Ashley once again faced a fan revolt, with protests being launched at him to sell the club, and entered a dispute with several media titles whom the club banned from Newcastle United media facilities, press conferences and player interviews, declaring stories reported were intensely exaggerated and aimed only to damage Ashley's image further. Throughout the season, the club remained on course to ensure a top half finish, notably defeating Manchester United at Old Trafford for the first time since 1972. Nonetheless, the team struggled for goals following the sale of Cabaye. Further dismay upon the season was caused when Pardew was banned for seven matches and fined £100,000 for an assault on Hull City midfielder David Meyler. The club then encountered a poor run of form, losing eight out of ten games and finishing the season tenth in the league, though the club confirmed Alan Pardew would stay on.

 

The opening eight games of the 2014–15 season proved disappointing, with the club failing to secure a win. After the dip in form, however, the club had an emphatic resurgence, seeing a five-game unbeaten run whilst also surprising League Cup holders Manchester City with a 2–0 win and progressing to the quarter-finals of the tournament. Pardew, however, resigned from the club on 30 December 2014 following immense pressure from fans calling for his departure, with many posters at games designed with the Sports Direct logo advertising a website demanding his resignation. Pardew admitted in the months leading up to his departure that protests from the fans were affecting his family and was subsequently feeling unhappy at the club. He was replaced by his assistant manager John Carver, though the team subsequently earned just 13 points out of a possible 50, surviving relegation on the final day of the season with a victory over West Ham, Carver was dismissed before the club's pre-season for 2016 began. The club paid tribute to player Jonás Gutiérrez following his successful recovery from testicular cancer to resume his playing career.

 

Beginning the 2015–16 season, former England F.C. Manager Steve McClaren was appointed manager, signing Georginio Wijnaldum, Aleksandar Mitrovic, Chancel Mbemba, Florian Thauvin, Henri Saivet, Jonjo Shelvey, Andros Townsend and Ivan Toney. McClaren however struggled to produce results winning 6 and drawing 6 out of 28 games, whilst exiting both the FA Cup and League Cup in the Third Round. McClaren was subsequently sacked on 11 March 2016 with critics and former players voicing their favour of the decision. Rafael Benítez was announced as McClaren's successor the same day, signing a three-year deal. Benítez recorded his first victory in 3–0 defeat of Swansea City in the Premier League on 17 April 2016 after 5 games in charge, and maintained an emphatic 5-game unbeaten streak to the end of the season. Newcastle were however relegated from the Premier League along with Aston Villa and Norwich finishing 18th place, 2 points below safety. Betting websites confirmed after the final game that the club's 5–1 defeat of Tottenham Hotspur matched the initial odds of Leicester City's 5000/1 win of the 2015–16 Premier League season.

 

Starting the 2016-17 season, Rafa Benítez signed 12 new players full-time and also acquired 5 players on loan, whilst 8 players left the club and another 12 on loan. New signings Dwight Gayle and Matt Ritchie proved popular scoring a combined total of 39 goals, finishing among the top goalscorers that season. Despite failing to improve on their dominant success in the 2009/10 championship season, the club remained in contention for the trophy throughout; threatened only by Brighton & Hove Albion Newcastle enjoyed a 3-game winning streak to the final day of the season and lifted the Football League Championship trophy on 8 May 2017 following a 3–0 win over Barnsley. Rafa Benítez denied speculation that he would leave the club following promotion to the Premier League and confirmed his commitment to the club for the foreseeable future. Shortly prior to the season's finish, the club was subject to raids by HMRC following suspicions of tax evasion. Managing Director Lee Charnley was arrested during the raid, but was later released without charge.

 

Ending the 2017-18 season, the club finished 10th in the Premier League defeating the current champions Chelsea on the final day of the season, the highest finish achieved within 4 years. Beginning the 2018–19 season, Mike Ashley again came under scrutiny following lack of major signings in the summer transfer window, with many fans accusing him of lacking interest in the club following his purchase of troubled retail chain House of Fraser for £90m. Despite the January signing of Miguel Almirón from Atlanta United FC for £21 million surpassing the club's transfer record fee of £16.8 million for Michael Owen in 2005, the club struggled throughout the season with 12 wins, 9 draws and 17 losses seeing a 13th place league table finish, whilst exiting the League Cup at the 2nd round in a 3–1 defeat of Nottingham Forest F.C and a 4th round exit of the FA Cup in a 2–0 defeat to Watford F.C. The season also saw heavy speculation regarding Rafa Benítez remaining at the club following reports he was still in negotiations following the end of the season.

 

Following fresh reports of Ashley's intention to sell the club, Sheikh Khaled Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Founder and Chairman of The Bin Zayed Group of Companies, a member of the Al Nahyan royal family of Abu Dhabi, confirmed he had agreed terms to purchase the club for £350 million. On 5 June 2019 a company named Monochrome Acquisitions Limited was registered in Nahyan's name, whilst managing director Lee Charnley applied to have four companies linked to Ashley's company St James Holdings Ltd struck off, leaving many to believe the club was on course to be sold. Talks of a takeover however stalled throughout the summer transfer window, whilst Ashley confirmed he had not received an official bid from any prospective buyer.

 

Benítez rejected a new contract offer and departed the club on 30 June 2019, accepting a move to Chinese Super League side Dalian Yifang in a £12 million deal. Ashley criticised Benítez stating unfair demands were made making it impossible for him to remain as manager. Notable player departures saw Salomón Rondón join Benitez at Dalian Yifang after returning to West Bromwich Albion F.C. from loan, whilst Ayoze Perez joined Leicester City for £30 million and Mohamed Diamé was released by Newcastle upon the expiry of his contract at the end of the 2018–19 season.

 

BBC Sport reported in July 2019 that Steve Bruce had resigned from his managerial position at Sheffield Wednesday after he earlier admitted that he had held talks with Newcastle United over their managerial vacancy. His appointment was confirmed on 17 July. Sheffield Wednesday however stated there were still outstanding legal issues with Bruce having resigned just 48 hours before, leading a report being filed to the Premier League alleging misconduct in his appointment. Newcastle United denied any wrongdoing and stated they were confident no case could be escalated. Reaction from the fans was mixed, with some feeling Bruce would not achieve the standard set by Benítez, whilst his recent lack of Premier League football and management of rival club Sunderland proved controversial. Bruce later acknowledged Benítez's popularity and stated he hoped the fans would not rush to judgement and give him time to prove himself and manager of Newcastle. Due to visa problems in China, Bruce watched his first match as manager from the stands which saw Newcastle achieve a third-place finish in the pre-season 2019 Premier League Asia Trophy following a 1–0 victory over West Ham United F.C. Bruce quickly made his first transfer, signing Joelinton from TSG 1899 Hoffenheim for £40 million, breaking the club's transfer fee record previously held by Miguel Almirón at £21 million just 6 months before, before signing French international winger Allan Saint-Maximin from OGC Nice on a permanent deal for £16.5 million, Sweden international defender Emil Krafth for £5 million, central midfielder Kyle Scott on a free signing following his departure from Chelsea, and Netherlands international defender Jetro Willems on loan from Frankfurt F.C until the end of the 2019–20 season. Bruce made his final transfer of the pre-season on deadline day by re-signing striker Andy Carroll, who had left the club over 7 years earlier. On 4 February 2020, Steve Bruce's side ended a 14-year drought by reaching the 5th round of the FA Cup they beat League One side Oxford United 2–3 in a replay thanks to a late winner from Allan Saint-Maximin in extra time.

 

From March 2020, the season was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. On 13 March, following an emergency meeting between the Premier League, The Football Association (FA), the English Football League and the FA Women's Super League, it was unanimously decided to suspend professional football in England. On 19 March, the suspension was extended indefinitely, with a restart date of 17 June announced in late May with all remaining games to be played without crowd attendance.

 

Newcastle finished the season in 13th place. Defender Danny Rose was an outspoken critic of the decision to continue the season, citing the virus was still in major circulation and accused the FA of having no concern for footballers' health. Karl Darlow has since urged players at the club to get vaccinated following his hospitalisation from complications of Covid, whilst manager Steve Bruce admitted some players had voluntarily declined the vaccination.

 

The 2020-21 season saw all matches played without crowd attendance until May 2021, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Newcastle failed to improve on the previous season, finishing 12th in the premier league and were knocked out of the FA Cup in the third round added time to Arsenal and exited the EFL Cup in the quarter-finals losing 1–0 to Brentford.

 

In April 2020, it was widely reported that a consortium consisting of Public Investment Fund, PCP Capital Partners and the Reuben Brothers, was finalising an offer to acquire Newcastle United. The proposed sale prompted concerns and criticism, such as arguments considering it sportwashing of the country's human rights record, as well as ongoing large-scale piracy of sports broadcasts in the region. However the consortium announced its withdrawal from the Newcastle deal on July 30, 2020, after multiple media reports highlighted realm as the staunch violator of human rights, and the WTO ruled that it was behind the piracy campaign using pirate-pay-service beoutQ. "With a deep appreciation for the Newcastle community and the significance of its football club, we have come to the decision to withdraw our interest in acquiring Newcastle United Football Club," the group said in its statement upon withdrawal. The group also stated that the "prolonged process" was a major factor in them pulling out. The collapse of the takeover was met with widespread criticism from Newcastle fans, with Newcastle MP Chi Onwurah accusing the Premier League of treating fans of the club with "contempt" and subsequently wrote to Masters for an explanation. Despite the consortium's withdrawal, disputes over the takeover continued. On 9 September 2020, Newcastle United released a statement claiming that the Premier League had officially rejected the takeover by the consortium and accused Masters and the Premier League board of " acting appropriately in relation to [the takeover]", while stating that the club would be considering any relevant legal action. The Premier League strongly denied this in a statement released the next day, expressing "surprise" and "disappointment" at Newcastle's statement.

 

On October 7, 2021, the Public Investment Fund, PCP Capital Partners and RB Sports & Media confirmed that they had officially completed the acquisition of Newcastle United. Governor of the investment fund Yasir bin Othman Al-Rumayyan was appointed non-executive chairman, whilst Amanda Staveley and Jamie Reuben were both appointed as directors and each held a 10% shareholding in the club.

 

The takeover led to widespread speculation that manager Steve Bruce was expected to leave the club. Although not denying the speculation that the club was keen to appoint a new manager, Staveley stated Bruce was to remain for the new owners first game against Tottenham Hotspur; his 1000th match as a football manager. However following Newcastle losing the game 3-2 and alleged discontent among the players, Bruce left the club by mutual consent. Bruce stated his sadness at leaving the club and felt Newcastle fans launched unnecessary verbal abuse at him during his time there. Interim manager Graeme Jones as well as Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta supported Bruce's claims stating the abuse he received was off putting for other managers to take the role.

 

Eddie Howe was appointed as manager on 8 November 2021. The announcement was made following reports that the club had discussed the role with him the previous week and confirmed following his attendance at the away draw to Brighton & Hove Albion. On 19 November 2021, Newcastle announced that Howe had tested positive for COVID-19 and would miss his first game in charge, which instead forced him to watch his first game as manager from a hotel room as Newcastle drew 3–3 with Brentford on 20 November.

 

Lee Charnley, who acted as Managing Director under Ashley's ownership, left the club on 19 November 2021 following a six-week handover period. His departure was the final of Mike Ashley's hierarchy, with Staveley stating the club was undergoing a "formal process" to appoint a new figure to replace the role.

 

Eddie Howe had to wait until 4 December 2021 for his first win as Newcastle manager in a 1–0 win against Burnley, which was also the first win since the takeover happened. Howe then made five signings in the first January transfer window under the new ownership which included a marquee singing in Brazilian midfielder Bruno Guimarães from Olympique Lyonnais. The transfer window and the players that were already there that Howe improved helped Newcastle to go on a 9-game unbeaten run in the Premier League to get them 10 points clear from the relegation zone and increasing the chance of guaranteeing survival. After Newcastle's 1–0 win against Crystal Palace, this was the first time the club had managed to win 6 home games in a row since 2004 when Sir Bobby Robson was in charge. Newcastle finished in 11th place after a run of 12 wins in their final 18 games, and became the first team in Premier League history to avoid relegation after not winning any of the first 14 games they played.

 

On 30 May 2022, the club announced they had reached an agreement of a compensation fee with Brighton & Hove Albion to appoint Dan Ashworth as the new Sporting Director, the appointment was confirmed on 6 June 2022. On 15 July 2022, the club brought in Darren Eales, from MLS side Atlanta United, as the club's new Chief Executive Officer - acting as a "key member of the club's leadership structure".

 

Newcastle United was set up as a private company limited by shares on 6 September 1895. However, by the 1930s, ownership of the company was dominated by a small number of individuals: Alderman William McKeag, George and Robert Rutherford, and William Westwood, 1st Baron Westwood. George Stanley Seymour was allocated some shares when he joined the board in 1938.

 

By the second half of the 20th century, these shareholdings had passed to the next generation: Gordon McKeag, Robert James Rutherford, Stan Seymour Jr. and William Westwood, 2nd Baron Westwood. The Magpie Group led by Sir John Hall built up a large shareholding in the club and then took control in 1992. In 2007, St James Holdings Limited, the bid vehicle of billionaire businessman Mike Ashley, secured control of the club and in 2021, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, PCP Capital Partners and RB Sports & Media confirmed that they had acquired ownership of the club.

  

Public Domain and copyright free image containing illustrations, What Games Do These Pictures Represent?

 

From The Book of Knowledge Volume XVII, Copyright 1919 The Golier Society of New York and The Educational Book Co. of London. Page 5453

Zurich airport is one of my favorite places in the world, because being there always means that a trip someplace far away is just starting. (Of course, it can also mean a trip is just about over, but in that case Zurich airport represents the happiness of coming back home.)

 

This time, though, there wasn't even enough of a layover to sit down and have a cup of coffee. Instead, it was: find the new gate, board the big white bird, and buzz off to Chicago!

  

This little video represents success at a project that I have tried to make several times over many years with no joy until recently.

 

A cloud chamber is a device that allows you to see the paths of otherwise invisible radioactivity. A particle (in this case alpha) shoots through the air creating a lot of ionized atoms. If the conditions are right , with supersaturated alcohol vapor. The alcohol condenses on the ions creating a cloud.

 

I've tried building a chamber with dry ice several times with no results. A few years back I built a chamber using peltier elements. It got plenty cold but I never saw a single track.

 

A few days ago I grabbed the peltier system for another try but one of the leads on the unit had fallen off (cheap components) and since I had thermal epoxied everything together that was that.

 

I was actually kind of mad at the whole thing at this point but decided to try a simple liquid nitrogen chamber that I had tried a few years ago (and failed). For some stupid reason it worked perfectly. Loads of tracks.

 

So today I spent some time trying to get a good video. To do that I cut a hole in the side of the plastic chamber and covered it with a good glass window. Keeping things reasonably clean if hard, it reminded me of schlieren photography. Every dust particle shows up like a little searchlight.

 

The video shows the run from start to end. The chamber cools down fairly quickly because of the liquid nitrogen, but I still speeded up parts of the video to keep it short. I wanted to show how adding a clearing voltage to the chamber can really add to the number of tracks that you can see.

 

The chamber is really a wonder to see in person. the tracks look like fairy tale effects, ghostly and real at the same time.

 

Cheers.

  

Hagia Sophia represents the very essence of the history of Turkey and the continuous transformation it has undergone throughout the ages and even today.

 

Turkey, and especially Istanbul, the former Constantinople, is a country of great importance, transition, and rich cultural history. Hagia Sophia encapsulates all of these traits and stands as a visual testimony to the history of the region. Once a great symbol of Christianity, it demonstrated superiority over pagan religions. Through conquest, it became a representation of dominance and legitimization of Islam to the world. Upon the secularization of the country, Hagia Sophia became a Museum to both Christianity and Islam. As the country and museum try to interpret the balance of religion, both are frozen in time, unable to complete their ultimate goal of balancing these faiths.

  

Taken: Hagia Sophia taken from Loge of the Empress, Sultanahmet, Istanbul, Turkey

The Michigan Wolverines football program represents the University of Michigan in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) level. Michigan has the most all-time wins and the second highest winning percentage in college football history behind Notre Dame.

 

The team is known for its distinctive winged helmet, its fight song, its record-breaking attendance figures at Michigan Stadium, and its many rivalries, particularly its annual, regular-season-ending game against Ohio State, once voted as ESPN's best sports rivalry.

 

Michigan began competing in intercollegiate football in 1879. The Wolverines joined the Big Ten Conference at its inception in 1896, and other than a hiatus from 1907 to 1916, have been members since. Michigan has won or shared 42 league titles, and, since the inception of the AP Poll in 1936, has finished in the top 10 a total of 37 times. The Wolverines claim 11 national championships, most recently that of the 1997 squad voted atop the final AP Poll.

 

From 1900 to 1989, Michigan was led by a series of nine head coaches, each of whom has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame either as a player or as a coach. Fielding H. Yost became Michigan's head coach in 1901 and guided his "Point-a-Minute" squads to a streak of 56 games without a defeat, spanning from his arrival until the season finale in 1905, including a victory in the 1902 Rose Bowl, the first college football bowl game ever played. Fritz Crisler brought his winged helmet from Princeton University in 1938 and led the 1947 Wolverines to a national title and Michigan's second Rose Bowl win. Bo Schembechler coached the team for 21 seasons (1969–1989) in which he won 13 Big Ten titles and a program-record 194 games. The first decade of his tenure was underscored by a fierce competition with his former mentor, Woody Hayes, whose Ohio State Buckeyes squared off against Schembechler's Wolverines in a stretch of the Michigan–Ohio State rivalry dubbed the "Ten-Year War".

 

Schembechler's assistants Gary Moeller and Lloyd Carr helmed the team for the next 18 years, and continued the team's success. Rich Rodriguez succeeded Carr in 2008 and was fired after three seasons in which he compiled the worst record of any coach in program history. Brady Hoke succeeded Rodriguez, but after four years of steadily declining results, was dismissed following his fourth season. Following Hoke's dismissal, Michigan hired former quarterback Jim Harbaugh, who played for Michigan between 1983 and 1986 under Schembechler.

 

The Michigan Wolverines have featured 78 players that have garnered consensus selection to the College Football All-America Team. Three Wolverines have won the Heisman Trophy: Tom Harmon in 1940, Desmond Howard in 1991, and Charles Woodson in 1997. Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States, started at center and was voted most valuable player by his teammates on the 1934 team.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Wolverines_football

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

IR HDR. IR converted Canon Rebel XTi. AEB +/-2 total of 3 exposures processed with Photomatix. Levels adjusted in PSE.

 

High Dynamic Range (HDR)

 

High-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI) is a high dynamic range (HDR) technique used in imaging and photography to reproduce a greater dynamic range of luminosity than is possible with standard digital imaging or photographic techniques. The aim is to present a similar range of luminance to that experienced through the human visual system. The human eye, through adaptation of the iris and other methods, adjusts constantly to adapt to a broad range of luminance present in the environment. The brain continuously interprets this information so that a viewer can see in a wide range of light conditions.

