Early life.

Smith was born in the village of Churchill, Oxfordshire, the son of John Smith (1735–1777), the village blacksmith, and his wife Ann ("née" Smith; 1745–1807). His father died when he was eight years old, and he and his siblings were raised by his uncle, a farmer also named William Smith. Largely self-educated, Smith was intelligent and observant, read widely from an early age, and with an aptitude for mathematics and drawing. In 1787, he met and found work as an assistant for Edward Webb of Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, a surveyor. He was quick to learn, and soon became proficient at the trade. In 1791, he travelled to Somerset to make a valuation survey of the Sutton Court estate, and building on earlier work in the same area by John Strachey. He stayed in the area for the next eight years, working first for Webb and later for the Somersetshire Coal Canal Company, living at Rugborne Farm in High Littleton. During this period, Smith inspected a number of coal mines in the area, where he first observed and recorded the various layers of rock and coal exposed by the mining; Smith's coal mine studies, combined with his subsequent observations of the strata exposed by canal excavations, proved crucial to the formation of his theories of stratigraphy.

Life's work.

Smith worked at one of the estate's older mines, the Mearns Pit at High Littleton, part of the Somerset coalfield and the Somerset Coal Canal. As he observed the rock layers (or strata) at the pit, he realised that they were arranged in a predictable pattern and that the various strata could always be found in the same relative positions. Additionally, each particular stratum could be identified by the fossils it contained, and the same succession of fossil groups from older to younger rocks could be found in many parts of England. Furthermore, he noticed an easterly dip of the beds of rock—low near the surface (about three degrees), then higher after the Triassic rocks. This gave Smith a testable hypothesis, which he termed The Principle of Faunal Succession, and he began his search to determine if the relationships between the strata and their characteristics were consistent throughout the country. During subsequent travels, first as a surveyor (appointed by noted engineer John Rennie) for the canal company until 1799 when he was dismissed, and later, he was continually taking samples and mapping the locations of the various strata, and displaying the vertical extent of the strata, and drawing cross-sections and tables of what he saw. This would earn him the name "Strata Smith". As a natural consequence, Smith amassed a large and valuable collection of fossils of the strata he had examined himself from exposures in canals, road and railway cuttings, quarries and escarpments across the country. He also developed methods for the identification of deposits of Fuller's earth to the south of Bath.  He published his findings with many pictures from his fossil collection, enabling others to investigate their distribution and test his theories. His collection is especially good on Jurassic fossils he collected from the Cornbrash, Kimmeridge clay, Oxford clay, Oolitic limestone and other horizons in the sequence. They included many types of brachiopods, ammonites and molluscs characteristic of the shallow seas in which they were deposited. Some of the names he coined (like Cornbrash) are still used today for this formation.

Publication and disappointment.

In 1799 Smith produced the first large-scale geological map of the area around Bath, Somerset. Previously, he only knew how to draw the "vertical" extent of the rocks, but not how to display them "horizontally". However, in the Somerset "County Agricultural Society", he found a map showing the types of soils and vegetation around Bath and their geographical extent. Importantly, the differing types were coloured. Using this technique, Smith could draw a geological map from his observations showing the outcrops of the rocks. He took a few rock types, each with its own colour. Then he estimated the boundaries of each of the outcrops of rock, filled them in with colour and ended up with a crude geological map.  In 1801, he drew a rough sketch of what would become the first geological map of most of Great Britain. Smith travelled extensively across Great Britain working as a mineral surveyor allowing him to meet prominent people such as Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, and the Duke of Bedford. In 1815 he published this geological map, based on a John Cary map. It covered the whole of England and Wales, and parts of Scotland. While this was not the world's first geological map (a map of the United States by William Maclure was published six years earlier), Smith's was the first geological map covering such a large area in detail. Conventional symbols were used to mark canals, tunnels, tramways and roads, collieries, lead, copper and tin mines, together with salt and alum works. The various geological types were indicated by different colours, applied by hand. Nevertheless, the map is remarkably similar to modern geological maps of England. It also included a ‘Sketch of the succession of STRATA and their relative Altitudes’. This geological cross-section was not a new technique in itself, but its appearance on a map, with the clear intention of illustrating the relationship between relief and rocks and their structure, was novel. He published his "Delineation of the Strata of England" in the same year. In another of his books "Strata Identified by Organized Fossils" (London 1816–1819) he recognised that strata contained distinct fossil assemblages which could be used to match rocks across regions (Smith's laws). In 1817 he drew a remarkable geological section from Snowdon to London, a development of the ‘sketch’ on his map, illustrating the three-dimensional relationship between geology and landscape via a perspective sketch of the landscape showing the topography. Effectively this was the first block diagram, now routinely used in geography textbooks and animations.  A common narrative in some recent accounts of Smith’s life and his map asserts that rivalry built up between Smith and the first President of the Geological Society, George Bellas Greenough, who was also engaged in producing a geological map of England and Wales. However original sources point to this narrative not being the case and indicate Smith was used by John Farey Sr., another ‘practical man’(i.e. mineral surveyor), to prosecute Farey’s own grievances against the Geological Society in an article in The Philosophical Magazine by which he both started and fuelled the story that Smith was disrespected and there was ill-feeling towards him by the Geological Society men and Greenough in particular.. In the following issue Greenough replied, publicly declaring his view as being non-antagonistic by stating: “Your correspondent considers me, in common with many other persons, actuated by feelings of hostility towards Mr. Smith. Now my feelings towards that gentleman are directly the reverse. I respect him for the important services he has rendered to geology, and I esteem him for the example of dignity, meekness, modesty, and candour, which he continually, though ineffectually, exhibits to his self-appointed champion."  Another common but misleading narrative in some recent accounts of Smith’s map has Greenough’s 1820 map undercutting the price and sales of Smith's map, thereby citing Greenough as a primary cause of landing Smith in debtor's prison. However, Greenough's map could not have contributed to the debts for which Smith was consigned to prison as the Greenough map, although dated 1819 on the map, was not published until May 1820, after Smith's incarceration. In fact Smith's maps retailed at 5 guineas, which was the same price as that privileged to Geological Society members for purchase of the Greenough 1820 map. However the Greenough map retailed to public at 6 guineas, thereby being a more expensive purchase than Smith’s map. Also, although neither map sold well, the number of sales of Smith's map appears to have topped those of Greenough's map (only 196 copies recorded as sold) and there are only 15 names in common between Smith's subscribers' list and the list of those who bought the Geological Society's map.  Smith's various projects, starting with a mortgage taken to purchase his estate at Tucking Mill in Somerset in 1798, accrued financial commitments that ran into a series of difficulties which he managed to withstand by borrowing money from sympathetic creditors and mortgagors and funding repayments by taking on a relentless schedule of work commissions between 1801 and 1819. However a project to quarry Bath Stone near his property, for sale to the London property development market, failed to return the significant investment it had required due to poor quality stone and Smith found himself in default to co-investor Charles Conolly. Smith had used his Bath estate as security against Conolly's loan but there was excess to pay. In attempting to stave off his debt Smith sold his 'fossil collection' to the British Museum for £700, but this proved insufficient and funds fell short of the sum owed to Conolly by £300 and as a consequence Smith was sent to debtors' prison in 1819. Through all this financial turmoil, Smith managed to publish his map and subsequent associated publications but in 1817 he remarked "My income is as yet not anywise improved by what has been done, the profits being required to liquidate the debt incurred by publication."  On 31 August 1819 Smith was released from King's Bench Prison in London, a debtor's prison. He returned to 15 Buckingham Street, his home since 1804, to find a bailiff at the door and his home and property seized. Smith then worked as an itinerant surveyor for many years until one of his employers, Sir John Johnstone, recognised his work and talent and took steps to gain for him the respect he deserved, appointing Smith as Land Steward to his estate in Hackness near Scarborough. Between 1824 and 1834 Smith lived and was based in Hackness, then moving to Scarborough where he was responsible for the design of the Rotunda, a geological museum devoted to the Yorkshire coast, creating the cylindrical layout and arrangement of fossil display on sloping shelves.

Later recognition.

It was not until February 1831 that the Geological Society of London conferred on Smith the first Wollaston Medal in recognition of his achievement. It was on this occasion that the President, Adam Sedgwick, referred to Smith as "the Father of English Geology". Smith travelled to Dublin with the British Association in 1835, and there unexpectedly received an honorary Doctorate of Laws (LL.D.) from Trinity College. In 1838 he was appointed as one of the commissioners to select building-stone for the new Palace of Westminster. He died in Northampton, and is buried a few feet from the west tower of St Peter's Church, Marefair. The inscription on the grave is badly worn but the name "William Smith" can just be seen. Subsequent modern geological maps have been based on Smith's original work, of which several copies have survived including one which has been put on display at the Geological Society of London.