 

HDR images can represent a greater range of luminance levels than can be achieved using more 'traditional' methods, such as many real-world scenes containing very bright, direct sunlight to extreme shade, or very faint nebulae. This is often achieved by capturing and then combining several different, narrower range, exposures of the same subject matter. Non-HDR cameras take photographs with a limited exposure range, referred to as LDR, resulting in the loss of detail in highlights or shadows.

 

The two primary types of HDR images are computer renderings and images resulting from merging multiple low-dynamic-range (LDR) or standard-dynamic-range (SDR) photographs. HDR images can also be acquired using special image sensors, such as an oversampled binary image sensor.

 

Due to the limitations of printing and display contrast, the extended luminosity range of an HDR image has to be compressed to be made visible. The method of rendering an HDR image to a standard monitor or printing device is called tone mapping. This method reduces the overall contrast of an HDR image to facilitate display on devices or printouts with lower dynamic range, and can be applied to produce images with preserved local contrast (or exaggerated for artistic effect).

 

In photography, dynamic range is measured in exposure value (EV) differences (known as stops). An increase of one EV, or 'one stop', represents a doubling of the amount of light. Conversely, a decrease of one EV represents a halving of the amount of light. Therefore, revealing detail in the darkest of shadows requires high exposures, while preserving detail in very bright situations requires very low exposures. Most cameras cannot provide this range of exposure values within a single exposure, due to their low dynamic range. High-dynamic-range photographs are generally achieved by capturing multiple standard-exposure images, often using exposure bracketing, and then later merging them into a single HDR image, usually within a photo manipulation program). Digital images are often encoded in a camera's raw image format, because 8-bit JPEG encoding does not offer a wide enough range of values to allow fine transitions (and regarding HDR, later introduces undesirable effects due to lossy compression).

 

Any camera that allows manual exposure control can make images for HDR work, although one equipped with auto exposure bracketing (AEB) is far better suited. Images from film cameras are less suitable as they often must first be digitized, so that they can later be processed using software HDR methods.

 

In most imaging devices, the degree of exposure to light applied to the active element (be it film or CCD) can be altered in one of two ways: by either increasing/decreasing the size of the aperture or by increasing/decreasing the time of each exposure. Exposure variation in an HDR set is only done by altering the exposure time and not the aperture size; this is because altering the aperture size also affects the depth of field and so the resultant multiple images would be quite different, preventing their final combination into a single HDR image.

 

An important limitation for HDR photography is that any movement between successive images will impede or prevent success in combining them afterwards. Also, as one must create several images (often three or five and sometimes more) to obtain the desired luminance range, such a full 'set' of images takes extra time. HDR photographers have developed calculation methods and techniques to partially overcome these problems, but the use of a sturdy tripod is, at least, advised.

 

Some cameras have an auto exposure bracketing (AEB) feature with a far greater dynamic range than others, from the 3 EV of the Canon EOS 40D, to the 18 EV of the Canon EOS-1D Mark II. As the popularity of this imaging method grows, several camera manufactures are now offering built-in HDR features. For example, the Pentax K-7 DSLR has an HDR mode that captures an HDR image and outputs (only) a tone mapped JPEG file. The Canon PowerShot G12, Canon PowerShot S95 and Canon PowerShot S100 offer similar features in a smaller format.. Nikon's approach is called 'Active D-Lighting' which applies exposure compensation and tone mapping to the image as it comes from the sensor, with the accent being on retaing a realistic effect . Some smartphones provide HDR modes, and most mobile platforms have apps that provide HDR picture taking.

 

Camera characteristics such as gamma curves, sensor resolution, noise, photometric calibration and color calibration affect resulting high-dynamic-range images.

 

Color film negatives and slides consist of multiple film layers that respond to light differently. As a consequence, transparent originals (especially positive slides) feature a very high dynamic range

 

Tone mapping

Tone mapping reduces the dynamic range, or contrast ratio, of an entire image while retaining localized contrast. Although it is a distinct operation, tone mapping is often applied to HDRI files by the same software package.

 

Several software applications are available on the PC, Mac and Linux platforms for producing HDR files and tone mapped images. Notable titles include

 

Adobe Photoshop

Aurora HDR

Dynamic Photo HDR

HDR Efex Pro

HDR PhotoStudio

Luminance HDR

MagicRaw

Oloneo PhotoEngine

Photomatix Pro

PTGui

 

Information stored in high-dynamic-range images typically corresponds to the physical values of luminance or radiance that can be observed in the real world. This is different from traditional digital images, which represent colors as they should appear on a monitor or a paper print. Therefore, HDR image formats are often called scene-referred, in contrast to traditional digital images, which are device-referred or output-referred. Furthermore, traditional images are usually encoded for the human visual system (maximizing the visual information stored in the fixed number of bits), which is usually called gamma encoding or gamma correction. The values stored for HDR images are often gamma compressed (power law) or logarithmically encoded, or floating-point linear values, since fixed-point linear encodings are increasingly inefficient over higher dynamic ranges.

 

HDR images often don't use fixed ranges per color channel—other than traditional images—to represent many more colors over a much wider dynamic range. For that purpose, they don't use integer values to represent the single color channels (e.g., 0-255 in an 8 bit per pixel interval for red, green and blue) but instead use a floating point representation. Common are 16-bit (half precision) or 32-bit floating point numbers to represent HDR pixels. However, when the appropriate transfer function is used, HDR pixels for some applications can be represented with a color depth that has as few as 10–12 bits for luminance and 8 bits for chrominance without introducing any visible quantization artifacts.

 

History of HDR photography

The idea of using several exposures to adequately reproduce a too-extreme range of luminance was pioneered as early as the 1850s by Gustave Le Gray to render seascapes showing both the sky and the sea. Such rendering was impossible at the time using standard methods, as the luminosity range was too extreme. Le Gray used one negative for the sky, and another one with a longer exposure for the sea, and combined the two into one picture in positive.

 

Mid 20th century

Manual tone mapping was accomplished by dodging and burning – selectively increasing or decreasing the exposure of regions of the photograph to yield better tonality reproduction. This was effective because the dynamic range of the negative is significantly higher than would be available on the finished positive paper print when that is exposed via the negative in a uniform manner. An excellent example is the photograph Schweitzer at the Lamp by W. Eugene Smith, from his 1954 photo essay A Man of Mercy on Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his humanitarian work in French Equatorial Africa. The image took 5 days to reproduce the tonal range of the scene, which ranges from a bright lamp (relative to the scene) to a dark shadow.

 

Ansel Adams elevated dodging and burning to an art form. Many of his famous prints were manipulated in the darkroom with these two methods. Adams wrote a comprehensive book on producing prints called The Print, which prominently features dodging and burning, in the context of his Zone System.

 

With the advent of color photography, tone mapping in the darkroom was no longer possible due to the specific timing needed during the developing process of color film. Photographers looked to film manufacturers to design new film stocks with improved response, or continued to shoot in black and white to use tone mapping methods.

 

Color film capable of directly recording high-dynamic-range images was developed by Charles Wyckoff and EG&G "in the course of a contract with the Department of the Air Force". This XR film had three emulsion layers, an upper layer having an ASA speed rating of 400, a middle layer with an intermediate rating, and a lower layer with an ASA rating of 0.004. The film was processed in a manner similar to color films, and each layer produced a different color. The dynamic range of this extended range film has been estimated as 1:108. It has been used to photograph nuclear explosions, for astronomical photography, for spectrographic research, and for medical imaging. Wyckoff's detailed pictures of nuclear explosions appeared on the cover of Life magazine in the mid-1950s.

 

Late 20th century

Georges Cornuéjols and licensees of his patents (Brdi, Hymatom) introduced the principle of HDR video image, in 1986, by interposing a matricial LCD screen in front of the camera's image sensor, increasing the sensors dynamic by five stops. The concept of neighborhood tone mapping was applied to video cameras by a group from the Technion in Israel led by Dr. Oliver Hilsenrath and Prof. Y.Y.Zeevi who filed for a patent on this concept in 1988.

 

In February and April 1990, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the first real-time HDR camera that combined two images captured by a sensor3435 or simultaneously3637 by two sensors of the camera. This process is known as bracketing used for a video stream.

 

In 1991, the first commercial video camera was introduced that performed real-time capturing of multiple images with different exposures, and producing an HDR video image, by Hymatom, licensee of Georges Cornuéjols.

 

Also in 1991, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the HDR+ image principle by non-linear accumulation of images to increase the sensitivity of the camera: for low-light environments, several successive images are accumulated, thus increasing the signal to noise ratio.

 

In 1993, another commercial medical camera producing an HDR video image, by the Technion.

 

Modern HDR imaging uses a completely different approach, based on making a high-dynamic-range luminance or light map using only global image operations (across the entire image), and then tone mapping the result. Global HDR was first introduced in 19931 resulting in a mathematical theory of differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter that was published in 1995 by Steve Mann and Rosalind Picard.

 

On October 28, 1998, Ben Sarao created one of the first nighttime HDR+G (High Dynamic Range + Graphic image)of STS-95 on the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. It consisted of four film images of the shuttle at night that were digitally composited with additional digital graphic elements. The image was first exhibited at NASA Headquarters Great Hall, Washington DC in 1999 and then published in Hasselblad Forum, Issue 3 1993, Volume 35 ISSN 0282-5449.

 

The advent of consumer digital cameras produced a new demand for HDR imaging to improve the light response of digital camera sensors, which had a much smaller dynamic range than film. Steve Mann developed and patented the global-HDR method for producing digital images having extended dynamic range at the MIT Media Laboratory. Mann's method involved a two-step procedure: (1) generate one floating point image array by global-only image operations (operations that affect all pixels identically, without regard to their local neighborhoods); and then (2) convert this image array, using local neighborhood processing (tone-remapping, etc.), into an HDR image. The image array generated by the first step of Mann's process is called a lightspace image, lightspace picture, or radiance map. Another benefit of global-HDR imaging is that it provides access to the intermediate light or radiance map, which has been used for computer vision, and other image processing operations.

 

21st century

In 2005, Adobe Systems introduced several new features in Photoshop CS2 including Merge to HDR, 32 bit floating point image support, and HDR tone mapping.

 

On June 30, 2016, Microsoft added support for the digital compositing of HDR images to Windows 10 using the Universal Windows Platform.

 

HDR sensors

Modern CMOS image sensors can often capture a high dynamic range from a single exposure. The wide dynamic range of the captured image is non-linearly compressed into a smaller dynamic range electronic representation. However, with proper processing, the information from a single exposure can be used to create an HDR image.

 

Such HDR imaging is used in extreme dynamic range applications like welding or automotive work. Some other cameras designed for use in security applications can automatically provide two or more images for each frame, with changing exposure. For example, a sensor for 30fps video will give out 60fps with the odd frames at a short exposure time and the even frames at a longer exposure time. Some of the sensor may even combine the two images on-chip so that a wider dynamic range without in-pixel compression is directly available to the user for display or processing.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging

 

Infrared Photography

 

In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about 900 nm. Film is usually sensitive to visible light too, so an infrared-passing filter is used; this lets infrared (IR) light pass through to the camera, but blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum (the filter thus looks black or deep red). ("Infrared filter" may refer either to this type of filter or to one that blocks infrared but passes other wavelengths.)

 

When these filters are used together with infrared-sensitive film or sensors, "in-camera effects" can be obtained; false-color or black-and-white images with a dreamlike or sometimes lurid appearance known as the "Wood Effect," an effect mainly caused by foliage (such as tree leaves and grass) strongly reflecting in the same way visible light is reflected from snow. There is a small contribution from chlorophyll fluorescence, but this is marginal and is not the real cause of the brightness seen in infrared photographs. The effect is named after the infrared photography pioneer Robert W. Wood, and not after the material wood, which does not strongly reflect infrared.

 

The other attributes of infrared photographs include very dark skies and penetration of atmospheric haze, caused by reduced Rayleigh scattering and Mie scattering, respectively, compared to visible light. The dark skies, in turn, result in less infrared light in shadows and dark reflections of those skies from water, and clouds will stand out strongly. These wavelengths also penetrate a few millimeters into skin and give a milky look to portraits, although eyes often look black.

 

Until the early 20th century, infrared photography was not possible because silver halide emulsions are not sensitive to longer wavelengths than that of blue light (and to a lesser extent, green light) without the addition of a dye to act as a color sensitizer. The first infrared photographs (as distinct from spectrographs) to be published appeared in the February 1910 edition of The Century Magazine and in the October 1910 edition of the Royal Photographic Society Journal to illustrate papers by Robert W. Wood, who discovered the unusual effects that now bear his name. The RPS co-ordinated events to celebrate the centenary of this event in 2010. Wood's photographs were taken on experimental film that required very long exposures; thus, most of his work focused on landscapes. A further set of infrared landscapes taken by Wood in Italy in 1911 used plates provided for him by CEK Mees at Wratten & Wainwright. Mees also took a few infrared photographs in Portugal in 1910, which are now in the Kodak archives.

 

Infrared-sensitive photographic plates were developed in the United States during World War I for spectroscopic analysis, and infrared sensitizing dyes were investigated for improved haze penetration in aerial photography. After 1930, new emulsions from Kodak and other manufacturers became useful to infrared astronomy.

 

Infrared photography became popular with photography enthusiasts in the 1930s when suitable film was introduced commercially. The Times regularly published landscape and aerial photographs taken by their staff photographers using Ilford infrared film. By 1937 33 kinds of infrared film were available from five manufacturers including Agfa, Kodak and Ilford. Infrared movie film was also available and was used to create day-for-night effects in motion pictures, a notable example being the pseudo-night aerial sequences in the James Cagney/Bette Davis movie The Bride Came COD.

 

False-color infrared photography became widely practiced with the introduction of Kodak Ektachrome Infrared Aero Film and Ektachrome Infrared EIR. The first version of this, known as Kodacolor Aero-Reversal-Film, was developed by Clark and others at the Kodak for camouflage detection in the 1940s. The film became more widely available in 35mm form in the 1960s but KODAK AEROCHROME III Infrared Film 1443 has been discontinued.

 

Infrared photography became popular with a number of 1960s recording artists, because of the unusual results; Jimi Hendrix, Donovan, Frank and a slow shutter speed without focus compensation, however wider apertures like f/2.0 can produce sharp photos only if the lens is meticulously refocused to the infrared index mark, and only if this index mark is the correct one for the filter and film in use. However, it should be noted that diffraction effects inside a camera are greater at infrared wavelengths so that stopping down the lens too far may actually reduce sharpness.

 

Most apochromatic ('APO') lenses do not have an Infrared index mark and do not need to be refocused for the infrared spectrum because they are already optically corrected into the near-infrared spectrum. Catadioptric lenses do not often require this adjustment because their mirror containing elements do not suffer from chromatic aberration and so the overall aberration is comparably less. Catadioptric lenses do, of course, still contain lenses, and these lenses do still have a dispersive property.

 

Infrared black-and-white films require special development times but development is usually achieved with standard black-and-white film developers and chemicals (like D-76). Kodak HIE film has a polyester film base that is very stable but extremely easy to scratch, therefore special care must be used in the handling of Kodak HIE throughout the development and printing/scanning process to avoid damage to the film. The Kodak HIE film was sensitive to 900 nm.

 

As of November 2, 2007, "KODAK is preannouncing the discontinuance" of HIE Infrared 35 mm film stating the reasons that, "Demand for these products has been declining significantly in recent years, and it is no longer practical to continue to manufacture given the low volume, the age of the product formulations and the complexity of the processes involved." At the time of this notice, HIE Infrared 135-36 was available at a street price of around $12.00 a roll at US mail order outlets.

 

Arguably the greatest obstacle to infrared film photography has been the increasing difficulty of obtaining infrared-sensitive film. However, despite the discontinuance of HIE, other newer infrared sensitive emulsions from EFKE, ROLLEI, and ILFORD are still available, but these formulations have differing sensitivity and specifications from the venerable KODAK HIE that has been around for at least two decades. Some of these infrared films are available in 120 and larger formats as well as 35 mm, which adds flexibility to their application. With the discontinuance of Kodak HIE, Efke's IR820 film has become the only IR film on the marketneeds update with good sensitivity beyond 750 nm, the Rollei film does extend beyond 750 nm but IR sensitivity falls off very rapidly.

  

Color infrared transparency films have three sensitized layers that, because of the way the dyes are coupled to these layers, reproduce infrared as red, red as green, and green as blue. All three layers are sensitive to blue so the film must be used with a yellow filter, since this will block blue light but allow the remaining colors to reach the film. The health of foliage can be determined from the relative strengths of green and infrared light reflected; this shows in color infrared as a shift from red (healthy) towards magenta (unhealthy). Early color infrared films were developed in the older E-4 process, but Kodak later manufactured a color transparency film that could be developed in standard E-6 chemistry, although more accurate results were obtained by developing using the AR-5 process. In general, color infrared does not need to be refocused to the infrared index mark on the lens.

 

In 2007 Kodak announced that production of the 35 mm version of their color infrared film (Ektachrome Professional Infrared/EIR) would cease as there was insufficient demand. Since 2011, all formats of color infrared film have been discontinued. Specifically, Aerochrome 1443 and SO-734.

 

There is no currently available digital camera that will produce the same results as Kodak color infrared film although the equivalent images can be produced by taking two exposures, one infrared and the other full-color, and combining in post-production. The color images produced by digital still cameras using infrared-pass filters are not equivalent to those produced on color infrared film. The colors result from varying amounts of infrared passing through the color filters on the photo sites, further amended by the Bayer filtering. While this makes such images unsuitable for the kind of applications for which the film was used, such as remote sensing of plant health, the resulting color tonality has proved popular artistically.

 

Color digital infrared, as part of full spectrum photography is gaining popularity. The ease of creating a softly colored photo with infrared characteristics has found interest among hobbyists and professionals.

 

In 2008, Los Angeles photographer, Dean Bennici started cutting and hand rolling Aerochrome color Infrared film. All Aerochrome medium and large format which exists today came directly from his lab. The trend in infrared photography continues to gain momentum with the success of photographer Richard Mosse and multiple users all around the world.

 

Digital camera sensors are inherently sensitive to infrared light, which would interfere with the normal photography by confusing the autofocus calculations or softening the image (because infrared light is focused differently from visible light), or oversaturating the red channel. Also, some clothing is transparent in the infrared, leading to unintended (at least to the manufacturer) uses of video cameras. Thus, to improve image quality and protect privacy, many digital cameras employ infrared blockers. Depending on the subject matter, infrared photography may not be practical with these cameras because the exposure times become overly long, often in the range of 30 seconds, creating noise and motion blur in the final image. However, for some subject matter the long exposure does not matter or the motion blur effects actually add to the image. Some lenses will also show a 'hot spot' in the centre of the image as their coatings are optimised for visible light and not for IR.

 

An alternative method of DSLR infrared photography is to remove the infrared blocker in front of the sensor and replace it with a filter that removes visible light. This filter is behind the mirror, so the camera can be used normally - handheld, normal shutter speeds, normal composition through the viewfinder, and focus, all work like a normal camera. Metering works but is not always accurate because of the difference between visible and infrared refraction. When the IR blocker is removed, many lenses which did display a hotspot cease to do so, and become perfectly usable for infrared photography. Additionally, because the red, green and blue micro-filters remain and have transmissions not only in their respective color but also in the infrared, enhanced infrared color may be recorded.

 

Since the Bayer filters in most digital cameras absorb a significant fraction of the infrared light, these cameras are sometimes not very sensitive as infrared cameras and can sometimes produce false colors in the images. An alternative approach is to use a Foveon X3 sensor, which does not have absorptive filters on it; the Sigma SD10 DSLR has a removable IR blocking filter and dust protector, which can be simply omitted or replaced by a deep red or complete visible light blocking filter. The Sigma SD14 has an IR/UV blocking filter that can be removed/installed without tools. The result is a very sensitive digital IR camera.

 

While it is common to use a filter that blocks almost all visible light, the wavelength sensitivity of a digital camera without internal infrared blocking is such that a variety of artistic results can be obtained with more conventional filtration. For example, a very dark neutral density filter can be used (such as the Hoya ND400) which passes a very small amount of visible light compared to the near-infrared it allows through. Wider filtration permits an SLR viewfinder to be used and also passes more varied color information to the sensor without necessarily reducing the Wood effect. Wider filtration is however likely to reduce other infrared artefacts such as haze penetration and darkened skies. This technique mirrors the methods used by infrared film photographers where black-and-white infrared film was often used with a deep red filter rather than a visually opaque one.

 

Another common technique with near-infrared filters is to swap blue and red channels in software (e.g. photoshop) which retains much of the characteristic 'white foliage' while rendering skies a glorious blue.

 

Several Sony cameras had the so-called Night Shot facility, which physically moves the blocking filter away from the light path, which makes the cameras very sensitive to infrared light. Soon after its development, this facility was 'restricted' by Sony to make it difficult for people to take photos that saw through clothing. To do this the iris is opened fully and exposure duration is limited to long times of more than 1/30 second or so. It is possible to shoot infrared but neutral density filters must be used to reduce the camera's sensitivity and the long exposure times mean that care must be taken to avoid camera-shake artifacts.

 

Fuji have produced digital cameras for use in forensic criminology and medicine which have no infrared blocking filter. The first camera, designated the S3 PRO UVIR, also had extended ultraviolet sensitivity (digital sensors are usually less sensitive to UV than to IR). Optimum UV sensitivity requires special lenses, but ordinary lenses usually work well for IR. In 2007, FujiFilm introduced a new version of this camera, based on the Nikon D200/ FujiFilm S5 called the IS Pro, also able to take Nikon lenses. Fuji had earlier introduced a non-SLR infrared camera, the IS-1, a modified version of the FujiFilm FinePix S9100. Unlike the S3 PRO UVIR, the IS-1 does not offer UV sensitivity. FujiFilm restricts the sale of these cameras to professional users with their EULA specifically prohibiting "unethical photographic conduct".

 

Phase One digital camera backs can be ordered in an infrared modified form.

 

Remote sensing and thermographic cameras are sensitive to longer wavelengths of infrared (see Infrared spectrum#Commonly used sub-division scheme). They may be multispectral and use a variety of technologies which may not resemble common camera or filter designs. Cameras sensitive to longer infrared wavelengths including those used in infrared astronomy often require cooling to reduce thermally induced dark currents in the sensor (see Dark current (physics)). Lower cost uncooled thermographic digital cameras operate in the Long Wave infrared band (see Thermographic camera#Uncooled infrared detectors). These cameras are generally used for building inspection or preventative maintenance but can be used for artistic pursuits as well.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_photography

 

Phillip Mould:

 

The recent rediscovery of this important portrait represents a significant addition to the iconography of Henry VIII. Holbein’s emphatically dominating mural portrait of Henry VIII in the Royal Palace at Whitehall has come to define the image of Henry VIII as the strong, statuesque Tudor monarch. Its destruction by fire in the seventeenth century has meant that only two portraits of Henry VIII by Holbein himself survive: the much smaller and more intimate head and shoulders portrait in the Thyssen Collection; and one half of the cartoon for the mural, now in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

 

History’s most striking images of Henry have therefore depended on a small number of highly finished portraits produced by talented followers from within Holbein’s circle, and perhaps even his own workshop. It has long been thought that were only two high quality versions of the three-quarter length portrait derived from the Whitehall mural; one in the Royal Collection, and the other in the National Gallery of Art, Rome. The Hamilton portrait now represents a third version.

 

A lack of comparable technical evidence makes it difficult to ascertain if all three are by the same hand. All three versions are almost identical in pose and dimensions, suggesting that the same cartoon was used for each (the presence of pouncing marks under infra-red examination confirms that the Hamilton portrait was based on a cartoon). The three portraits also share Holbein’s trademark blue smalt background – but they differ in costume, confirming the apparent rule that no two commissioned portraits of a monarch should be identical. The dendrochronological suggestion of an earliest felling date of 1538 for the panels used in this portrait dates the portrait to well within Holbein’s lifetime. It seems, therefore, that although there is insufficient evidence on Holbein’s working practice to know if he certainly employed studio assistants, this portrait was undoubtedly completed by one who was well acquainted with his techniques and designs. Certainly, the fine detailing in this example rivals that of the Rome version (considered until recently to be by Holbein himself), while the drawing seen here, such as in the dagger’s hilt, is entirely redolent of the vigour and exquisite draughtmanship of Holbein’s own designs.

 

The provenance of this portrait is particularly important. This picture was sold by the present Duke of Hamilton & Brandon, marking the completion of a gradual dispersal of one of the greatest picture collections yet assembled in Britain. The dispersal began with a famous sale in 1882, with more sales following the demolition of Hamilton Palace in the 1930s. Until now, the present portrait has hung at Holyroodhouse, the Queen’s official residence in Scotland, of which the Dukes of Hamilton are hereditary Keepers.

 

The portrait is first recorded as being in the possession of James, 3rd Marquess of Hamilton KG, and later 1st Duke of Hamilton. He was a noted favourite of Charles I, the King signing his letters ‘Your faithful friend and loving cousin, Charles R’. Hamilton was not only an ardent Royalist, but, after Charles himself, perhaps the greatest art collectors of his generation – thought it should be remembered occasionally Hamilton and Charles’ mutual art collecting had positive political benefits for the Duke. Hamilton’s father was a noted collector, and his brother-in-law, Basil Feilding, was ambassador to Venice, and acted as art agent to him and the King. Between 1634-39 Hamilton purchased over 400 pieces, mostly through acquiring entire collections in Europe. He also bought works of art while campaigning in Germany, and gave, exchanged and sold paintings to Charles I (of which more below). As Master of the Horse and Gentleman to the King’s Bedchamber, Hamilton lived in Whitehall Palace, occupying a suite of about 20 rooms, as well as maintaining accommodation at Hampton Court, which he used to house part of his picture collection. He was building a large house in Chelsea, with a gallery to house his pictures, when the approaching Civil War intervened. Unable to resist acquiring works offered him; ‘[I am] to much bewitched with those intysing things’.’

 

As a great collecting family, the Hamiltons were astute in keeping inventories of their pictures. The earliest inventory is dated 1624, and lists the collection of the 1st Duke’s father, the 2nd Marquess. There is no mention here of a portrait of Henry VIII, nor in the subsequent inventories from between 1634-9, entitled ‘Note of pictures for my Lord Marquis from my Lord Fielding’. This would suggest that the picture was not in the collection of the 1st Duke’s father, and nor was it acquired from abroad.

 

An inventory [MSS5] dated pre- 1643 of the 1st Duke’s pictures, headed ‘A Catalogue of My Lord Marquis’s pictures’ lists over thirty cases (it is possible that this refers to pictures packed in cases for Hamilton’s journey from London to Scotland c. 1638, as tensions between King and Parliament grew.) Here the ‘Thirty One Case’ contains one ‘Kinge Harry 8th’. A later inventory dated 1643-49 [MSS6] contains a similar list of cases, but not a case 31. Instead there is ‘In the Closet’ a ‘King Henry, the 8 picture’ [location unstated]. An inventory dated 1704 [MSS12] ‘A List of His Grace’s the Duke of Hamiltons pictures in the Abby of Holyrood House, taken this 5 day of October 1704,as they are now hung an numbred, the numbers being on the forepart of some, and on the back of Others’, reveals, ‘In the Great Dining Roome’ of Holyroodhouse, a ‘square picture [no. 154] of King Hnery 8th a halfe length by Holbin.’ It seems almost certain therefore that the present portrait was acquired by the 1st Duke of Hamilton in the 1630s, and has hung in Holyrood since at least 1704.

 

The question then arises as to where the Duke of Hamilton acquired the portrait. First, it seems certain the picture did not come from Fielding’s purchases in Italy. Germany seems a possible, though unlikely, source with Hamilton writing to Charles I about acquiring paintings and sculptures in Munich . No detailed list survives of any purchases in Germany, however, and it seems most of these were acquired for Charles I. It therefore seems most likely that an English source is the most probable.

 

Though there is at present no documentary evidence that suggests a direct source, it is possible that the Hamilton portrait may have come from Charles I himself, not least because we know that Hamilton was at the nexus of art collecting in England with Charles from between 1620s to 1640s. There is plenty evidence of pictures being given or exchanged with the Hamilton in Van der Doort’s inventory of Charles I’s collection . Indeed, we know that Charles gave Hamilton’s father, the 2nd Marquess of Hamilton, a portrait by Holbein; Van der Doort tells us of a picture “Chaunged with the decd Lo. Marquess of Hambleton when yor Maatie was Prince” “Item a little intire Picture with a little white dogg lying by, said to be the Lord Daker – Comprtoller to King Henry the 8ts houshould” [p.78 in the Walpole edition, St James’ Cabinet Room no. 9] Van der Doort lists 13 pictures either given, exchanged, or bought by Charles I with the 1st Duke of Hamilton. Furthermore, the presence of Rubens’ Daniel in the Lions’ Den in the 1643 Hamilton inventory confirms that exchanges either continued between Charles I and Hamilton post the 1639 date of Van der Doort’s inventory (for it appears in the 1639 inventory of the Royal Collection with no note by Van der Doort of an exchange or gift to Hamilton) or that Van der Doort’s keeping of records was not overly accurate as far as Charles’ dealings with the Hamilton’s were concerned. It seems unlikely that the exchanges of art continued between Charles and Hamilton after the latter’s move to Scotland in 1638.

 

Though there is no direct evidence, for example in Van der Doort’s inventory of Charles I’s collection, of a Henry VIII passing from Charles I’s collections in Whitehall - but there were many other palaces from where exchanges or gifts could have been made. It seems that there is evidence from, for example, the inventories of King Edward VI, that there were a number of paintings of Henry VIII for Charles to exchange or give away. There are at least eight contemporary examples of what we would now call ‘portraits’ of Henry VIII in the Royal Collection in the mid sixteenth century. Two are of the King when young, one is listed as a ‘physionamy’ (head and shoulders), two are listed as ‘whole stature’, and one, intriguingly, as ‘nott finished’. The two portraits of Henry VIII when young were still in the Royal Collection in 1639. However, both the ‘whole statures’, the ‘nott finished’, the ‘physionomye’, the diptych, and one other portrait of Henry VIII appear to have left the Royal Collection according to Van der Doort. This supposition would appear to be confirmed by at most four portraits of Henry VIII in the Commonwealth Sales of the Royal Collection after the execution of Charles I.

 

p139 Scally, Political Career of James, Duke of Hamilton PhD thesis, Cambridge 1992

30th April 1632, SRO GD406/1/158, Burnet's Memoirs, p.28.

Walpole Soceity, 27th Volume 1958-1960, Abraham Van Der Doort’s Catalogue of the Collections of Charles I, edited by Oliver Millar.

Representing the two main generic Platinum liveries, 6827 and 6891 contrast at Frankley Holly Hill terminus, working 63 Bristol Road Services into Birmingham. Although not an official Platinum route, it sees frequent use of them, with numerous spares available due to Birmingham Centrals extra 6 recently received (6945-50)

Voici une superbe représentation du vizir Kagemni, haut fonctionnaire sous le règne du pharaon Téti (VIe dynastie, Ancien Empire).

Sa tombe, située à Saqqarah, est célèbre pour la qualité exceptionnelle de ses bas-reliefs et la préservation de ses pigments vieux de plus de 4000 ans.

This stunning depiction of Vizier Kagemni, a high-ranking official during the reign of Pharaoh Teti (6th Dynasty, Old Kingdom), is located in his tomb at Saqqara.

His mastaba is renowned for its exceptionally well-preserved reliefs and pigments, dating back over 4000 years.

Kagemni is shown in a traditional stance, holding his staff and scepter, symbols of authority and power.

A remarkable example of the artistic refinement and craftsmanship of Ancient Egyptian artisans.

Le vizir est ici représenté dans une posture classique, tenant son sceptre et son bâton, symboles d’autorité et de pouvoir.

Un témoignage fascinant du raffinement artistique et du savoir-faire des artisans de l’Égypte antique.

The Story of Gresford Colliery.

Gresford Colliery was situated 1 miles South West of the Village of Gresford from which it took its name.

The Village of Gresford is located close to the England–Wales border with Cheshire, the settlement existed at the time of the compilation of the Domesday book, when it was recorded as "Gretford" within the Cheshire Hundred of Duddestan; it had a church, though perhaps not on the present site. The name, derived probably from Old English græs and ford ("grassy ford"), was later recorded as "Gresworth", "Cresford" and "Grefford", but documentary evidence shows that the place was clearly locally referred to as "Gresford" throughout its history, even under Welsh administration, and the other names merely represent alternative spellings.

The Welsh form "Gresffordd", supposedly believed to indicate an etymology from y groesffordd ("the crossroads"), seems to have been the imaginative creation of Welsh genealogists of the 15th century and later. This form has, however, seen media use as an alternative spelling since at least the 19th century, and although largely unused by the mainly non-Welsh speakers of the village itself, is today often used by the Welsh press, and Welsh-language media.

In common with many of the towns and villages of the border lands, or Marches, Gresford has gone through periods of both English and Welsh dominance. The whole area was resettled by Welsh aligned to Owain Gwynedd in 1170-1203. At this time the bishopric was transferred from that of St. Werburgh's Chester to St. Asaph, and the vicars of the village were Welsh with patronymic names (for example, Morud ap Gwarius, who became vicar in 1284).

It is possible, however, that settlement existed on the site from quite an early date, as a Roman altar was found within the church in 1908. The altar is likely to depict Nemesis; this and the unearthing of a Roman coin hoard nearby-dating 150-300, is possible evidence of a settlement. There is also a stand of yew trees in the churchyard, the oldest dating to A.D. 500 — long before Anglo-Saxon settlement.

The areas industrial prosperity is founded largely on its mineral wealth and its coal resources in particular.

The history of Coal Mining in Denbighshire goes back over 500 years

Under a charter from the Earl of Arundel dated 1414, the right was given to dig for coal in the ‘wastes’ of Brymbo and Coedporth where the seams outcrop near to the surface.

These Villages lie 2.5miles West and 3.5miles South West of Gresford Colliery respectively and mark the Western outcrop of the middle coal measures.

The early coal mining was little more than surface digging. Early records show that the first coal barons were the Grosvenors of Eaton, near Chester and the Myddeltons of Chirk Castle.

With the perfection of a process for making iron with coke instead of charcoal, there was a greater demand for coal at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

John Wilkinson, the great ironmaster, provided a local outlet for coal when he took over the ailing Bersham furnace from his father, Isaac. He also sank his own pits in the locality and when he established the new iron works at Brymbo, he sank more pits at Brymbo Hall, 1,500-acre estate which he bought. Records show that there had been about 90 pits and levels on this estate. Other local ironmasters such as Thomas Jones, T. E. Ward and Hazeldine, who supplied the superstructure for Telford’s bridges, were also creating a demand for East Denbighshire coal.

The coal industry went into a decline early in the 19th century but recovered with the age of steam, local coal being used to fuel steamships and railway engines, apart from being used for making gas and providing domestic heating. In 1854, 26 mines were operating on the western side of Wrexham, Ruabon, Rhos, Acrefair, Brymbo and Broughton being the main areas. At this time, Wrexham’s coal mining potential attracted many newcomers with specialist mining knowledge, such as Henry Robertson, William Young Craig, James Sparrow, William Henry Darby, Thomas Clayton, William Low and Henry Dennis.

Their arrival heralded a new era in coal-mining. Small mines were phased out and mining developed into larger operations with such collieries as Westminster, Hafod, Bersham, Wynnstay, Wrexham and Acton, Llay Hall and Gatewen.

Until the sinking of Gresford Colliery, all coal mining was carried out in the shallower Western sector of the coalfield, and until the 1930’s there was a number of profitable undertakings operating at depths of some 300 yards or so, principally in the Main Seam which has provided the bulk production over centuries.

The coal measure dip Eastwards at an approximate rate of 1 in 10 and are interrupted by the Wrexham fault which lies 1200 yards West of Gresford Colliery Shafts. The fault runs in a North South direction and has a throw of 400 yards down East, thus dividing the field in to two distinct areas.

Thus, Gresford Colliery Shaft were the first to be sunk East of the Wrexham Fault by the United Westminster and Wrexham Collieries Limited which had already operated a number of successful undertakings in the Western field.

The colliery was located on the edge of the Alyn Valley, between the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway (later the GWR Birkenhead-Paddington line) and the old main road between Wrexham and Chester.

The Shafts were sunk on the scant evidence offered by underground proving drifts through the Wrexham fault from the old Wrexham and Acton Colliery workings which lie 1200 yards West of Gresford Colliery, and a single borehole put down on the site of the Pithead baths.

The only other shafts to be sunk in the Eastern field, were those of Llay Main Colliery some six years later. This Colliery lies 1.5miles North of Gresford, but this undertaking was closed in 1966.

History Prior to Nationalisation (1947)

Henry Dennis and his son, Henry Dyke Dennis, began shaft sinking commenced on the 2nd March 1908 and was completed on the 19th March 1912. The initial diameter was 22ft (6.7m), but serious difficulties were encountered in penetrating the 115 feet (35m) of glacial deposits overlaying the road head, the first 90 feet (27.4m) of which proved to be running sand.

The shaft diameters were reduced to 19’-6” (5.9m) and the shafts were lined with Cast Iron tubbing.

The Dennis shaft (No1 Downcast) was lined to a depth of 64 yards (58.5m) and the Martin Shaft was lined to 54 yards (49.4m). Thereafter, both shafts were lined with special curved bricks, approximately 1.5 times the dimensions of standard bricks which were manufactured by Dennis Brickworks, Ruabon.