William 'Strata' Smith (23 March 1769 – 28 August 1839) was an English geologist, credited with creating the first detailed, nationwide geological map of any country. At the time his map was first published he was overlooked by the scientific community; his relatively humble education and family connections prevented him from mixing easily in learned society. Financially ruined, Smith spent time in debtors' prison. It was only late in his life that Smith received recognition for his accomplishments, and became known as the "Father of English Geology".

William Smith, dit "Strata Smith", ( - ) est un géologue britannique. Son travail le plus connu est "", une carte géologique détaillée de l'Angleterre, du Pays de Galles et d'une partie de l'Écosse.


Origins and early development.

The strides made by artists to "lift the figures and scenery off the page and prove undeniably that art is not rigid" (Calder, 1954) took significant innovations and changes in compositional style. Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, and Claude Monet were the three artists of the 19th century that initiated those changes in the Impressionist movement. Even though they each took unique approaches to incorporating movement in their works, they did so with the intention of being a realist. In the same period, Auguste Rodin was an artist whose early works spoke in support of the developing kinetic movement in art. However, Auguste Rodin's later criticisms of the movement indirectly challenged the abilities of Manet, Degas, and Monet, claiming that it is impossible to exactly capture a moment in time and give it the vitality that is seen in real life.

Édouard Manet.

It is almost impossible to ascribe Manet's work to any one era or style of art. One of his works that is truly on the brink of a new style is "Le Ballet Espagnol" (1862). The figures' contours coincide with their gestures as a way to suggest depth in relation to one another and in relation to the setting. Manet also accentuates the lack of equilibrium in this work to project to the viewer that he or she is on the edge of a moment that is seconds away from passing. The blurred, hazy sense of color and shadow in this work similarly place the viewer in a fleeting moment.  In 1863, Manet extended his study of movement on flat canvas with "Le déjeuner sur l'herbe". The light, color, and composition are the same, but he adds a new structure to the background figures. The woman bending in the background is not completely scaled as if she were far away from the figures in the foreground. The lack of spacing is Manet's method of creating snapshot, near-invasive movement similar to his blurring of the foreground objects in "Le Ballet Espagnol".

Edgar Degas.

Edgar Degas is believed to be the intellectual extension of Manet, but more radical for the impressionist community. Degas' subjects are the epitome of the impressionist era; he finds great inspiration in images of ballet dancers and horse races. His "modern subjects" never obscured his objective of creating moving art. In his 1860 piece "Jeunes Spartiates s'exerçant à la lutte", he capitalizes on the classic impressionist nudes but expands on the overall concept. He places them in a flat landscape and gives them dramatic gestures, and for him this pointed to a new theme of "youth in movement".  One of his most revolutionary works, "L’Orchestre de l’Opéra" (1868) interprets forms of definite movement and gives them multidimensional movement beyond the flatness of the canvas. He positions the orchestra directly in the viewer's space, while the dancers completely fill the background. Degas is alluding to the Impressionist style of combining movement, but almost redefines it in a way that was seldom seen in the late 1800s. In the 1870s, Degas continues this trend through his love of one-shot motion horseraces in such works as "Voiture aux Courses" (1872).  It wasn't until 1884 with "Chevaux de Course" that his attempt at creating dynamic art came to fruition. This work is part of a series of horse races and polo matches wherein the figures are well integrated into the landscape. The horses and their owners are depicted as if caught in a moment of intense deliberation, and then trotting away casually in other frames. The impressionist and overall artistic community were very impressed with this series, but were also shocked when they realized he based this series on actual photographs. Degas was not fazed by the criticisms of his integration of photography, and it actually inspired Monet to rely on similar technology.

Claude Monet.

Degas and Monet's style was very similar in one way: both of them based their artistic interpretation on a direct "retinal impression" to create the feeling of variation and movement in their art. The subjects or images that were the foundation of their paintings came from an objective view of the world. As with Degas, many art historians consider that to be the subconscious effect photography had in that period of time. His 1860s works reflected many of the signs of movement that are visible in Degas' and Manet's work.  By 1875, Monet's touch becomes very swift in his new series, beginning with "Le Bâteau-Atelier sur la Seine". The landscape almost engulfs the whole canvas and has enough motion emanating from its inexact brushstrokes that the figures are a part of the motion. This painting along with "Gare Saint-Lazare" (1877-1878), proves to many art historians that Monet was redefining the style of the Impressionist era. Impressionism initially was defined by isolating color, light, and movement. In the late 1870s, Monet had pioneered a style that combined all three, while maintaining a focus on the popular subjects of the Impressionist era. Artists were often so struck by Monet's wispy brushstrokes that it was more than movement in his paintings, but a "striking vibration".