The shafts penetrate practically all the Upper coal measures and the middle coal measures down to the Main Coal Horizon.

Various water feeders were encountered un the Upper coal measures and a pump lodge was established between the two shafts at a depth of 172 yards (157.2m) from which water is pumped to the surface at 80 gallons per minute.

The Dennis shaft contacted the Main seam at a depth of 2218 feet (676.0m) and the Martin shaft contacted it at 2205 feet (672.1m)

The Pit bottom was established at this horizon and by 1914, sufficient development had been carried out to employ 900 men. The undertaking was steadily expanded until 2200 men were employed by the early 1930’s.

In 1934, one of the worst disasters in the history of British coal mining occurred when an explosion took place in the Dennis Main coal district September 22nd. The explosion was followed by a fire and 262 men in the district perished. A further 3 rescue men died in unsuccessful bids to penetrate the district and on the followings day it was decided to seal the shafts at the top. Further explosions occurred and on the 25th September an explosion wrecked the fan drift and seal on the upcast shaft top and a surface worker was killed by flying debris.

The shafts remained sealed for six months. A new airlock was constructed over the upcast shaft and recovery work commenced. The Dennis district was sealed off and in January 1936 it became possible to gradually resume coal production.

Equipment Prior to Nationalisation (1947)

The colliery was equipped with steam driven winding engines, air compressors, mine fan and electrical generating equipment.

Steam was supplied by 15 Lancashire Boilers equipped with Green’s economisers and generating at 120 lbs/sq.in.

The boilers were fitted with Oldbury chain grate stokers and were hand-fired.

Coal was wound at the Dennis shaft in 12 cwt capacity tubs fitted with plain pedestal bearings, in three deck cages, each deck carrying three tubs. The payload was thus 108 cwts.

Simultaneous decking was employed both surface and underground.

The winding engine was a twin-cylinder horizontal steam winder of 40” bore by 78” stroke with a parallel drums 24ft (7.3m) manufactured by Andrew Barclay of Kilmarnock.

After reaching the surface, tubs were hauled to the screen by under-rope endless haulage. After tipping, the product was screened and hand-picked, most of it being sold dry to Domestic, Railway and Gas Works. There was however, a small Baum Plant which produced a relatively small quantity of washed nuts, slack and fines which was disposed of to small local industries.

The Martin shaft was used for man-riding between shifts and for supplies. It was equipped with two deck cages, each deck carrying two tubs.

The winding engine was a twin-cylinder horizontal steam engine of 32” bore and 60” stroke. The Drum diameter was 16’-0” (4.9m).

The mine-fan was a walker double inlet radial fan 18’-0” (5.5m) diameter driven by a horizontal twin cylinder compound steam engine.

Compressed air was supplied by two Bellis & Moroom vertical twin cylinder compound steam engines each delivering 300cfm and one Walker horizontal twin cylinder compound steam engine delivering 5000cfm all at 80 lbs psi.

Power generation was by a mixed pressure steam turbine generation 1000kw at 3,300 volts and a Bellis & Moroon vertical twin cylinder compound engine generating 300kw. A limited supply was also available from MANWEB.

The pit-head baths were built in 1939 and were designed to accommodate 2000 men.

History post Nationalisation.

After 1947, the colliery was subjected to many improvement schemes together with a major re-organisation scheme carried out in the years 1962-1965.

These schemes resulted in a steady reduction in manpower until the labour force was little more than half that employed hitherto.

The main improvements are listed below: -

1948-49 – The screen room was re-organised and a new Norton Standard Baum washery erected.

1949 – The Dennis shaft was equipped with aluminium alloy cage manufactured by Allen’s of Tipton. These were the first of their kind in the country and formed part of a design study necessary to the deepening of the main winding shaft at the neighbouring Llay Main Colliery to a depth of 1002 yards (916.2m) utilising its existing steam winding engine.

1951 - Electrical power supply augmented by laying of 3.3KV cable from Llay Main to Gresford Colliery.

1954 – The underground and surface tub circuits were re-organised and equipped with pneumatic mine-car handling equipment. The 12 cwts capacity tubs were replaced by 30 cwts capacity mine-cars operating on existing rope haulages underground. The surface haulage to screen room was replaced by two 48” run of mine (R.O.M.) conveyors.

The former system of winding 3 small tubs on each of three decks of the cage simultaneously decked was replaced by simultaneously decked two mine cars on each of two decks. Payload was increased from 5.4 to 6.0 tons.

1955 – Coal preparation was further improved by the installation of filter presses and fines treatment plant.

1956 – The first step was taken towards electrification of surface plant by the conversion of the existing mine fan to electric drive.

1957 – Methane drainage was introduced. A 12” dia, gas range was laid in the Martin Shaft and methane exhauster house was built on the surface.

1958 – Shaft winding capacity was further increased by the installation of 6-ton capacity skips in the Martin Shaft in place of the double deck cages. An underground tippling station was introduced in to the main pit bottom mine-car circuit so that either or both shafts could be utilised for coal winding.

1959 – A new incoming duplicate electricity supply from MANWEB was laid in together with the erection of a new surface sub-station.

1960/61 – The steam driven air-compressors were replaced by electrically driven ones.

1960/64 Underground locomotive tunnels were driven from the pit bottom in to the South East and West Districts.

1962 – Surface dirt disposal arraignments were re-organised with the construction of a 200 tons capacity dirt bunker and the introduction of dumper vehicles tipping on a tier system replacing tipping by conveyors. This eliminated the tip fires which were induced by the former system.

1964 – Locomotive haulage was introduced underground replacing the endless rope main haulage system to the south east area.

1964 – A new dense-medium plant was added to the coal preparation plant.

1964 – Two of the Lancashire boilers were converted from hand coal-firing to Methane firing for space heating and to replace the coal fired pithead baths boilers for bathing water.

1965 - Electrification of the surface was completed by replacing the steam driven winding-engines by Electrical winding engines.

1965 – A 600 HP Sutcliffe conveyor was installed in the East Main District with a length of 6000” (1829m) to the dip from pit-bottom with gradients varying from 1 in 10 to 1 in 4 against. This replaced three Sutcliffe Super Goliath Installations operating in tandem and increased the haulage capacity.

1966 – Ventilation standards were improved by the installation of a new mine-fan ex Clock Face Colliery. The original fan now acts as a stand-bye. A new fan drift was constructed.

1967 - Coal preparation standards were further improved by the installation of a Cendrex Ash-recorder. Covered accommodation for smokeless fuels were provided.

1969 – Haulage capacity from the South East district was increased by installing a Trunk-conveying system and moving the main loading point outbye, thus shortening the locomotive run by half.

The Dennis shaft was converted to Consecutive decking and coal winding was concentrated at the Martin Shaft (Skips)

1970 – Open type bunker introduced into the Surface R.O.M. System to ease loading on Baum Plant.

Underground

Near to the end of the life of the colliery extraction was confined to the Main Seam which had a thickness ranging from 6’-0” (1.82m) and 8’-0” (2.44m). the coal was high volatile strongly coking type, Rank code 502.

The working field was bounded on the West-side by the Wrexham fault (C.1200’-0” 365.8m down East) and on the East side, some 1.5 miles from the shafts by the East fault (c,1000’-0” down East)

By the 1970’s the North end of the field had been exhausted in the main Seam and the workings were concentrated in the South and South East of the field. The Southern and Eastern limits of this section were never determined.

As preciously stated, the general rate of dip is Eastwards at about 1 in 10 and working depths range from 780 to 920 yards. (713m & 841m)

The whole area is geologically disturbed, some of the faults being quite large, in the order of 100’ (30m) or so while some parts of the take have a relatively high fault density with faults in the range of 0’-20’. (0-6m)

The General fault direction is generally North-South and East-West.

Method of working

From the beginning, coal has been won by the longwall method of extraction. Methods have progressed through: -

(a)The wicket system, where coal was hand-holed, fired and filled into tubs on the face (up to about 1930)

(b)Double and Multiple unit systems where shaker pans were used on the high side faces and 20” conveyors were used on low side faces delivering on the 25” gate belts and thence to rope haulage systems.

These faces were middle out generally with compressed air coal cutters, the bottoms being fired first or hand-filled out after setting sprags to the top section. The tops were then dropped to make large coal and were hand-filled out. The faces were strip packed employing 4-yard packs and 10-yard (9m) wastes and were generally 66 yards (60m) long. Up to the 1940’s timber props and straps were used to support the faces.

(c)In the early 1940’s steel began to replace timber for face support but total caving was not attempted until the 1960’s.

The first attempt at mechanised longwall mining was made in 1946 with the installation of a Meco-Moore cutter-loader in the West districts of the mine. This project enjoyed limited success but was dogged by mechanical breakdowns and roof failure due to soft floor conditions.

The late 1940’s and early 1950’s saw the establishment of single unit faces employing bottom-loading belts, electric coal cutters and an established cyclic mining system with faces still strip packed but supported on friction props and hydraulic props with steel roof bars.

The first Anderson Shearer with prop free front was established in the West Area Main seam in early 1955, and the first set of powered supports in the Main seam were installed in the East Main area in 1965.

By late 1968 all faces were equipped with powered supports and it was during this period that total caving became established practice.

Although workings had been concentrated in the Main seam, some reference should be made to the Quaker seam. This seam varies in thickness from 3’-2“ (0.97m) to 4’-0” (1.22m) and is a high quality coking coal. A small proportion of output was gained from this seam up to late 1966. The seam defied efforts to mechanise it and it temporarily abandoned in favour of further technical advancement of mechanisation in the Main seam.

Notably, attempts were made with the Anderson shearer in the periods 1958 – 1960 and 1965-1966 but persistent roof-failures occurred with prop free front working due to the friable nature of the shale nether roof.

Another notable attempt was made with an Anbauhobel plough with four-leg powered supports in 1960-61, again with roof-failures.

With the improvements in roof support techniques in later years, there was an attempt to work the Quaker seam in 1978, the face we driven but never worked.

Limited working has also been undertaken in the Crank seam; this seam was only 20.5” (0.52m) thick. The seam accessed via two cross measure drifts from the Quaker Seam, working in this seam was abandoned after June 1940.

Estimates of Coal Produced over the life of the colliery. (Density assumed at 1.35)

Crank Seam area worked 120,900m2, thickness 0.52, estimated tonnage worked 84,900 tonnes

Quaker Seam area worked 1,838,000m2, thickness 1.04, estimated tonnage worked 2,485,000 tonnes.

Main Seam area worked 8,386,000m2, thickness 2.56, estimated tonnage worked 28,980,000 tonnes.

Specification

ShaftsDennisMartin

No1 DCNo2 UC

Sinking commenced2/3/190826/4/1909

Sinking Completed26/6/191119/3/1909

Diameter19’-6” (5.9m)19’-6” (5.9m)

Total Depth756 Yards (691.3m)756 Yards (691.3m)

Winding Depth745 Yards (681.2m)736 Yards (673.0m)

Winding Ropes1 7/8” (47.6mm)1 5/8” (41.3mm)

 

Winding arrangements

Dennis Shaft

3 deck aluminium cages

2 30cwt capacity mine cars on each of the two upper decks, ie 4 mine cars of coal or two of coal plus two of stone.

Manwinding – 48 men (24 on each of 2 decks)

Winding cycle time119 seconds

Winds per hour30

Shaft utilisation factor85%PEquivalent winds per hour 25

Effective hourly capacity125 tons

 

Winding Engine

Winding drum 18’-0” (5.5m) dia x 12’-0” (3.66m) wide.

Maximum drum speed 50rpm

Maximum rope speed 47.15ft/sec (14.37m/sec)

Single geared DC Winder motor supplied from MG set comprising a single DC generator driven by a synchronous induction motor. The equipment utilises the Ward-Leonard system and speed control using a Silicon controlled rectifier to supply the DC generator field current.

 

Ratings

DC Winder Motor –RMW rating3,500HP

Max peak rating7,000HP

Max Speed450 RPM

Max armature voltage620 volts

DC Generator –RMW rating2,380KW

Peak rating5,500KW

Max Speed500 RPM

Rated voltage620 volts

Driving Motor –RMW rating2,650HP

Max peak rating5,300HP

Max Speed600 RPM

Stator Voltage11KV

 

Power

Imported from MANWEB at 11KV 3 phase.

Maximum demand 2x5Mw duplicate supplies underground by 3 shaft cables at 3.3Kv and transformed to 550V at faces.

Total installed electrical HP 22,595

Total number of motors installed360

Comprising of : -

Surface210 Motors16,190HP

Underground150 Motors6,405HP

All synchronous induction motors are utilised for power factor correction.

Ventilation

Surface

Single inlet radial fan by J. Howden

Diameter 10’-0” (3.0m) running at 496 rpm driven by 1148 HP motor at 750 rpm

Duty 340,000 cfm at 14” (0.35m) (max 18”(0.46m)) Water gauge

Stanby-bye fan

Double Inlet Radial fan by Walker

Diameter 18’-0” (5.5m) driven by 375HP motor through a 4:1 reduction gear-box

Duty 300,000 cfm at 5” (0.125m) Water gauge

 

Underground

5 – 30” dia. Woods auxiliary fans each of 50HP, Duty 125,000cfm ay 5.5” (0.14m) Water gauge.

 

Methane Drainage

Surface exhauster house containing 4x60HP exhauster pumps.

Space Heating and Baths water

2 Methane gas fired Lancashire boilers

2 Standby coal fired Lancashire boilers with chain grate stokers.

 

Coal Preparation Plant

Capacity (Gross)245 tons EPT

Ratio EPT/Gross84% Hourly capacity EPT206 tons EPT

Daily capacity3,300 tons EPT

Operational efficiency80% Effective daily capacity2,640 tons EPT

Effective hourly capacity165 tones EPT

 

Products made

Large +8” (200m)

Cobbles6”x3” (150x75mm)

Trebbles4”x2” (100mmx50mm)

Doubles2”x1” (50x25mm)

Singles1.5”x1” (40x25mm)

Slack1.5”x0” (40x0mm)

Slack¾”x0”(20x0mm)

 

MarketsIndustrial 60%, Domestic 30% Power Station 10%PDisposal 90% by Landsale and 10% by Rail

 

Locomotives

Underground -6x48HP Ruston & Hornsby 7 tons flameproof diesel locomotives

Surface -2 British Austerity 0-6-0 Steam Tank locomotives.

 

(Information taken from an NCB Publication dated June 1971)

 

The furthest distance was to the M20 face with was approximately 4 miles (6.4km) from shaft bottom.

 

After 72 years of coal production Gresford Colliery closed on the 10th November 1973

The water buffalo or domestic Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is a large bovid originating in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. Today, it is also found in Europe, Australia, and some American countries. The wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) native to Southeast Asia is considered a different species, but most likely represents the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo.

 

Two extant types of water buffalo are recognized based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of South Asia and further west to the Balkans, Egypt, and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The origins of the domestic water buffalo types are debated, although results of a phylogenetic study indicate that the swamp type may have originated in China and was domesticated about 4,000 years ago, while the river type may have originated from India and was domesticated about 5,000 years ago. Water buffalo were traded from the Indus Valley Civilisation to Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, 2500 BC by the Meluhhas. The seal of a scribe employed by an Akkadian king shows the sacrifice of water buffalo.

 

At least 130 million domestic water buffalo exist, and more human beings depend on them than on any other domestic animal. They are especially suitable for tilling rice fields, and their milk is richer in fat and protein than that of dairy cattle. The large feral population of northern Australia became established in the late 19th century, and smaller feral herds are in New Guinea, Tunisia, and northeastern Argentina. Feral herds are also present in New Britain, New Ireland, Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, Brazil, and Uruguay.

 

CHARACTERISTICS

The skin of river buffalo is black, but some specimens may have dark, slate-coloured skin. Swamp buffalo have a grey skin at birth, but become slate blue later. Albinoids are present in some populations. River buffalo have comparatively longer faces, smaller girths, and bigger limbs than swamp buffalo. Their dorsal ridges extend further back and taper off more gradually. Their horns grow downward and backward, then curve upward in a spiral. Swamp buffalo are heavy-bodied and stockily built; the body is short and the belly large. The forehead is flat, the eyes prominent, the face short, and the muzzle wide. The neck is comparatively long, and the withers and croup are prominent. A dorsal ridge extends backward and ends abruptly just before the end of the chest. Their horns grow outward, and curve in a semicircle, but always remain more or less on the plane of the forehead. The tail is short, reaching only to the hocks. Height at withers is 129–133 cm for males, and 120–127 cm for females. They range in weight from 300–550 kg, but weights of over 1,000 kg have also been observed.

 

Tedong bonga is a black pied buffalo featuring a unique black and white colouration that is favoured by the Toraja of Sulawesi.

 

The swamp buffalo has 48 chromosomes; the river buffalo has 50 chromosomes. The two types do not readily interbreed, but fertile offspring can occur. Buffalo-cattle hybrids have not been observed to occur, and the embryos of such hybrids do not reach maturity in laboratory experiments.

 

The rumen of the water buffalo has important differences from that of other ruminants. It contains a larger population of bacteria, particularly the cellulolytic bacteria, lower protozoa, and higher fungi zoospores. In addition, higher rumen ammonia nitrogen (NH4-N) and higher pH have been found as compared to those in cattle

 

ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR

River buffalo prefer deep water. Swamp buffalo prefer to wallow in mudholes which they make with their horns. During wallowing, they acquire a thick coating of mud. Both are well adapted to a hot and humid climate with temperatures ranging from 0 °C in the winter to 30 °C and greater in the summer. Water availability is important in hot climates, since they need wallows, rivers, or splashing water to assist in thermoregulation. Some breeds are adapted to saline seaside shores and saline sandy terrain.

 

DIET

Water buffalo thrive on many aquatic plants and during floods, will graze submerged, raising their heads above the water and carrying quantities of edible plants. They eat reeds (quassab), a giant reed (birdi), a kind of bulrush (kaulan), water hyacinth, and marsh grasses. Some of these plants are of great value to local peoples. Others, such as water hyacinth, are a major problem in some tropical valleys, and water buffalo may help to keep waterways clear.

 

Green fodders are used widely for intensive milk production and for fattening. Many fodder crops are conserved as hay, chaffed, or pulped. Fodders include alfalfa, berseem and bancheri, the leaves, stems or trimmings of banana, cassava, fodder beet, halfa, ipil-ipil and kenaf, maize, oats, pandarus, peanut, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane, bagasse, and turnips. Citrus pulp and pineapple wastes have been fed safely to buffalo. In Egypt, whole sun-dried dates are fed to milk-buffalo up to 25% of the standard feed mixture.

 

REPRODUCTION

Swamp buffalo generally become reproductive at an older age than river breeds. Young males in Egypt, India, and Pakistan are first mated at about 3.0–3.5 years of age, but in Italy

 

they may be used as early as 2 years of age. Successful mating behaviour may continue until the animal is 12 years or even older. A good river male can impregnate 100 females in a year. A strong seasonal influence on mating occurs. Heat stress reduces libido

 

Although buffalo are polyoestrous, their reproductive efficiency shows wide variation throughout the year. Buffalo cows exhibit a distinct seasonal change in displaying oestrus, conception rate, and calving rate. The age at first oestrus of heifers varies between breeds from 13–33 months, but mating at the first oestrus is often infertile and usually deferred until they are 3 years old. Gestation lasts from 281–334 days, but most reports give a range between 300 and 320 days. Swamp buffalo carry their calves for one or two weeks longer than river buffalo. It is not rare to find buffalo that continue to work well at the age of 30, and instances of a working life of 40 years are recorded.

 

TAXONOMIC HISTORY

Carl Linnaeus first described the genus Bos and the water buffalo under the binomial Bubalis bubalus in 1758; the latter was known to occur in Asia and as a domestic form in Italy. Ellerman and Morrison-Scott treated the wild and domestic forms of the water buffalo as conspecifics whereas others treated them as different species. The nomenclatorial treatment of wild and domestic forms has been inconsistent and varies between authors and even within the works of single authors.

 

In March 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature achieved consistency in the naming of wild and domestic water buffalo by ruling that the scientific name Bubalus arnee is valid for the wild form. B. bubalis continues to be valid for the domestic form and applies also to feral populations.

 

DOMESTICATION AND BREEDING

Water buffalo were domesticated in India about 5000 years ago, and in China about 4000 years ago. Two types are recognized, based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The present-day river buffalo is the result of complex domestication processes involving more than one maternal lineage and a significant maternal gene flow from wild populations after the initial domestication events. Twenty-two breeds of the river type water buffalo are known, including Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Surti, Jafarabadi, Anatolian, Mediterranean, and Egyptian buffalo. China has a huge variety of buffalo genetic resources, comprising 16 local swamp buffalo breeds in various regions.

 

Results of mitochondrial DNA analyses indicate that the two types were domesticated independently. Sequencing of cytochrome b genes of Bubalus species implies that the domestic buffalo originated from at least two populations, and that the river and the swamp types have differentiated at the full species level. The genetic distance between the two types is so large that a divergence time of about 1.7 million years has been suggested. The swamp type was noticed to have the closest relationship with the tamaraw.

 

DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATIONS

The water buffalo population in the world is about 172 million.

 

IN ASIA

More than 95.8% of the world population of water buffalo are found in Asia including both river and swamp types. The water buffalo population in India numbered over 97.9 million head in 2003, representing 56.5% of the world population. They are primarily of the river type, with 10 well-defined breeds comprising Badhawari, Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Jafarabadi, Marathwada, Mehsana, Nagpuri, Pandharpuri, Toda, and Surti. Swamp buffalo occur only in small areas in the north-eastern part of the country and are not distinguished into breeds.

 

In 2003, the second-largest population lived in China, with 22.759 million head, all of the swamp type with breeds kept only in the lowlands, and other breeds kept only in the mountains; as of 2003, 3.2 million swamp-type carabao buffalo were in the Philippines, nearly three million swamp buffalo were in Vietnam, and 772,764 buffalo were in Bangladesh. About 750,000 head were estimated in Sri Lanka in 1997.

 

The water buffalo is the main dairy animal in Pakistan, with 23.47 million head in 2010. Of these, 76% are kept in the Punjab. The rest of them are mostly in the province of Sindh. Breeds used are Nili-Ravi, Kundi, and Azi Kheli. Karachi has the largest population of water buffalos for an area where fodder is not grown, consisting of 350,000 head kept mainly for milking.

 

In Thailand, the number of water buffalo dropped from more than 3 million head in 1996 to less than 1.24 million head in 2011. Slightly over 75% of them are kept in the country's northeastern region. The statistics also indicate that by the beginning of 2012, less than one million were in the country, partly as a result of illegal shipments to neighboring countries where sales prices are higher than in Thailand.

 

Water buffalo are also present in the southern region of Iraq, in the marshes. These marshes were drained by Saddam Hussein in 1991 in an attempt to punish the south for the uprisings of 1991. Following 2003, and the fall of the Saddam regime, these lands were reflooded and a 2007 report in the provinces of Maysan and Thi Qar shows a steady increase in the number of water buffalo. The report puts the number at 40,008 head in those two provinces.

 

IN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN

Water buffalo likely were introduced to Europe from India or other Oriental countries. To Italy they were introduced about the year 600 in the reign of the Longobard King Agilulf. As they appear in the company of wild horses, they probably were a present from the Khan of the Avars, a Turkic nomadic tribe that dwelt near the Danube River at the time. Sir H. Johnston knew of a herd of water buffalo presented by a King of Naples to the Bey of Tunis in the mid-19th century that had resumed the feral state in northern Tunis.

 

European buffalo are all of the river type and considered to be of the same breed named Mediterranean buffalo. In Italy, the Mediterranean type was particularly selected and is called Mediterranean Italian breed to distinguish it from other European breeds, which differ genetically. Mediterranean buffalo are also found in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Kosovo, and the Republic of Macedonia, with a few hundred in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Hungary. Little exchange of breeding buffalo has occurred among countries, so each population has its own phenotypic features and performances. In Bulgaria, they were crossbred with the Indian Murrah breed, and in Romania, some were crossbred with Bulgarian Murrah. Populations in Turkey are of the Anatolian buffalo breed.

 

IN AUSTRALIA

Between 1824 and 1849, water buffalo were introduced into the Northern Territory from Timor, Kisar, and probably other islands in the Indonesian archipelago. In 1886, a few milking types were brought from India to Darwin. They have been the main grazing animals on the subcoastal plains and river basins between Darwin and Arnhem Land since the 1880s. In the early 1960s, an estimated population of 150,000 to 200,000 buffalo were living in the plains and nearby areas.

 

They became feral and are causing significant environmental damage. Buffalo are also found in the Top End. As a result, they were hunted in the Top End from 1885 until 1980. The commencement of the brucellosis and tuberculosis campaign (BTEC) resulted in a huge culling program to reduce buffalo herds to a fraction of the numbers that were reached in the 1980s. The BTEC was finished when the Northern Territory was declared free of the disease in 1997. Numbers dropped dramatically as a result of the campaign, but have since recovered to an estimated 150,000 animals across northern Australia in 2008.

 

During the 1950s, buffalo were hunted for their skins and meat, which was exported and used in the local trade. In the late 1970s, live exports were made to Cuba and continued later into other countries. Buffalo are now crossed with riverine buffalo in artificial insemination programs, and may be found in many areas of Australia. Some of these crossbreds are used for milk production. Melville Island is a popular hunting location, where a steady population up to 4,000 individuals exists. Safari outfits are run from Darwin to Melville Island and other locations in the Top End, often with the use of bush pilots. The horns, which can measure up to a record of 3.1 m tip-to-tip, are prized hunting trophies.

 

The buffalo have developed a different appearance from the Indonesian buffalo from which they descend. They live mainly in freshwater marshes and billabongs, and their territory range can be quite expansive during the wet season. Their only natural predators in Australia are adult saltwater crocodiles, with whom they share the billabongs, and dingoes, which have been known to prey on buffalo calves and occasionally adult buffalo when the dingoes are in large packs.

 

Buffalo were exported live to Indonesia until 2011, at a rate of about 3000 per year. After the live export ban that year, the exports dropped to zero, and had not resumed as of June 2013.

 

IN SOUTH AMERICA

Water buffalo were introduced into the Amazon River basin in 1895. They are now extensively used there for meat and dairy production. In 2005, the buffalo herd in the Brazilian Amazon stood at roughly 1.6 million head, of which 460,000 were located in the lower Amazon floodplain. Breeds used include Mediterranean from Italy, Murrah and Jafarabadi from India, and Carabao from the Philippines.

 

During the 1970s, small herds were imported to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Cayenne, Panama, Surinam, Guyana, and Venezuela.

 

In Argentina, many game ranches raise water buffalo for commercial hunting

 

IN NORTH AMERICA

In 1974, four water buffalo were imported to the United States from Guam to be studied at the University of Florida. In February 1978, the first herd arrived for commercial farming. Until 2002, only one commercial breeder was in the United States. Water buffalo meat is imported from Australia. Until 2011, water buffalo were raised in Gainesville, Florida, from young obtained from zoo overflow. They were used primarily for meat production, frequently sold as hamburger.[38] Other US ranchers use them for production of high-quality mozzarella cheese.

 

HUSBANDRY

The husbandry system of water buffalo depends on the purpose for which they are bred and maintained. Most of them are kept by people who work on small farms in family units. Their buffalo live in very close association with them, and are often their greatest capital asset. The women and girls in India generally look after the milking buffalo while the men and boys are concerned with the working animals. Throughout Asia, they are commonly tended by children who are often seen leading or riding their charges to wallowing places. Water buffalo are the ideal animals for work in the deep mud of paddy fields because of their large hooves and flexible foot joints. They are often referred to as "the living tractor of the East". It probably is possible to plough deeper with buffalo than with either oxen or horses. They are the most efficient and economical means of cultivation of small fields. In most rice-producing countries, they are used for threshing and for transporting the sheaves during the rice harvest. They provide power for oilseed mills, sugarcane presses, and devices for raising water. They are widely used as pack animals, and in India and Pakistan also for heavy haulage. In their invasions of Europe, the Turks used buffalo for hauling heavy battering rams. Their dung is used as a fertilizer, and as a fuel when dried.

 

Buffalo contribute 72 million tones of milk and three million tones of meat annually to world food, much of it in areas that are prone to nutritional imbalances. In India, river-type buffalo are kept mainly for milk production and for transport, whereas swamp-type buffalo are kept mainly for work and a small amount of milk.

 

DAIRY PRODUCTS

Water buffalo milk presents physicochemical features different from that of other ruminant species, such as a higher content of fatty acids and proteins. The physical and chemical parameters of swamp and river type water buffalo milk differ. Water buffalo milk contains higher levels of total solids, crude protein, fat, calcium, and phosphorus, and slightly higher content of lactose compared with those of cow milk. The high level of total solids makes water buffalo milk ideal for processing into value-added dairy products such as cheese. The conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) content in milk ranged from 4.4 mg/g fat in September to 7.6 mg/g fat in June. Seasons and genetics may play a role in variation of CLA level and changes in gross composition of the water buffalo milk.

 

Water buffalo milk is processed into a large variety of dairy products:

 

- Cream churns much faster at higher fat levels and gives higher overrun than cow cream.

- Butter from water buffalo cream displays more stability than that from cow cream.

- Ghee from water buffalo milk has a different texture with a bigger grain size than ghee from cow milk.

- Heat-concentrated milk products in the Indian subcontinent include paneer, khoa, rabri, kheer and basundi.

- Fermented milk products include dahi, yogurt, and chakka.

- Whey is used for making ricotta and mascarpone in Italy, and alkarish in Syria and Egypt.

- Soft cheeses made include mozzarella in Italy, karish, mish, and domiati in Egypt, madhfor in Iraq, alghab in Syria, kesong puti in the Philippines, and vladeasa in Romania.

- The semihard cheese beyaz peynir is made in Turkey.

- Hard cheeses include braila in Romania, rahss in Egypt, white brine in Bulgaria, and akkawi in Syria.

- Watered-down buffalo milk is used as a cheaper alternative to regular milk.

 

MEAT AND SKIN PRODUCTS

Water buffalo meat, sometimes called "carabeef", is often passed off as beef in certain regions, and is also a major source of export revenue for India. In many Asian regions, buffalo meat is less preferred due to its toughness; however, recipes have evolved (rendang, for example) where the slow cooking process and spices not only make the meat palatable, but also preserve it, an important factor in hot climates where refrigeration is not always available.Their hides provide tough and useful leather, often used for shoes.

 

BONE AND HORN PRODUCTS

The bones and horns are often made into jewellery, especially earrings. Horns are used for the embouchure of musical instruments, such as ney and kaval.

 

ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

Wildlife conservation scientists have started to recommend and use introduced populations of feral domestic water buffalo in far-away lands to manage uncontrolled vegetation growth in and around natural wetlands. Introduced water buffalo at home in such environs provide cheap service by regularly grazing the uncontrolled vegetation and opening up clogged water bodies for waterfowl, wetland birds, and other wildlife. Grazing water buffalo are sometimes used in Great Britain for conservation grazing, such as in Chippenham Fen National Nature Reserve. The buffalo can better adapt to wet conditions and poor-quality vegetation than cattle.

 

Currently, research is being conducted at the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies to determine the levels of nutrients removed and returned to wetlands when water buffalo are used for wetland vegetation management.

 

However, in uncontrolled circumstances, water buffalo can cause environmental damage, such as trampling vegetation, disturbing bird and reptile nesting sites, and spreading exotic weeds.

 

RESEARCH

The world's first cloned buffalo was developed by Indian scientists from National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal. The buffalo calf was named Samrupa. The calf did not survive more than a week, and died due to some genetic disorders. So, the scientists created another cloned buffalo a few months later, and named it Garima.

 

On 15 September 2007, the Philippines announced its development of Southeast Asia's first cloned buffalo. The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), under the Department of Science and Technology in Los Baños, Laguna, approved this project. The Department of Agriculture's Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) will implement cloning through somatic cell nuclear transfer as a tool for genetic improvement in water buffalo. "Super buffalo calves" will be produced. There will be no modification or alteration of the genetic materials, as in genetically modified organisms.

 

On 1 January 2008, the Philippine Carabao Center in Nueva Ecija, per Filipino scientists, initiated a study to breed a super water buffalo that could produce 4 to 18 litres of milk per day using gene-based technology. Also, the first in vitro river buffalo was born there in 2004 from an in vitro-produced, vitrified embryo, named "Glory" after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Joseph Estrada's most successful project as an opposition senator, the PCC was created through Republic Act 3707, the Carabao Act of 1992.

 

IN CULTURE

Some ethnic groups, such as Batak and Toraja in Indonesia and the Derung in China, use water buffalo or kerbau (called horbo in Batak or tedong in Toraja) as sacrificial animals at several festivals.

 

- Legend has it that the Chinese philosophical sage Laozi left China through the Han Gu Pass riding a water buffalo.

- According to Hindu lore, the god of death Yama, rides on a male water buffalo.

- The carabao subspecies is considered a national symbol in the Philippines.

- In Vietnam, water buffalo are often the most valuable possession of poor farmers: "Con trâu là đầu cơ nghiệp". They are treated as a member of the family: "Chồng cày, vợ cấy, con trâu đi bừa" ("The husband ploughs, the wife sows, water buffalo draws the rake") and are friends of the children. Children talk to their water buffalo, "Bao giờ cây lúa còn bông. Thì còn ngọn cỏ ngoài đồng trâu ăn." (Vietnamese children are responsible for grazing water buffalo. They feed them grass if they work laboriously for men.) In the old days, West Lake, Hà Nội, was named Kim Ngưu - Golden Water Buffalo.

- The Yoruban Orisha Oya (goddess of change) takes the form of a water buffalo.

 

FIGHTING FESTIVALS

- Pasungay Festival is held annually in the town of San Joaquin, Iloilo in the Philippines.

- Moh juj Water Buffalo fighting, is held every year in Bhogali Bihu in Assam. Ahotguri in Nagaon is famous for it.

- Do Son Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, held each year on the ninth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar at Do Son Township, Haiphong City in Vietnam, is one of the most popular Vietnam festivals and events in Haiphong City. The preparations for this buffalo fighting festival begin from the two to three months earlier. The competing buffalo are selected and methodically trained months in advance. It is a traditional festival of Vietnam attached to a Water God worshipping ceremony and the Hien Sinh custom to show martial spirit of the local people of Do Son, Haiphong.

- "Hai Luu" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, According to ancient records, the buffalo fighting in Hai Luu Commune has existed from the 2nd century B.C. General Lu Gia at that time, had the buffalo slaughtered to give a feast to the local people and the warriors, and organized buffalo fighting for amusement. Eventually, all the fighting buffalo will be slaughtered as tributes to the deities.

- "Ko Samui" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Thailand, is a very popular event held on special occasions such as New Year's Day in January, and Songkran in mid-April, this festival features head-wrestling bouts in which two male Asian water buffalo are pitted against one another. Unlike in Spanish Bullfighting, wherein bulls get killed while fighting sword-wielding men, Buffalo Fighting Festival held at Ko Samui, Thailand is fairly harmless contest. The fighting season varies according to ancient customs & ceremonies. The first Buffalo to turn and run away is considered the loser, the winning buffalo becomes worth several million baht. Ko Samui is an island in the Gulf of Thailand in the South China Sea, it is 700 km from Bangkok and is connected to it by regular flights.

- "Ma'Pasilaga Tedong" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival, in Tana Toraja Regency of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, is a very popular event where the Rambu Solo' or a Burial Festival took place in Tana Toraja.

 

RACING FESTIVALS

Carabao Carroza Festival is being held annually every May in the town of Pavia, Iloilo, Philippines.

Kambala races of Karnataka, India, take place between December and March. The races are conducted by having the water buffalo (he buffalo) run in long parallel slushy ditches, where they are driven by men standing on wooden planks drawn by the buffalo. The objectives of the race are to finish first and to raise the water to the greatest height and also a rural sport. Kambala races are arranged with competition, as well as without competition and as a part of thanks giving (to god) in about 50 villages of coastal Karnataka.

 

In the Chonburi Province of Thailand, and in Pakistan, there are annual water buffalo races.

 

Chon Buri Water buffalo racing festival, Thailand In downtown Chonburi, 70 km south of Bangkok, at the annual water buffalo festival held in mid-October. About 300 buffalo race in groups of five or six, spurred on by bareback jockeys wielding wooden sticks, as hundreds of spectators cheer. The water buffalo has always played an important role in agriculture in Thailand. For farmers of Chon Buri Province, near Bangkok, it is an important annual festival, beginning in mid-October. It is also a celebration among rice farmers before the rice harvest. At dawn, farmers walk their buffalo through surrounding rice fields, splashing them with water to keep them cool before leading them to the race field. This amazing festival started over a hundred years ago when two men arguing about whose buffalo was the fastest ended up having a race between them. That’s how it became a tradition and gradually a social event for farmers who gathered from around the country in Chonburi to trade their goods. The festival also helps a great deal in preserving the number of buffalo, which have been dwindling at quite an alarming rate in other regions. Modern machinery is rapidly replacing buffalo in Thai agriculture. With most of the farm work mechanized, the buffalo-racing tradition has continued. Racing buffalo are now raised just to race; they do not work at all. The few farm buffalo which still do work are much bigger than the racers because of the strenuous work they perform. Farm buffalo are in the "Buffalo Beauty Pageant", a Miss Farmer beauty contest and a comic buffalo costume contest etc.. This festival perfectly exemplifies a favored Thai attitude to life — "sanuk," meaning fun.