Auguste Rodin.

Auguste Rodin at first was very impressed by Monet's 'vibrating works' and Degas' unique understanding of spatial relationships. As an artist and an author of art reviews, Rodin published multiple works supporting this style. He claimed that Monet and Degas' work created the illusion "that art captures life through good modeling and movement". In 1881, when Rodin first sculpted and produced his own works of art, he rejected his earlier notions. Sculpting put Rodin into a predicament that he felt no philosopher nor anyone could ever solve; how can artists impart movement and dramatic motions from works so solid as sculptures? After this conundrum occurred to him, he published new articles that didn't attack men such as Manet, Monet, and Degas intentionally, but propagated his own theories that Impressionism is not about communicating movement but presenting it in static form.

20th century surrealism and early kinetic art.

The surrealist style of the 20th century created an easy transition into the style of kinetic art. All artists now explored subject matter that would not have been socially acceptable to depict artistically. Artists went beyond solely painting landscapes or historical events, and felt the need to delve into the mundane and the extreme to interpret new styles. With the support of artists such as Albert Gleizes, other avant-garde artists such as Jackson Pollock and Max Bill felt as if they had found new inspiration to discover oddities that became the focus of kinetic art.

Albert Gleizes.

Gleizes was considered the ideal philosopher of the late 19th century and early 20th century arts in Europe, and more specifically France. His theories and treatises from 1912 on cubism gave him a renowned reputation in any artistic discussion. This reputation is what allowed him to act with considerable influence when supporting the plastic style or the rhythmic movement of art in the 1910s and 1920s. Gleizes published a theory on movement, which further articulated his theories on the psychological, artistic uses of movement in conjunction with the mentality that arises when considering movement. Gleizes asserted repeatedly in his publications that human creation implies the total renunciation of external sensation. That to him is what made art mobile when to many, including Rodin, it was rigidly and unflinchingly immobile.  Gleizes first stressed the necessity for rhythm in art. To him, rhythm meant the visually pleasant coinciding of figures in a two-dimensional or three-dimensional space. Figures should be spaced mathematically, or systematically so that they appeared to interact with one another. Figures should also not have features that are too definite. They need to have shapes and compositions that are almost unclear, and from there the viewer can believe that the figures themselves are moving in that confined space. He wanted paintings, sculptures, and even the flat works of mid-19th-century artists to show how figures could impart on the viewer that there was great movement contained in a certain space. As a philosopher, Gleizes also studied the concept of artistic movement and how that appealed to the viewer. Gleizes updated his studies and publications through the 1930s, just as kinetic art was becoming popular.

Jackson Pollock.

When Jackson Pollock created many of his famous works, the United States was already at the forefront of the kinetic and popular art movements. The novel styles and methods he used to create his most famous pieces earned him the spot in the 1950s as the unchallenged leader of kinetic painters, his work was associated with Action painting coined by art critic Harold Rosenberg in the 1950s. Pollock had an unfettered desire to animate every aspect of his paintings. Pollock repeatedly said to himself, "I am in every painting". He used tools that most painters would never use, such as sticks, trowels, and knives. He thought of the shapes he created as being ""beautiful, erratic objects"".  This style evolved into his drip technique. Pollock repeatedly took buckets of paint and paintbrushes and flicked them around until the canvas was covered with squiggly lines and jagged strokes. In the next phase of his work, Pollock tested his style with uncommon materials. He painted his first work with aluminum paint in 1947, titled "Cathedral" and from there he tried his first "splashes" to destroy the unity of the material itself. He believed wholeheartedly that he was liberating the materials and structure of art from their forced confinements, and that is how he arrived at the moving or kinetic art that always existed.

Max Bill.

Max Bill became an almost complete disciple of the kinetic movement in the 1930s. He believed that kinetic art should be executed from a purely mathematical perspective. To him, using mathematics principles and understandings were one of the few ways that you could create objective movement. This theory applied to every artwork he created and how he created it. Bronze, marble, copper, and brass were four of the materials he used in his sculptures. He also enjoyed tricking the viewer's eye when he or she first approached one of his sculptures. In his "Construction with Suspended Cube" (1935-1936) he created a mobile sculpture that generally appears to have perfect symmetry, but once the viewer glances at it from a different angle, there are aspects of asymmetry.