 

Babulang Water buffalo racing festival, Sarawak, Malaysia, is the largest or grandest of the many rituals, ceremonies and festivals of the traditional Bisaya (Borneo) community of Limbang, Sarawak. Highlights are the Ratu Babulang competition and the Water buffalo races which can only be found in this town in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Vihear Suor village Water buffalo racing festival, in Cambodia, each year, people visit Buddhist temples across the country to honor their deceased loved ones during a 15-day period commonly known as the Festival of the Dead but in Vihear Suor village, about 35 km northeast of Cambodia, citizens each year wrap up the festival with a water buffalo race to entertain visitors and honour a pledge made hundreds of years ago. There was a time when many village cattle which provide rural Cambodians with muscle power to plough their fields and transport agricultural products died from an unknown disease. The villagers prayed to a spirit to help save their animals from the disease and promised to show their gratitude by holding a buffalo race each year on the last day of "P'chum Ben" festival as it is known in Cambodian. The race draws hundreds of spectators who come to see riders and their animals charge down the racing field, the racers bouncing up and down on the backs of their buffalo, whose horns were draped with colorful cloth.

Pothu puttu matsaram, Kerala, South India, is similar to Kambala races.

 

WIKIPEDIA

représentation à Saint-Malo

Representing the latest inventions right from the busy workshops of Stonewald, the LW2000 model SE is here!

Featuring the agile yet durable design that has made Lenfald Wagons famous, the practical, lightweight design and the addition of the newly invented LW Spotted Accelerator Pig © makes this wagon a must-have for any fashionable Roawian with a speedy lifestyle!

--

A little late-night tablescrap I built yesterday in honour of Ádám's hilarious LW 2000 ;)

 

Representa una estatua de Vimara Pérez (m. Vama, 873), fue un caudillo asturiano, señor de la guerra que vivió en la segunda mitad del siglo IX en el noroeste de la península ibérica y fue el primer gobernador del Condado Portucalense.

Su padre, Pedro Theón (m. después de 867), también llamado Pedro Theón de Pravia, posiblemente hijo del rey Bermudo I de Asturias, fue un miembro de la curia regia del rey Alfonso III y aparece en enero de 867 confirmando un diploma real con otros nobles, incluyendo al conde Rodrigo de Castilla. Participó activamente en la reconquista y también fue el responsable de expulsar a los vikingos cuando invadieron Galicia en 858. Aparte de Vimara, Pedro también tuvo otro hijo llamado Hermenegildo Pérez.

 

Esta estatua se encuenta a los pies de la Sé de Oporto en las inmediaciones de la muralla y torre medieval de la ciudad.

This monument represents a white marble temple house, cut in two in the middle. Inside the thin gap, two red granite walls, arranged face to face, bear the names of the peoples who were victims of genocide in the 20th century. The space between the two parts is lit, symbolizing the energy of healing. The broken house rests on five sleepers representing the five continents: an allegory of our responsibility towards a humanity repeatedly struck by all sorts of misfortunes.

 

A strong commemorative gesture, Reparation constrains memory and chases the genocides of the 20th century and their victims from oblivion. The monument makes this public space a place in the heart of the city which, beyond pain, loss and resentment, offers forgiveness and peace, as its title says: the beginning of reparation. Furthermore, Larivée decided to develop the site as a set of small places for reflection. Paths, analogies of human existence in its movements and deportations, go up temporal spaces in a slow ascent, which leads us to the summit, where the white temple stands.

 

Parc Marcelin-Wilson, Montréal (Ahuntsic-Cartierville), Québec.

BRF HQ, Ballymurphy Street,

Belfast

____

The 9th august 1971, 11 civilians where killed by the british army during Operation Demetrius in Belfast.

40 years later the catholic community prepare to commemorate the anniversary of the Ballymurphy Massacre.

Each catholic district is striving to erect its giant bonfire, where the union jack colors will burn at midnight.

Belfast Bonfires 18/20

Part of www.flickr.com/photos/tranuf/sets/72157627800291813/

‘A bas relief representing a Bacchanalian choral procession, led by a “Mystes” (initiate) with her head thrown backwards in an enthusiastic motion; she is followed by a faun playing on the double Tibia, and lastly by another intoxicated Faun carrying a Thyrsus in his right hand, and the left arm extended and covered with a lion’s skin’

 

The figures on this neo-Attic relief derive from Athenian prototypes of the 4th century BC.

(source Museum WEB site)

 

Roman marble bas-relief

From via Appia, Rome

Traianic period, about 100 AD

  

This castle represents Mercury, the Roman god of merchants, travelers, messengers and transporters of goods, and thieves and tricksters.

 

He is commonly shown wearing winged sandals or a winged cap and carrying a caduceus (see the back of the castle).

 

Mercury was my contribution to the Eurobricks collaborative display - Celestial Kingdoms - for Brickworld Chicago 2026.

Les représentations de Bouddha ....... voir texte précédent.

En plus des grandes statues alignées tout autour du sanctuaire on trouve dans chaque niche creusée deux représentations de Bouddha en symbole de fécondité

 

Roman Holiday

The mosaic represents two masks leaning on a socle projecting out from two walls that meet at an angle, seen in perspective. Two flutes lean on one wall. Their shadows project onto the wall. The female mask depicts a woman with large eyes and wide-open mouth. A ribbon, knotted into a bow at the center of her brow, appears in her curly hair with long ringlets. The physiognomic features of the man are exaggerated and ridiculed. The mouth is enormous, the nose is large and squashed. The eyes bulge out, and the cheeks are wrinkled. On his head is a crown of ivy and berries, decoration associated with the cult of Dionysus, which was linked closely to the birth of the Greek theater.

 

en.museicapitolini.org/collezioni/percorsi_per_sale/palaz...

 

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Some background:

The AMD Mystère S represents one of the many evolutionary steps in French 2nd generation jet fighter aircraft design, which began with the straight-wing Dassault Ouragan and progressed through the Mystère II/III and Mystère IV to the supersonic Super Mystère SM2B. Internally designated AMD 461 and originally called the Mystère X (Roman numeral “10”, not the letter “X”), the new aircraft was the attempt to improve the successful Mystère IV from 1953 in many respects, following Marcel Dassaults strategy to take small, evolutionary steps instead of radical quantum leaps. While the overall outlines were similar and followed the proven layout of the former Dassault jet fighters, the AMD 461 was a completely new design, though.

 

First of all, the machine was from the start designed around the indigenous axial-flow Atar 101 jet engine, since it had become obvious that the former radial-flow engines used in Dassault’s fighters, like the Rolls-Royce Tay and its French-built version, the Hispano-Suiza Verdon 350, did not offer the potential for sustained supersonic performance in level flight. As a result, the fuselage became thinner and the aircraft had a less tubby look. Furthermore, in order to achieve the ambitious performance goals, a new wing was devised, and it incorporated leading edges made from novel composite materials. The wing shape was more complex than previous AMD designs: unlike the simple trapezoid Mystère II and IV wing designs, the AMD 461’s wings had kinked wing leading edges at about half span, so that the wing root sections were extended forward and had a slightly stronger sweep than the outer wing sections (47° vs. 45°), resulting in a crescent planform with rounded tips. Dogteeth at the kinks’ position increased the wings’ critical Mach number, augmented by small boundary layer fences. A novelty were power-operated ailerons. The tail surfaces were swept, too, and featured a variable-incidence tail plane.

 

The Mystère IV’s circular nose air intake arrangement was retained, but the intake received a sharper lip for better aerodynamic efficiency at high speed. The intake ducts were split deeper down inside of the fuselage, flanking the cockpit and the weapon bay behind it (see below) on both sides. The small ranging radar, originally developed for the upgraded Mystère IVB (which never made it into series production due to a fatal prototype crash and the progress of AMD’s other supersonic projects), was relocated and now mounted on top of the intake section, reminiscent of the F-86’s arrangement. A gun camera was placed outside of the intake in a small fairing on the starboard side. Two pitots under the air intake (one main and a secondary sensor) replaced the Mystère IV’s single wing-mounted sensor boom.

 

Being a classic “gunfighter”, the AMD 461’s main armament comprised a pair of 30mm DEFA cannon in the lower front fuselage, taken over from the Mystère IV, and a retractable Type 103 pannier for 45 unguided MATRA missiles against air or ground targets behind the front wheel well. Four underwing hardpoints could carry a total payload of 1.500 kg (3.300 lb), including a pair of supersonic 625 l drop tanks on the inner pair of pylons. A typical fighter weapon were lightweight Matra Type 116M launchers, each with 19 unguided SNEB-68 air-to-air rockets. Up to four could be carried under the wings. In a secondary attack/fighter bomber role, bombs of various caliber (up to 500 kg/1.100 lb on the inner and 250 kg/550 lb on the outer hardpoints) and other unguided missiles/pods were possible, too.

 

The first Mystère X prototype was powered by the Atar 101D with 29,420 N (6,610 lbf) of thrust, and it flew successfully in June 1953. However, due to the lack of an afterburner at this stage, the machine could only become supersonic in a dive, just like the former Mystère fighters, and it offered in this guise only minimal performance improvements – even though the handling near Mach 1 was already noticeably better. The initial flight test program was successful, though, and the Armée de l’Air immediately placed an order for 100 Mystère X aircraft, intended to improve the Armée de l’Air’s interception capabilities as soon as possible. Serial production started instantaneously, even while the flight tests were still ongoing, and the production machines were powered by the newly developed Atar 101F, which had just been cleared for production and operation on the Mystère X prototype. The Atar 101F was basically a D model with an afterburner added to it, to produce a temporary thrust of 37,300 N (8,400 lbf) and ensure the desired top speed in level flight of more than Mach 1. As a result, the Mystère X’s tail section had to be modified to accommodate the new engine’s longer tailpipe, which did not feature an adjustable nozzle yet – it was simply extended beyond the fin’s trailing edge, and even then the longer jet pipe protruded from the hull. However, this modification was successful and incorporated into the serial aircraft. With the Atar 101F, the serial production Mystère X’s performance was appreciably improved: beyond supersonic top speed, initial rate of climb was almost doubled in comparison with the Mystère IV, but the thirsty afterburner engine almost nullified any gain in range from the new type’s higher internal fuel capacity. Drop tanks had to be carried almost all the time.

 

The quick (if not hastened) order for the Mystère X also served as an insurance policy in the event of the AMD effort failing to produce an even more capable supersonic aircraft with the Mystère XX, a project that had been under development as a private venture in parallel, but with a time lag of about two years and benefitting from the research that had been done for the AMD 461. However, both designs turned out to be successful and both were adopted for service. They became known to the public as the Mystère S (for ‘supersonique’) and the Super Mystère, respectively. The first Super Mystère prototype, powered by a Rolls-Royce Avon RA.7R, took to the air on 2 March 1955, and the promising aircraft already broke the sound barrier in level flight the following day. The Super Mystère turned out to be the more capable and modern aircraft thanks to its new, more powerful Atar 109G-2 engine.

 

The more capable Super Mystère was immediately favored and, as a consequence, the running Mystère S order was cancelled in May 1955 and its initial production run limited to a mere 54 airframes - the number that had been completed until that point. The Super Mystère became the Armée de l’Air’s standard fighter for the late Fifties and production was quickly switched to the new type, 180 specimen were eventually built. Since a mix of types in the operational fighter squadrons was not economical, the Armée de l’Air decided to separate them and find a different role for the young but relatively small Mystère S fleet. Since the aircraft had a rugged airframe and had shown very good handling characteristics at medium to low altitude, and because the Armée de l’Air was lacking a fast, tactical and indigenous reconnaissance aircraft at that time (the standard type was the RF-84F), the Armée de l’Air decided in 1956 to convert the Mystère S fighters accordingly.

 

This modification was a relatively easy task: The retractable missile pannier (which was hardly ever used) was removed and its well behind the cockpit offered sufficient internal space for optical reconnaissance equipment in a conditioned compartment. This comprised four OMERA cameras (less than the RF-84F’s six cameras), covered by a ventral canoe fairing. One camera was facing forward, two were set on mounts that allowed vertical photography or camera orientation to either port or starboard, and the fourth camera had a panoramic field of view. After these modifications, the machines were re-designated Mystère SR to reflect their new role and capabilities.

 

Initially, the converted machines retained the twin DEFA cannon armament and full external stores capability. Typical load in the new photo-recce role was the standard pair of drop tanks, plus optional flares for night photography. In this guise the Mystère SR fleet was distributed among two reconnaissance units, ER 2/33 “Savoie” and ER 3/33 “Moselle” in Eastern France, close to the German border, starting service in April 1957.

Later in their career, the Mystère SR’s guns and also the ranging radar equipment (even though the empty small radome was retained) were often removed. This was initially a weight-saving measure for better performance, but due to their short legs many Mystère SRs had extra fuel tanks added to the former gun and ammunition bays. In some cases the space was used to house additional mission equipment, the aircrafts’ designation did not change, though. The integration of the new Matra R.550 Magic AAM was considered briefly in 1970, but not deemed relevant for the Mystère SR’s mission profile. However, eight late-production Mystère SRs received a new, bigger panoramic OMERA camera, which necessitated a larger ventral fairing and some other internal changes. These machines were re-designated Mystère SRP (‘panoramique’). Another early Mystère SR was used for the development of indigenous infra-red linescan and side looking airborne radar systems, which were both later incorporated in an under-fuselage pod for the Mirage IIIR.

 

Having become quickly obsolete through the introduction of 3rd generation jet fighters in the early Sixties – namely the Mirage III – the Mystère SR’s active career only lasted a mere 10 years, and the Mirage III’s fighter variants quickly replaced the Super Mystère, too. Due to its many limitations, the Mystère SR was soon replaced by the Mirage IIIR reconnaissance version, by 1974 all aircraft had been retired. Another reason for this early operational end were durability problems with the composite elements on the aircraft’s wings – there had been no long-term experience with the new material, but the elements tended to become brittle and collapse under stress or upon bird strikes. AMD conceived a plan to replace the affected panels with light metal sheets, but this update, which would have prolonged service life for 10 more years, was not carried out. After spending 5 years in mothballed storage, all surviving Mystère SR airframes were scrapped between 1980 and 1981.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 42 ft 3 in (12.88 m) overall

42 ft 3 in (12.88 m) w/o pitots

Wingspan: 32 ft 4 in (9.86 m)

Height: 3.75 m (12 ft 4 in)

Wing area: 345.5 sq ft (32.2 m²)

Empty weight: 13,435 lb (6,094 kg)

Gross weight: 21,673 lb (9,831 kg)

Fuel capacity: 3,540 l (778 imp gal; 934 US gal) internally

plus 2x 625 l (72 imp gal; 165 US gal) drop tanks

 

Powerplant:

1× Atar 101F turbojet, rated at 29.42 kN (6,610 lbf) dry thrust

and with 37.3 kN (8,400 lbf) with afterburner

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,110 km/h (600 kn, 690 mph) at sea level

1,180 km/h (637 kn 732 mph,) at 11,000 m (36,089 ft)

Combat range: 915 km (494  nmi, 570 mi) with internal fuel only

Maximum range: 1,175 km (730 mi, 634 nmi)

Service ceiling: 45,800 ft (14,000 m)

Rate of climb: 14,660 ft/min (74.5 m/s)

Time to altitude: 40,000 ft (12,000 m) in 4 minutes 41 seconds

 

Armament:

2x 30mm (1.18 in) DEFA 552 cannon with 150 rounds per gun (later frequently deleted)

Four underwing hardpoints for 1.500 kg (3.300 lb) of ordnance,

including a pair of 625 liter drop tanks, flares and various unguided missiles and iron bombs

  

The kit and its assembly:

A project I had on my idea list for a long time – there were so many AMD jet fighter designs (both that entered service but also many paper projects and prototypes) during the Fifties and Sixties that I wondered if I could smuggle a what-if type somewhere into the lineage. A potential basis appeared when I recognized that the British Supermarine Swift had a fuselage shape quite similar to the contemporary French fighters, and from this impression the idea was born to “Frenchize” a Swift.

 

This called for a kitbash, and I used a Matchbox Mystère IV (Revell re-boxing) for the French donor elements that would be grafted onto an Xtrakit FR.5 model, which looks good in the box but has serious fit issues, e.g. between the rear fuselage halves or when the wings have to be mated with the completed fuselage.

The transplantations from the rather primitive/blunt Matchbox Mystère included the whole cockpit section except for the interior, which was taken from the in this respect much better Swift, the glazing, the spine and the whole tail with fin and stabilizers. The Swift provided most of the fuselage, the wings and the landing gear, even though I used the Mystère’s main wheels because of their characteristic hub caps/brake arrangement.

Mating the fuselage sections from the two models became a major stunt, though, because the diameters and shapes were rather different. Three-dimensional gaps and steps behihd the cockpit had to be bridged, initially with 2C putty for the rough overall shape and then with NC putty for a smooth finish. A gap in the spine in front of the fin had to be improvised/filled, too, and the Mystère’s fin had to be tailored to the different Swift rear fuselage shape, too.

The result looks a little odd, though, the Swift’s original air intake ducts now look from certain angles like hamster cheeks – but after all, the ducts have to pass the central cockpit section on both sides somehow, so that the arrangement makes nonetheless sense. And the small dorsal spine taken over from the Mystère changes the Swift’s profile considerably, as well as the shorter Dassault-style canopy.

 

The small ranging radar radome is just a piece of sprue from the Mystère kit, blended into the rest of the fuselage with putty. The interior of the air intake was heavily modified – the original splitter, positioned directly inside of the intake, was deleted and the walls trimmed down for a much thinner/sharper lip. Inside of the intake a bulkhead was added as a sight blocker, and a new splitter was mounted to the new bulkhead in a much deeper position. The gun camera fairing is a piece of styrene profile, the new twin pitots (reminiscent of the SM2B’s arrangement) were made from heated sprue material.

The camera fairing is the lower half from a P-47 drop tank, left over from a Hobby Boss kit, IIRC, and in order to fit the Swift’s cockpit tub into the Mystère’s fuselage the rear bulkhead had to be re-created with the help of paper tissue drenched with white glue.

The drop tanks come from a KP MiG-19, which had the benefit of integral, thin pylons at a suitable position for the Mystère SR. For a different look I just canted their fins downwards.

  

Painting and markings:

For a subtle impression I settled for an authentic livery: the French rendition of the USAF SEA scheme for the F-100 with local CELOMER tones, which was not only applied to the Armée de l’Air’s F-100s (these were originally delivered in NMF and camouflaged later in the Sixties), but also to the Super Mystères - the SM2Bs actually carried a quite faithful adaptation of the USAF’s F-100 pattern! However, the indigenous CELOMER paints differed from the original U.S. Federal Standard tones (FS 30219, 34102, 34079 and 36622, respectively), esp. the reddish light tan was more of an earth tone, and the dark green had a more bluish hue.

 

This offered some freedom – even more so because real life pictures of French reference aircraft show a wide range of shades of these basic tones and frequent serious weathering. Instead of the U.S. tan I went for RAF Dark Earth (Humbrol 29), the dark Forest Green was replaced with Humbrol 75 (Bronze Green). The light green became a 2:1 mix of Humbrol 117 (the original FS 34102) with Humbrol 78 (RAF Cockpit Green), for more contrast and less yellow in the tone. The undersides were painted with Humbrol 166 (RAF Light Aircraft Grey).

After a black ink wash I gave the model a thorough panel post-shading and recreated some lost panel lines with the help of silver paint, too. I also added some paint patches and touch-ups, for a rather worn look of the aircraft.

The black areas around the gun muzzles were created with the help of decal material, generic black decal sheet material was also used to create the camera windows. Grey (Revell 75) dielectric panels were added to the fin tip and behind the cockpit. The cockpit interior became very dark grey (Revell 09, Anthracite, with some dry-painted medium grey on top), while the landing gear and the respective wells were left in aluminum (Humbrol 56).

 

The decals are a mix from various sources. The ER 2/33 markings came from a Heller Mirage III sheet, which offers an optional IIIR from 1984. I also settled for relatively small roundels (from a Mirage F.1C) – a trend which started in the Armée de l’Air in the early Seventies and also comprised the deletion of the fin flash. Contemporary real world SM2Bs with the French SEA cammo frequently carried a similar type of subdued markings instead of earlier, bigger roundels found on the machines in NMF finish or on the aircraft from EC 1/12 "Cambresis" with their unique and different camouflage in two shades of green and a rather sandy tan, almost like a desert paint scheme. The white tactical code “33-PS” was improvised with single 4mm letters from TL Modellbau. The stencils were puzzled together from various Mirage III/V/F.1C sheets and also from an IAI Kfir.

 

The kit received some additional dry-painting with silver to simulate more wear, and was finally sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish.

  

Another “missing link” build, but I think that my Mystère S fits stylistically well into the (non-existent, though) gap between the Mystère IV and the Super Mystère, sporting vintage details like the round air intake but coupled with highly swept wings and the Swift’s elegant lines. The “traditional” French paint scheme adds to the realism - and, when put in the right background/landscape context, turns out to be very effective. Not a spectacular model, despite serious body work around the cockpit, but a convincing result.

this japanese craft book brings a new and adorable idea to the world of needle felted goodness.

 

this book represents a trip around the world, including small needle-felted items representing 14 countries.

 

it includes small animals, food, motifs, decorations, holiday and other miniature scenes, and mini flags.

 

projects include:

a girl, wooden shoes, and windmill scene from holland: playful pandas from china; mama and baby koala and mama and baby kangaroo from australia; sheep from new zealand; matryoshka dolls from russia; mini donuts, hamburgers and coffee cups charms from the u.s.; a monkey with maracas and cactus from mexico; an elephant from india; tropical fish mobile from palau; a rabbit gondolier from italy; santa claus and bag of toys from finland, and a little house scene; bears and trees from canada; teddy bears and a castle from germany; bagette and eiffel tower charms from france; scottie dogs and bobbies and bus charms from the u.k.

 

all written directions are in japanese, but the excellent and detailed step by step photo instructions, and diagrams for each project that shows the shape and size of each part mean that if you are familiar with the basics of needle felting (which you probably could pick up in a couple hours with online directions) you should be able to do most of these projects.

 

a few techniques that are included are felting around a foam base (for the small vignettes with buildings); adding eyes (plastic, not felted) to teddy bears, and sewing a cord to make the small felted items into charms. the animals and characters are made with solid forms, and don't require any wire armature.

145-15 Bayside Avenue, Flushing, Queens, New York City, New York, United States

 

Summary

 

The Fitzgerald/Ginsberg Mansion is a rare 1920s, picturesque Tudor Revival style mansion in Flushing, Queens designed by architect John Oakman. Constructed in 1924, it features rusticated, irregularly shaped fieldstone walls, a multi-colored slate roof, casement and leaded glass windows, and picturesque massing. Large, suburban picturesque revival-style houses from the 1920s were at one time prevalent throughout New York City’s affluent residential outer neighborhoods, but have become increasingly rare. The Fitzgerald house is one of the last great mansions from this period still standing in Flushing.

 

The house represents the affluence and optimism of the 1920s. It was built immediately adjacent to an extension of Flushing’s Old Country Club and its golf course – a typical suburban pattern of those years. The Old Country Club, founded in 1887, built its golf course in 1902. It is credited as being one of the oldest private country clubs in the United States. The club house and golf course have since been demolished.

 

The architect of the house, John Oakman worked for Carrere & Hastings and then formed a partnership with W. Powell before starting his own practice in 1909, specializing in picturesque single family houses. The house was built for Charles and Florence Fitzgerald, who sold it in 1926 to Ethel and Morris Ginsberg. Ginsberg made his fortune as part of a family-owned business supplying sash, door and wooden trim for builders. The firm was considered to be one of the leaders in this field in the Long Island region. The Ginsberg family lived in the house for over seventy years.

 

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

 

The Development of Flushing

 

One of the oldest settlements within what is now the City of New York – and together with Newtown and Jamaica one of the three colonial settlements now comprising the borough of Queens – Flushing traces its roots to English settlers who received a patent in 1654 from Pieter Stuyvesant, governor of the Dutch colony. Early in the town’s history, Flushing residents stood together in support of a local Quaker community against the religious intolerance of Governor Stuyvesant. They lost the immediate battle, but their “Flushing Remonstrance” of 1657 stands as one of the earliest published defenses of religious freedom in the United States.

 

During the 17th century, Flushing began to develop as a major center for horticulture, an industry brought to the town by French Huguenots who imported fruit trees not native to the country. William Prince established Flushing’s first profitable nursery as early as 1737. In 1838, Samuel Parsons established a nursery that introduced to the United States such plants as the Asiatic rhododendron, the Japanese maple, the Valencia orange, and the weeping beech. Parsons’ nursery also provided trees for the city’s first public parks, including Central Park and Prospect Park.

 

As in the rest of Queens County, Flushing’s fortunes evolved with improvements in transportation. The introduction of regular train service to New York City in 1854 led to a post-Civil War boom in luxury house construction for wealthy New Yorkers. The extension of trolley lines into Flushing from 1888 to 1899, and the electrification of the Long Island Rail Road, helped turn Flushing into a commuter suburb. With the consolidation of Greater New York in 1898, Flushing became part of the new Borough of Queens.

 

From the 1890s until the outbreak of World War I, Flushing’s estates were divided up into new suburban developments including Ingleside, Murray Hill, Broadway-Flushing, Bowne Park, Kissena, and Queensborough Hill. Perhaps the biggest impetus to the growth of Flushing in particular and Queens in general was the opening in 1909 of the Queensborough Bridge connecting Queens with midtown Manhattan, followed by the extension of the IRT into the borough during the late 1910s. Over the next two decades, the population of Queens mushroomed by 750%. The boom continued well into the 1920s.

 

Flushing participated heavily in the borough’s growth, developing as a series of suburban neighborhoods surrounding a town center on Northern Boulevard. In 1910, just a year after the opening of the Queensborough Bridge, the Business Men’s Association of Flushing published Flushing: The Premier Suburban Colony of the City of New York, a typical booster book touting the suburban advantages of Flushing life:

 

Flushing has long waited to come into its own. Thousands of people who have enjoyed the luxuries of living in a community like this, where the home life, the social life, and the religious life are at their best, where rowing, yachting, fishing, tennis, golfing, baseball, driving, motoring, and other outdoor amusements are easy at hand and universally indulged in, have in the past found homes in Flushing, regardless of its inaccessibility to Manhattan. These people have preferred to put up with the annoyance, loss of time, and trouble in getting to and from their homes rather than suffer the inconveniences and disadvantages of a home in Manhattan or Brooklyn.

 

Now that the Pennsylvania Tunnels are completed, and a resident of Flushing can go from his home to Herald Square in sixteen minutes, and without change of cars, now that the great Queensboro Bridge is open to traffic, and a Flushing resident can go for a single five-cent fare by trolley in the finest cars in New York over this bridge in thirty minutes, and with the prospect of the Steinway Tunnel being quickly opened, tens of thousands of New York City’s increasing population will take advantage of and enjoy the same invaluable privileges that have previously been the privilege of only thousands.

 

The book extolled the neighborhood’s advantages in healthfulness, openness, good schools, water supply, and churches, and focused on its character as “a Colony of Homes”:

 

Flushing is distinctly and pre-eminently a residence place. It is and always has been a colony of homes - homes of detached houses, homes with broad lawns, large gardens, shrubs, trees, flowers, and abundance of God's pure, fresh air and sunshine. It has no apartment houses, neither has it any of the settlements which are characteristic of other places where there is much manufacturing. Flushing is clean, wholesome, and restful to a degree possibly not equaled in any other suburb of New York.

 

And the book proudly listed the prominent people who now called Flushing home, many of them New York City officials:

 

In later days many…men of note in various walks of life have established homes in Flushing. It would be well-nigh impossible to enumerate them all, but among those more widely known are Dr. William H. Maxwell, City Superintendent of Schools; Hon. Kingsley L. Martin, Commissioner of Bridges; Mr. J. Vipond Davies, Engineer of the McAdoo Tunnels; Mr. Arthur J. Nash, Superintendent of the Tiffany Studios; Mr. Clarence M. Lowes, Treasurer of the Williamsburg Dime Savings Bank; Mr. William O. Wood, President and General Manager of the New York and Queens County Railway; Mr. Charles G. M. Thomas, General Manager of the New York and Queens Electric Light and Power Company; Mr. Manley M. Gillam of the New York Herald; Mr. George N. Webster of the Wagner Palace Car Company; Mr. Foster Crowell, former Commissioner of Street Cleaning; Mr. David L. Van Nostrand, former County Clerk; Mr. Ellis Parker Butler, the author; Tax Commissioner John J. Halleran; Commissioner of Education Rupert B. Thomas; Mr. Frank A. Collins, Deputy Superintendent of School Buildings; Major Thomas K. Boggs, Capt. F.A. Hinman, U.S.A., retired, Rev. Dr. George R. Van DeWater, rector of St Andrew's Church, Manhattan, and so on indefinitely.

 

One of Flushing’s major attractions was the great variety of outdoor recreation available to its residents. As recounted in the Business Men’s Association publication of 1910:

 

Recreation and Entertainment: There is no excuse for any one failing to enjoy himself in Flushing. The place affords every conceivable form of diversion, recreation, and entertainment. Flushing Bay and River provide bathing, fishing, rowing, yachting and motor boating, and skating in winter. The unsurpassed roads, nearly all bordered by great trees, lead to unnumbered picturesque localities. The Shore Road at Whitestone is so close to the water one could toss a biscuit to the decks of the Sound steamers as they sail majestically by.

 

In particular, the existence of country clubs was considered a major advantage:

 

The Flushing Country Club [the original name of what became the Old Country Club] has excellent tennis courts and golf links in Whitestone Avenue.

 

Country clubs and golf clubs in suburban development and in Queens

 

According to historian James M. Mayo, the first known country club was the Myopia Club organized in 1879 in Winchester, a suburb of Boston. In 1882, several members of the Myopia Club organized the Country Club at Clyde Park in Brookline, Massachusetts. According to the Brookline club’s invitation to members:

 

The general idea is to have a comfortable clubhouse for the use of members with their families, a simple restaurant, bed-rooms, bowling-alley, lawn tennis grounds, etc.; also, to have race-meetings and, occasionally, music in the afternoon, and it is probable that a few gentlemen will club together to run a coach out every afternoon during the season, to convey members and their friends at a fixed charge.

 

Mayo lists other early country clubs including “The Buffalo (1889), Powelton (1882), Richmond County (1888), St. Andrew's Golf (1888), and Tuxedo (1886) Country Clubs of New York, and the Town and Country Club (1888) of St. Paul, Minnesota….” By 1900, more than 1,000 such clubs had opened. Initially, their sporting activities focused on horse-racing, polo or lawn tennis. But before long, those sports had been supplanted by golf, which became enormously popular.

 

The first club in the United States to build a golf course was the St. Andrew’s Golf Club in Yonkers, New York, which opened in 1888. By 1900 there were more than 1,000 golf courses throughout the country. According to Mayo:

 

Physically well suited for elites, golf was relatively injury-free and most people could play it. The equipment was not overly expensive; also some people wanted the countryside experience but were not enthusiastic about equestrian sports. Thus golf potentially optimized participation of many club members and their families.

 

Golf clubs and country clubs became major components of new American suburbs. According to Mayo:

 

The physical connection between the country club and the elite suburb increased as elites sought to relocate to the suburbs and to join a country club…. In the 1880s the country club phenomenon was so new that real estate developers had not recognized its potential relationship to the elite suburb. All the essential ingredients of commuting lines, suburban settlement, and club organizing were coming together, but elites and developers needed a successful experiment to see the possibilities of combining club and suburb.

 

The first such experiment was the development of Tuxedo Park, New York, planned with a clubhouse. The most influential suburban developer who depended on country clubs as part of his development was J.C. Nichols who, between 1906 and 1950, developed thousands of homes in Kansas City, including the Country Club District. Among his imitators were the developers of the Scioto Country Club (1914) outside Columbus, Ohio, River Oaks (1924) in Houston, Texas, Highland Park in Dallas, and many more.

 

In the early 20th century, of the five boroughs in the City of Greater New York, Queens was the most suburban in character, and had by far the largest number of golf clubs. A local Queens publication in 1924 described the borough as “Queens Borough - the Golfers' Paradise,” and “Queens Borough the Business Man’s Playground.”

 

No section of the country is better equipped to satisfy this craving for outdoor sport than Queens Borough, which has more golf courses than all the other boroughs of New York City combined - there being thirteen courses now in actual operation and two in course of making, the total occupying approximately 2,000 acres. The other four boroughs have a total of only six courses.

 

The same article described the Old Country Club in Flushing as “the oldest course on Long Island.”

 

The Old Country Club

 

The Old Country Club was organized in 1887 – just eight years after the pioneering Myopia Club – as the Flushing Athletic Club, making it one of the earliest such clubs in the United States. Though not originally planned with golf in mind, the club was not immune to the attractions of the sport. In the words of the club’s 1927 Year Book:

 

With the introduction of golf in this country, so many members became interested in the then new game, that golf soon became the principal activity. A Nine-Hole Course was constructed, and in 1902 the name was changed to The Flushing Country Club.

 

The Flushing Country Club was not part of a specific suburban development, but it played a large role in making the surrounding area desirable for suburban homes. Its nine-hole golf course, however, soon came to seem too small. As described by the Flushing Country Club’s 1927 Year Book:

 

Seventeen years passed, and in 1919 a majority of members banded together to form a new club on larger grounds. A handful of faithful golfers refused to leave their old course and promptly reorganized, taking the appropriate name of The Old Country Club, thus distinguishing themselves from the new club.

 

Steps were taken in 1922 to purchase the original Nine-Hole Course and sufficient adjacent property for nine additional holes. The membership was raised to Four Hundred, and The Old Country Club Land Company, Inc., was formed to acquire the desired land. …One year later the Eighteen-Hole Golf Course was ready.

 

The original site on which the Flushing Country Club was built had been acquired from the Mitchell estate, a large tract of land. The land purchased in 1922 by the Old Country Club Land Company, adjoining the original club grounds, was part of the estate of Cornelia Mitchell Wickham. Wickham’s heirs, members of the Mitchell family, owned a large plot, and sold land to other buyers as well. New York City in 1923 had already adopted a zoning code regulating land use, but the Mitchells must have had an eye to the value of their remaining parcels, and included very specific 50-year covenants in their deeds. The sale of the new plot to the Old Country Club Land Company included a detailed description not just of its potential club buildings, but also of potential residential development. The covenant occupied several pages of the deed, and noted that permission was granted for the construction of “churches and buildings for ordinary parochial activities, private schools and private social clubs other than clubs promoting boxing and wrestling matches.” Apparently the Mitchells foresaw the eventual sale and redevelopment of the golf club into yet another suburban development. And indeed, in 1936, just 13 years later, the Old Country Club Land Company sold the plot to Parsons Old Country Club Properties, Inc., for residential development.

 

The Fitzgerald Home

 

Barely six months before the Old Country Club Land Company acquired its new property from the Mitchells, the Mitchells sold a plot 100x200 feet directly adjoining the Club’s property to Charles and Florence Fitzgerald, formerly of Malba Drive. The Mitchells included 50-year restrictive covenants in this deed as well:

 

And the party of the second part covenants, for herself [Florence Fitzgerald], her heirs and assigns that no building shall be erected on the land conveyed other than private dwellings, to cost not less than $8000 each and one private garage for each such dwelling. Not more than two such dwellings shall be erected on the land conveyed. No such dwelling shall be erected nearer than 30 feet from the northerly line of Bayside Avenue and no such garage shall be nearer to Bayside Avenue than the rear line of the dwelling which it serves. Said lands, or any building erected thereon, shall not be used for any manufacturing or business purpose whatever, but the boarding or lodging of other persons in connection with the occupancy of the owner or lessee of the premises for dwelling purposes shall not be deemed a business, which covenant shall run with the land hereby conveyed for a period of 50 years.

 

Despite the covenant’s permission for the construction of two houses, the Fitzgeralds built only one house on the property, which became No. 290 Bayside Avenue (the address later changed to 145-15 Bayside Avenue). They hired architect John Oakman to design a handsome, Tudor-style mansion of the type that had become common in suburban developments.

 

John Oakman, architect

 

John Oakman (1878-1963) earned his B.A. at Williams College (1899) and went on to study architecture in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (Architecte Diplome, 1906). He returned to America to enter architectural practice.

 

Available knowledge of Oakman’s career is sketchy. In 1906, on returning to the United States, Oakman joined the office of Carrere & Hastings as a draughtsman. From 1907 to 1911 he was in a partnership with W. Powell Robins, in the firm of Robins & Oakman. In 1907 and 1908, he renovated several buildings on the campus of his alma mater. In 1907, Robins & Oakman received a major commission to design train terminals and a powerhouse for the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad (now PATH). The Christopher Street station is still extant. Judging from his design for the H&M Powerhouse in New Jersey, Oakman had a strong sense both of historical styles and of dramatic massing.

 

In 1914 Oakman returned to France, where he served during World War I. After the war, he opened a practice in Manhattan. He is known to have designed a war memorial in 1925 for Westchester Square, in the Bronx, as well as the Knickerbocker Hospital and Nurses Residence at Amsterdam Avenue at West 131st Street (1920). He described his work in 1949 as:

 

Extensive practice, mostly residential and institutional buildings in N.Y. State and vicinity. Hospital design. Industrial work.

 

He listed examples of his work as:

 

Power House, Hudson & Manhattan Railway

 

Sub-Station, Hudson & Manhattan Railway

 

Protestant Episcopal Orphans’ Home, N.Y.C.

 

Williams College, Currier Hall, Dormitory & Commons Building (Competition)

 

Knickerbocker Hospital, N.Y.C. (Competition) Nurses Home, Knickerbocker Hospital, (N.Y.C.) (Competition) Numerous City and Country Residences.