Mobiles and sculpture.

Max Bill's sculptures were only the beginning of the style of movement that kinetic explored. Tatlin, Rodchenko, and Calder especially took the stationary sculptures of the early 20th century and gave them the slightest freedom of motion. These three artists began with testing unpredictable movement, and from there tried to control the movement of their figures with technological enhancements. The term "mobile" comes from the ability to modify how gravity and other atmospheric conditions affect the artist's work.  Although there is very little distinction between the styles of mobiles in kinetic art, there is one distinction that can be made. Mobiles are no longer considered mobiles when the spectator has control over their movement. This is one of the features of virtual movement. When the piece only moves under certain circumstances that are not natural, or when the spectator controls the movement even slightly, the figure operates under virtual movement.  Kinetic art principles have also influenced mosaic art. For instance, kinetic-influenced mosaic pieces often use clear distinctions between bright and dark tiles, with three-dimensional shape, to create apparent shadows and movement.

Vladimir Tatlin.

Russian artist and founder-member of the Russian Constructivism movement Vladimir Tatlin is considered by many artists and art historians to be the first person to ever complete a mobile sculpture. The term mobile wasn't coined until Rodchenko's time, but is very applicable to Tatlin's work. His mobile is a series of suspended reliefs that only need a wall or a pedestal, and it would forever stay suspended. This early mobile, "Contre-Reliefs Libérés Dans L'espace" (1915) is judged as an incomplete work. It was a rhythm, much similar to the rhythmic styles of Pollock, that relied on the mathematical interlocking of planes that created a work freely suspended in air.  Tatlin's Tower or the project for the 'Monument to the Third International' (1919–20), was a design for a monumental kinetic architecture building that was never built. It was planned to be erected in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, as the headquarters and monument of the Comintern (the Third International).  Tatlin never felt that his art was an object or a product that needed a clear beginning or a clear end. He felt above anything that his work was an evolving process. Many artists whom he befriended considered the mobile truly complete in 1936, but he disagreed vehemently.

Alexander Rodchenko.

Russian artist Alexander Rodchenko, Tatlin's friends and peer who insisted his work was complete, continued the study of suspended mobiles and created what he deemed to be "non-objectivism". This style was a study less focused on mobiles than on canvas paintings and objects that were immovable. It focuses on juxtaposing objects of different materials and textures as a way to spark new ideas in the mind of the viewer. By creating discontinuity with the work, the viewer assumed that the figure was moving off the canvas or the medium to which it was restricted. One of his canvas works titled "Dance, an Objectless Composition" (1915) embodies that desire to place items and shapes of different textures and materials together to create an image that drew in the viewer's focus.  However, by the 1920s and 1930s, Rodchenko found a way to incorporate his theories of non-objectivism in mobile study. His 1920 piece "Hanging Construction" is a wood mobile that hangs from any ceiling by a string and rotates naturally. This mobile sculpture has concentric circles that exist in several planes, but the entire sculpture only rotates horizontally and vertically.

Alexander Calder.

Alexander Calder is an artist who many believe to have defined firmly and exactly the style of mobiles in kinetic art. Over years of studying his works, many critics allege that Calder was influenced by a wide variety of sources. Some claim that Chinese windbells were objects that closely resembled the shape and height of his earliest mobiles. Other art historians argue that the 1920s mobiles of Man Ray, including "Shade" (1920) had a direct influence on the growth of Calder's art.  When Calder first heard of these claims, he immediately admonished his critics. "I have never been and never will be a product of anything more than myself. My art is my own, why bother stating something about my art that isn’t true?" One of Calder's first mobiles, "Mobile" (1938) was the work that "proved" to many art historians that Man Ray had an obvious influence on Calder's style. Both "Shade" and "Mobile" have a single string attached to a wall or a structure that keeps it in the air. The two works have a crinkled feature that vibrates when air passes through it.  Regardless of the obvious similarities, Calder's style of mobiles created two types that are now referred to as the standard in kinetic art. There are object-mobiles and suspended mobiles. Object mobiles on supports come in a wide range of shapes and sizes and can move in any way. Suspended mobiles were first made with colored glass and small wooden objects that hung on long threads. Object mobiles were a part of Calder's emerging style of mobiles that were originally stationary sculptures.  It can be argued, based on their similar shape and stance, that Calder's earliest object mobiles have very little to do with kinetic art or moving art. By the 1960s, most art critics believed that Calder had perfected the style of object mobiles in such creations as the "Cat Mobile" (1966). In this piece, Calder allows the cat's head and its tail to be subject to random motion, but its body is stationary. Calder did not start the trend in suspended mobiles, but he was the artist that became recognized for his apparent originality in mobile construction.  One of his earliest suspended mobiles, "McCausland Mobile" (1933), is different from many other contemporary mobiles simply because of the shapes of the two objects. Most mobile artists such as Rodchenko and Tatlin would never have thought to use such shapes because they didn't seem malleable or even remotely aerodynamic.  Despite the fact that Calder did not divulge most of the methods he used when creating his work, he admitted that he used mathematical relationships to make them. He only said that he created a balanced mobile by using direct variation proportions of weight and distance. Calder's formulas changed with every new mobile he made, so other artists could never precisely imitate the work.

Virtual movement.

By the 1940s, new styles of mobiles, as well as many types of sculpture and paintings, incorporated the control of the spectator. Artists such as Calder, Tatlin, and Rodchenko produced more art through the 1960s, but they were also competing against other artists who appealed to different audiences. When artists such as Victor Vasarely developed a number of the first features of virtual movement in their art, kinetic art faced heavy criticism. This criticism lingered for years until the 1960s, when kinetic art was in a dormant period.

Materials and electricity.

Vasarely created many works that were considered to be interactive in the 1940s. One of his works "Gordes/Cristal" (1946) is a series of cubic figures that are also electrically powered. When he first showed these figures at fairs and art exhibitions, he invited people up to the cubic shapes to press the switch and start the color and light show. Virtual movement is a style of kinetic art that can be associated with mobiles, but from this style of movement there are two more specific distinctions of kinetic art.

Apparent movement and op art.

Apparent movement is a term ascribed to kinetic art that evolved only in the 1950s. Art historians believed that any type of kinetic art that was mobile independent of the viewer has apparent movement. This style includes works that range from Pollock's drip technique all the way to Tatlin's first mobile. By the 1960s, other art historians developed the phrase "op art" to refer to optical illusions and all optically stimulating art that was on canvas or stationary. This phrase often clashes with certain aspects of kinetic art that include mobiles that are generally stationary.  In 1955, for the exhibition "Mouvements" at the Denise René gallery in Paris, Victor Vasarely and Pontus Hulten promoted in their "Yellow manifesto" some new kinetic expressions based on optical and luminous phenomenon as well as painting illusionism. The expression "kinetic art" in this modern form first appeared at the Museum für Gestaltung of Zürich in 1960, and found its major developments in the 1960s. In most European countries, it generally included the form of optical art that mainly makes use of optical illusions, such as op art, represented by Bridget Riley, as well as art based on movement represented by Yacov Agam, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jesús Rafael Soto, Gregorio Vardanega, or Nicolas Schöffer. From 1961 to 1968, GRAV ("Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel") founded by François Morellet, Julio Le Parc, Francisco Sobrino, Horacio Garcia Rossi, Yvaral, Joël Stein and Vera Molnár was a collective group of opto-kinetic artists. According to its 1963 manifesto, GRAV appealed to the direct participation of the public with an influence on its behavior, notably through the use of interactive labyrinths.

Contemporary work.

In November 2013, the MIT Museum opened "5000 Moving Parts", an exhibition of kinetic art, featuring the work of Arthur Ganson, Anne Lilly, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, John Douglas Powers, and Takis. The exhibition inaugurates a "year of kinetic art" at the Museum, featuring special programming related to the artform.  Neo-kinetic art has been popular in China where you can find interactive kinetic sculptures in many public places, including Wuhu International Sculpture Park and in Beijing.  Changi Airport, Singapore has a curated collection of artworks including large-scale kinetic installations by international artists ART+COM and Christian Moeller.

Kinetic art is art from any medium that contains movement perceivable by the viewer or depends on motion for its effect. Canvas paintings that extend the viewer's perspective of the artwork and incorporate multidimensional movement are the earliest examples of kinetic art. More pertinently speaking, kinetic art is a term that today most often refers to three-dimensional sculptures and figures such as mobiles that move naturally or are machine operated (see e. g. videos on this page of works of George Rickey, Uli Aschenborn and Sarnikoff). The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.

L'art cinétique est un courant artistique qui propose des œuvres contenant des parties en mouvement. Le mouvement peut être produit par le vent, le soleil, un moteur ou le spectateur. L'art cinétique englobe une grande variété de techniques et de styles qui se chevauchent. L'expression "art cinétique" apparaît pour la première fois au Museum für Gestaltung de Zürich en 1960.