 

Oakman’s very brief obituary in the New York Times described Oakman as specializing “in designing homes.” Oakman retired in 1940, and moved back to France, but spent the last five years of his life in Alabama.

 

Suburban Housing in the Early Twentieth Century

 

By the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American suburbs were being filled with huge numbers of single-family homes, built to provide housing for the growing middle-class. Historian Alan Gowans calls this type of building the “Comfortable House.” These houses had evolved from the early picturesque rural cottages promoted by landscape architect Alexander Jackson Downing and his followers into something new, a “combination of country and city home.” They were not strictly country houses because they were situated on small lots rather than large estates, but they were not attached city houses either. With three fully articulated facades, they related to others on the street in terms of size and scale, but were not identical to each other as row houses are. They also broke away from the vertical orientation and boxy internal divisions seen in rowhouses and earlier Italianate and Queen Anne style houses, and were composed to be more horizontal, relating better to the streetscape, and with interior spaces that easily flowed from one to another.

 

The styles that were dominant for suburban houses during this period usually related to an historical style previously developed in America or Europe. These styles provided a sense of security for their residents, a sense of the familiar in a world that was rapidly changing because of an influx of immigrants, increasing industrialization and its resultant change in work patterns, and the country’s new and expanding role in the world at large. Going back to the past for visual metaphors was a way of expressing society’s roots, and they became symbols of shared cultural values. Additionally, since the family was seen as the basis of moral values, its stability was of utmost importance, and its center, the home itself, became the focus of much concern. On a practical level, the “Comfortable House” was appealing because it also included the latest technological developments to make life easier for its inhabitants: indoor plumbing, central heating, electricity and gas lines and laundry facilities.

 

Homes in this period used a variety of historical styles, but refined and rearranged them to meet contemporary design requirements. Popular styles included Beaux-Arts, Colonial Revival, Arts and Crafts, Tudor Revival, and Spanish Revival, among others. Although it would seem that these are very different types, they were linked by common attitudes among their designers, including “a willingness to use applied ornament, generous scale, systematically disciplined adaptation of past styles; and a vague, generalized sort of associationism,” along with a self-consciousness about what they were creating. Through the use of ornament, designers of the period helped maintain a sense of continuity with the past that was reassuring to their clients and to the community as a whole.

 

In domestic architecture, historically-based styles reinforced the status quo by confirming the pretensions of the emerging middle and upper class, with proportionally large and heavily elements, from fireplaces to columns and high ceilings. From Fifth Avenue mansions to revival style suburban houses, filtering down to working class bungalows, these details allowed homeowners to associate themselves with the history and culture of countries that had long and distinguished histories.

 

Suburbs from coast to coast soon filled with houses in a variety of historical revival styles. These buildings were publicized in architectural magazines and available from mail order companies. They were designed by individual architects or ordered from catalogues and constructed in all localities. Whether built on a grand scale or highly simplified, houses with historical references became the norm in American suburban life.

 

The Fitzgerald-Ginsberg house: Suburban Tudor

 

The house that John Oakman designed for Charles and Florence Fitzgerald is a handsome, large and unusually picturesque example of the 1920s Tudor Revival suburban home – a type sometimes referred to as “Stockbroker Tudor.” Tudor is one of the various medieval revival styles much in vogue in the early 20th century. In particular, it represents the residential side of that vogue; in that period, religious and educational buildings – and occasionally commercial as well – preferred a more academic Gothic Revival. Tudor appealed to architects of the day as a picturesque style appropriate to the suburbs, one that could make use of a variety of materials, shapes and textures, as well as a large natural site suitable for plantings.

 

The Tudor also suggested dignified prosperity. Typical elements of a Tudor house include full-length French doors, and numerous windows connecting the inside with the natural world outside. Windows – often grouped together – could be decorative, leaded windows, casements, bays or oriels. Larger buildings were often faced with masonry or decorative brick but could also have stucco contrasting with areas of dark wood framing or stone. The massing was usually irregular and was emphasized by large and prominent gables, chimneys with multiple stacks, or side-swept catslide roofs over entryways.

 

The house designed by John Oakman for the Fitzgeralds fits this description. A large two-story mansion with basement and attic, it sits on a plot 100 feet by 200 feet. Well set back from the property line, the house is approached by a curving drive. Most of the house is faced in large blocks of irregularly shaped fieldstone of varying color, meant to suggest the rustic qualities of the countryside. The house has a pitched roof, with multi-colored slate shingles, and two tall chimneys with multiple chimney pots. Many of the windows – in groups of two, three or four – are of leaded glass with diamond-shaped panes. The overall impression is one of grand, picturesque, prosperous suburban comfort.

 

Just two years after its construction, when the Fitzgeralds sold the property to the Ginsberg family, the New York Times singled out the house for praise in an article about recent real estate transactions:

 

Long Island provided several excellent transactions, especially in the Queens Borough section. At Flushing, where the realty demand has been steadily increasing, one of the finest residences was purchased by Morris Ginsberg from Charles Fitzgerald through the Halleran Agency and Arthur Knapp. The dwelling occupies a plot 200 by 100 feet at 290 Bayside Avenue. It is of stone construction with slate roof and was erected two years ago under the supervision of John Oakman of New York.

 

Later History

 

In 1926, the Fitzgeralds sold the house to Morris and Ethel Ginsberg. Morris Ginsberg was one of three sons of Hyman Ginsberg, proprietor of D. Ginsberg and Sons, a prominent Queens manufacturer of sash, door and trim. As described in an account in 1929:

 

The firm occupies considerable quarters in Corona…. In Corona their building is a landmark. The firm has business throughout Queens, and outside of it, and is conceded as one of the outstanding concerns in its field. D. Ginsberg and Sons are also interested in real estate, notably the mortgage end of it.

 

….Morris E. Ginsberg is in charge of the business end. The maturity of his business judgment found recognition in the fact that he is one of the youngest vice presidents of a national bank, being Vice President of the Woodside National Bank. Morris E. attended public school and high school in Queens, graduated and entered business immediately after. He is a forward-looking, well-informed, capable young businessman and is held in high regard by the builders who have on many occasions demonstrated the complete confidence they have in him. Morris E. is active in the civic and philanthropic affairs of the community, and is a member of a number of organizations.

 

The Ginsberg family lived in the house for over seventy years, during which few changes were made to the exterior.

 

During that time, however, the surrounding neighborhood changed dramatically. Flushing as a whole became heavily redeveloped with new homes and apartment houses, as well as new commercial buildings. The immediate area around the Fitzgerald mansion is occupied with much smaller houses, on small lots, built after the sale of the Old Country Club.

 

Today, because of its size and proportions, its deep setback on its lot, its entrance drive, its handsome rustic materials, and its carefully designed picturesque massing and details – all remarkably intact – the Fitzgerald/Ginsberg Mansion stands as an unusual survivor from the early 20th century history of Flushing and of Queens.

 

Description

 

The Fitzgerald-Ginsberg house is a substantial, two-story tall (plus basement and attic), Tudor Revival style mansion on a 100’ x 200’ lot, facing onto Bayside Avenue, with an attached garage at the rear. The house is substantially set back from the sidewalk, and approached by a curving gravel drive. Main façade: The main façade, facing Bayside Avenue, is a long, asymmetrically massed, picturesque composition, organized around two major gable-end sections. Each gabled section is two-and-a-half stories tall, with the gable forming the top half-story, and each is faced with irregular fieldstone blocks of varying shape (generally rectangular) and color. The gables have flared eaves. The roof is a graduated slate roof, with larger, thicker slate at the eaves, and narrower, thinner slate at the ridge line.

 

Windows are slightly recessed, with projecting lintels, and enframed by the fieldstone blocks. The gabled section to the east has a tripartite window at the ground floor level, each with small diamond panes, and at the second story level a smaller window with four tall, narrow casements. The gabled section to the west has two irregularly placed windows at the ground floor level, and a window at the second story level.

 

Between the two gabled sections, the pitched roof slopes down to a one-story section with the house’s main entrance; there is a small double dormer window set into the roof, but not directly over the entrance. The entrance is approached by two levels of flagstone; it is outlined by a finished stone surround that is curved at each of the upper corners of the entrance; a small period lantern is attached and centered just above the entranceway; the entrance is shaded by the roof eave which extends slightly over it. There is a historic wooden door, with vertical panels and a small light near the center top, at eye-level, and a non-historic storm door.

 

To the east of the eastern gabled section, there is a two-story section with a steeply sloping roof above; this section is faced not in stone but in stucco. The ground level is taken up almost entirely by a large four-part casement window with a painted wood frame. At the second story level, there is a smaller, four-part casement window, shaded by the roof eave which extends slightly over it.

 

To the west of the western gabled section, the roofline dips below the gable, though not as low as the roofline over the main entrance; there is a four-part casement window with a painted wood frame at the ground floor level, and a basement level below it, partly below-grade – where the ground slopes downward towards the west – with a similar four-part casement window; a retaining wall, constructed of the same unfinished fieldstone as the house, projects perpendicularly from the house just east of this window.

 

At the western edge of the façade, the ground slopes downward fully exposing the basement level of the façade. The house ends here in a two-story porch-like section corresponding to the ground-floor level and the basement level of the rest of the house. On the eastern half of this section, a stone stairway at the basement level leads to a ground-floor level doorway; the roof extends further down over this section, forming a separate pent-roof over the entrance; this roof section is supported by a wooden beam extending down to the second step of the stone staircase. On the western half of this section, the basement portion of the façade is faced in fieldstone, while the ground-level portion is almost entirely taken up by a large multipaned wooden window. East façade: The east façade is comprised of two sections: to the front of the house, a two-story-and-attic gabled section slightly shorter than the main section of the house but projecting out, eastward, from it; and to the rear a small, one-story, separately roofed area. Its ground-level story is faced in fieldstone in its lower portion, with a central doorway with six panels in its lower half and a nine-light window in its upper half, with a four-light transom above; the doorway is flanked on either side by two tall casement windows. The second-story and attic levels are faced in stucco, with a large five-part casement window at the second story. The small, separately roofed area towards the rear of the house is largely occupied by casement windows with diamond-shaped panes. West façade: The western façade has three sections: the projecting porch near the main façade, a stone wall behind it, and an attached garage. Porch: This is the porch-like section at the far western end of the main façade and continues its design, with a fieldstone lower portion and windowed section above, with a roughly stuccoed section of wall at its eastern end, where the porch meets the main portion of the house. The wall area behind it (to its north) is faced in fieldstone, and has a ground-floor level window and a second-floor level two-part casement window. A small square dormer window projects from the roof above. Attached garage: The attached garage has a gable end in rough stucco, a roof similar to the roof of the house, and one large wooden garage door. The driveway is paved in large rough masonry blocks. Rear façade: The rear façade to some extent mirrors the general layout of the front façade, with two major gable-end sections. Most of the façade is of irregular fieldstone, but the upper story of the gable to the west is faced in rough stucco.

 

The easternmost gable end has a double window at the ground-floor level with diamond-shaped panes, and a three-part casement window at the second-floor level; the attic level gable has one small square window.

 

The westernmost gable end has four windows at the ground floor level, and four casement windows with diamond panes at the second floor level. Beyond it is the rear of an attached garage.

 

Between the two gabled sections, the pitched roof slopes down to a one-and-a-half-story section with a second entrance, with casement windows above. The entrance is outlined by a finished stone surround that is curved at each of the upper corners of the entrance. The historic wood door is similar in design to the front door, and has a screen door as well. In the roof above this section, there is one small square dormer window. Above and to the east rises a four-part brick chimney.

 

- From the 1995 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Vanitas Symbolism

 

A vanitas still-life painting or photograph represents an old genre that goes back at least to the 17th-century Dutch and Flemish painters (with some notable contributions as well from the Spanish). It’s moralistic through and through, its message deriving ultimately from passages in the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments, stressing the fragility and impermanence of life and life’s pleasures both intellectual, cultural, hedonistic, and artistic. From the Hebrew Bible: “Vanity of vanity, saith the preacher; all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 12: 8). From the Gospel of Matthew: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (6: 19-20). I hasten to add that I am not a religious person—but I find the vanitas genre fascinating. I tried to represent as many vanitas symbols as I could. What follows, for those academically inclined, is a brief explanation of the 5 categories covering the typical icons.

 

Category 1: Items representing hedonistic indulgence

 

- musical instruments: the gold clock behind, left, shows a woman playing a lute. Here, the green Russian balalaika is meant to stand in for the stringed instrument that (I presume) would have been readily available during the European Renaissance.

- alcohol and wine goblets: I have two decanters, one with orange liqueur, the other with what seems to be red wine to the left of the half full (or half empty) wine glass. That decanters and glass aren’t full symbolizes how quickly life’s pleasures disappear (see also Category 2).

- food: the limes and the lemon in the glass bowl to the left. The lemon especially is understood to be beautiful to the sight and smell but bitter, just like life can be.

- combs and mirrors symbolize narcissism, our infatuation with personal beauty (our vanity). We have a mirror, difficult to see, laying on its side just beside the fruit.

- objects of art: paintings, busts, statues, and the like. Here we have two paint brushes and a bust (of the ancient Greek poet Homer).

- jewelry: I meant to put some gold rings in there but I forgot. We do have what appears to be a heart-shaped blue diamond and, yes, it’s a replica of the Heart of the Ocean, the famous stone in Titanic and which I purchased for my wife (“she who must be obeyed”) at the Titanic exhibit in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, when I was there a few years ago.

- perfume: we have two small bottles beside the mirror

- items of revelry or sinful living are represented here by dice and playing cards. Four of the five cards have an added, more modern, symbolic significance: two black aces and two black 8s comprise the famous Dead Man’s Hand, allegedly held by American gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok when he was shot down while playing poker. The mask—I can’t pretend to have seen one in a classic vanitas painting—was my idea as another symbol of revelry and reminds me of Poe’s story “The Masque of the Red Death,” which is a vanitas painting in prose.

- expensive items (“conspicuous consumption”) are represented here by the exotic red rug. Though we can barely see it, it’s a prized possession of mine all the way from Turkey.

- seashells are exotic and hard to acquire (see bottom left)

- a terrestrial globe, such as we see on the far left, back, is a meta-symbol of the world’s wealth and vanity (and is made, in this case, of semi-precious stones)

 

Category 2: Items representing life’s transitory nature and the decay of all earthly things

 

- music and instruments, while Cat. 1, also belong to Cat. 2 because music is transitory

- coins, as represented here by silver and gold pieces, are also transitory, never staying with us but moving from hand to hand

- bubbles, smoke, candles, butterflies: flame from candles eventually expires, as do we; its smoke recalls Psalm 102:3: “For my days are consumed like smoke.” Bubbles, like life itself, are short-lived, fragile and easily broken; butterflies are beautiful but fragile and easily killed.

- flowers symbolize beauty and so might belong to Cat. 1 but they are short-lived and soon wilt and die, as the photo’s Calla Lilies will. The Book of Job may have provided the inspiration: “Man that is born of a woman is of few days. . . . He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down” (14: 1-2).

- clocks, watches, hour-glasses are centrally significant because they measure and record time passing: with every second, we move closer to death. Here we have three kinds of time pieces: a sand-clock, a normal clock, and a little pocket watch in front of the books. This photo is a 30-second time-exposure: you can actually see the sliver of sand running from the top to the bottom of the sand-clock.

- the skull is the central symbol in a vanitas illustration, symbolizing our inescapable death and decay. We’s all gonna die!

 

Category 3: Items representing human achievement and culture

 

- books, for instance, represent the delights of reading. They also contain human knowledge but it’s only of this world, typically, and won’t endure. (Note that one of the two books is a collection of Poe’s works: he illustrates vanitas themes in “The Masque of the Red Death” and a few other tales.)

- writing instruments are related to books and we have a gold pen on top of the Poe edition—but, again, pens record and therefore symbolize human knowledge and culture, which won’t last as this world will eventually come to an end. Human strivings, achievements, and culture are futile and impermanent.

- weapons and armor are products of human culture as well (military culture), but even these can’t protect us from death. The knight’s helmet on the far right is here to remind us of that grim truth. Death is a great leveler: even the wealthiest and most powerful among us will come to the same end as the poorest and weakest.

 

Category 4: Items representing the permanent in the Christian context

 

- religious icons such as crucifixes, rosaries, angels, saints, certain types of flora (carnations, ivy, wheat, laurel): these remind us of or symbolize life after death—in other words, what’s truly important. Life in Heaven is eternal as opposed to the transient pleasures of Earth, which we should scorn. I have none of these symbols here because I don’t swing that way, baby. Not all vanitas paintings, even the classic ones, contain religious images.

 

Category 5: Written messages to clarify the moralistic meaning of the illustration

 

- for those viewers who can’t figure it out on their own, some painters provide messages, typically in Latin, explaining it all with well-known epigrams or quotes from the Bible. I have provided perhaps the most famous: Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas. “Vanity of vanity, all is vanity.”

 

In some respects I prefer this to one I posted a few years ago because this one has a dark backdrop, which reinforces the somber mood and meaning of the classic vanitas painting.

 

“The room itself is in messy disorder. On the table is a dish of fruit, which is real but appears artificial. Around it are grouped an ominous assortment of decanters, glasses, and heaped ash-trays, the latter still raising wavy smoke-ladders into the stale air—the effect on the whole needing but a skull to resemble that venerable chromo, once a fixture in every ‘den,’ which presents the appendages to the life of pleasure with delightful and awe-inspiring sentiment.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned)

 

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The paintings represent the return of a warrior on horseback and a woman driving a cart.

 

Tomb 1799, necropolis at Sarno, loc. Galitta del Capitano.

Excavated 17 September 2002.

 

The chamber tomb was reopened in antiquity and contained two depositions; the first, found swept to one corner and including a miniature bronze belt, is dated to the late 4th or early 3rd c. BCE (early Hellenistic period).

 

Museo Archeologico della Valle del Sarno, Sarno, Campania, Italy

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(pic represents events seconds before description)

 

I awoke with a thud at my feet. I instantly drew a deep breath, but the air was thin and toxic, filled with ash. It stings and burns as it fills my lungs. The putrid smell of burnt flesh fills the dark chamber where I am. I hold my eyes shut for a long 30 seconds to force my pupils to dilate somewhat, and I can make out loose shapes.

 

I feel my chest and stomach, I am sewed up. I look around, and see a disturbing sight that makes me vomit. A charred human skull.

 

The sight makes me bolt upright without thinking, I hit my head. I now realize where I am, a cremation furnace. I scream, but the sound that comes out is choked and frail. I realize I only have seconds before I am incinerated.

 

Just as the flame nozzles start to activate, whatever I'm on shakes like a boat toppling in a rouge wave. The flames shut off just as they start to lick my face. Now I need to get out of here before I run out of oxygen...

Objet qui me représente (artiste peintre à l'acrylique)