Polysemes.

A polyseme is a word or phrase with different, but related senses. Since the test for polysemy is the vague concept of the relatedness, judgments of polysemy can be difficult to make. Because applying pre-existing words to new situations is a natural process of language change, looking at words' etymology is helpful in determining polysemy but not the only solution; as words become lost in etymology, what once was a useful distinction of meaning may no longer be so. Some apparently unrelated words share a common historical origin, however, so etymology is not an infallible test for polysemy, and dictionary writers also often defer to speakers' intuitions to judge polysemy in cases where it contradicts etymology. English has many polysemous words. For example, the verb "to get" can mean "procure" ("I'll get the drinks"), "become" ("she got scared"), "understand" ("I get it") etc.  In linear or vertical polysemy, one sense of a word is a subset of the other. These are examples of hyponymy and hypernymy, and are sometimes called autohyponyms. For example, 'dog' can be used for'male dog'. Alan Cruse identifies four types of linear polysemy:  In non-linear polysemy, the original sense of a word is used figuratively to provide a different way of looking at the new subject. Alan Cruse identifies three types of non-linear polysemy:  There are several tests for polysemy, but one of them is zeugma: if one word seems to exhibit zeugma when applied in different contexts, it is likely that the contexts bring out different polysemes of the same word. If the two senses of the same word do not seem to "fit," yet seem related, then it is likely that they are polysemous. The fact that this test again depends on speakers' judgments about relatedness, however, means that this test for polysemy is not infallible, but is rather merely a helpful conceptual aid.  The difference between homonyms and polysemes is subtle. Lexicographers define polysemes within a single dictionary lemma, numbering different meanings, while homonyms are treated in separate lemmata. Semantic shift can separate a polysemous word into separate homonyms. For example, "check" as in "bank check" (or "Cheque"), "check" in chess, and "check" meaning "verification" are considered homonyms, while they originated as a single word derived from chess in the 14th century. Psycholinguistic experiments have shown that homonyms and polysemes are represented differently within people's mental lexicon: while the different meanings of homonyms (which are semantically unrelated) tend to interfere or compete with each other during comprehension, this does not usually occur for the polysemes that have semantically related meanings. Results for this contention, however, have been mixed.  For Dick Hebdige polysemy means that, "each text is seen to generate a potentially infinite range of meanings," making, according to Richard Middleton, "any homology, out of the most heterogeneous materials, possible. The idea of "signifying practice"—texts not as communicating or expressing a pre-existing meaning but as 'positioning subjects' within a "process" of semiosis—changes the whole basis of creating social meaning".  Charles Fillmore and Beryl Atkins' definition stipulates three elements: (i) the various senses of a polysemous word have a central origin, (ii) the links between these senses form a network, and (iii) understanding the 'inner' one contributes to understanding of the 'outer' one.  One group of polysemes are those in which a word meaning an activity, perhaps derived from a verb, acquires the meanings of those engaged in the activity, or perhaps the results of the activity, or the time or place in which the activity occurs or has occurred. Sometimes only one of those meanings is intended, depending on context, and sometimes multiple meanings are intended at the same time. Other types are derivations from one of the other meanings that leads to a verb or activity.  This example shows the specific polysemy where the same word is used at different levels of a taxonomy. Example 1 contains 2, and 2 contains 3.  The different meanings can be combined in a single sentence, e.g. "John used to work for the newspaper that you are reading."

Related ideas.

A lexical conception of polysemy was developed by B. T. S. Atkins, in the form of lexical implication rules. These are rules that describe how words, in one lexical context, can then be used, in a different form, in a related context. A crude example of such a rule is the pastoral idea of "verbizing one's nouns": that certain nouns, used in certain contexts, can be converted into a verb, conveying a related meaning.  Another clarification of polysemy is the idea of predicate transfer—the reassignment of a property to an object that would not otherwise inherently have that property. Thus, the expression ""I am parked out back"" conveys the meaning of "parked" from "car" to the property of "I possess a car". This avoids incorrect polysemous interpretations of "parked": that "people can be parked", or that "I am pretending to be a car", or that "I am something that can be parked". This is supported by the morphology: ""We are parked out back"" does not mean that there are multiple cars; rather, that there are multiple passengers (having the property of being in possession of a car).

Polysemy ( or ; from,, "many" and,, "sign") is the capacity for a word or phrase to have multiple meanings, usually related by contiguity of meaning within a semantic field. Polysemy is thus distinct from homonymy—or homophony—which is an accidental similarity between two words (such as "bear" the animal, and the verb "to bear"); while homonymy is often a mere linguistic coincidence, polysemy is not. In deciding between polysemy or homonymy, it might be necessary to look at the history of the word to see if the two meanings are historically related. Dictionary writers list polysemes under the same entry; homonyms are defined separately.

La polysémie est la caractéristique d'un mot ou d'une expression qui a plusieurs sens ou significations différentes (on le qualifie de "polysémique").


Names.

The binomial name "Sorbus aucuparia" is composed of the Latin words "sorbus" for service tree and "aucuparia", which derives from the words "avis" for "bird" and "capere" for "catching" and describes the use of the fruit of "S. aucuparia" as bait for fowling. The plant is commonly known as rowan and mountain-ash, and has also been called Amur mountain-ash, European mountain-ash, quick beam, quickbeam, or rowan-berry. The names rowan and mountain ash may be applied to other species in "Sorbus" subgenus "Sorbus", and mountain ash may be used for several other distantly related trees. The species is unrelated to the true ash trees (genus "Fraxinus"), which also carry pinnate leaves or the species "Eucalyptus regnans", also called mountain ash, native to Tasmania and Victoria in southeastern Australia. "S. aucuparia" was previously categorized as "Pyrus aucuparia". The author citation "Sorbus aucuparia" L. belongs to Carl Linnaeus.

Description.

"Sorbus aucuparia" occurs as a tree or shrub that grows up to between 5 and 15 m in height. The crown is loose and roundish or irregularly shaped but wide and the plant often grows multiple trunks. A trunk is slender and cylindrical and reaches up to 40 cm in diameter, and the branches stick out and are slanted upwards. The bark of a young "S. aucuparia" is yellowish gray and gleaming and becomes gray-black with lengthwise cracks in advanced age; it descales in small flakes. Lenticels in the bark are elongated and colored a bright ocher. The plant does not often grow older than 80 years and is one of the shortest-lived trees in temperate climate. Wood of "S. aucuparia" has a wide reddish white sapwood and a light brown to reddish brown heartwood. It is diffuse-porous, flexible, elastic, and tough, but not durable, with a density of 600 to in a dried state. The roots of "S. aucuparia" grow wide and deep, and the plant is capable of root sprouting and can regenerate after coppicing.  The compound leaves are pinnate with 4 to 9 pairs of leaflets on either side of a terete central vein and with a terminal leaflet. There are paired leaf-like stipules at the base of the petiole. The leaves are up to 20 cm long, 8 to 12 cm wide, and arranged in an alternate leaf pattern on a branch., distinguishing them from those of ash, "Fraxinus excelsior", which are opposite and without stipules. The leaflets are elongated-lanceolate in shape, 2 to 6 cm long, and 1 to 2.5 cm wide with a sharply serrated edge, and have short stems or sit close to the central vein except for the outermost leaflet. Leaflets are covered in gray-silvery hairs after sprouting but become mostly bare after they unfold. Their upper side is dark green and their underside is a grayish green and felted. Young leaflets smell like marzipan when brayed. The leaflets are asymmetrical at the bottom. "S. aucuparia" foliage grows in May and turns yellow in autumn or a dark red in dry locations.  Buds of "S. aucuparia" are often longer than 1 cm and have flossy to felted hairs. These hairs, which disappear over time, cover dark brown to black bud scales. The terminal buds are oval and pointed and larger than axillary buds, which are narrow, oval and pointed, close to the twig, and often curved towards it.  "S. aucuparia" is monoecious. It reaches maturity at age 10 and carries ample fruit almost every year. The plant flowers from May to June (on occasion again in September) in many yellowish white corymbs that contain about 250 flowers. The corymbs are large, upright, and bulging. The flowers are between 8 and 10 mm in diameter and have five small, yellowish green, and triangular sepals that are covered in hairs or bare. The five round or oval petals are yellowish white and the flower has up to 25 stamens fused with the corolla to form a hypanthium and an ovary with two to five styles; the style is fused with the receptacle. Flowers of "S. aucuparia" have an unpleasant trimethylamine smell. Their nectar is high in fructose and glucose.  Its fruit are round pomes between 8 and 10 mm in diameter that ripen from August to October. The fruit are green before they ripen and then typically turn to orange or scarlet in color. The sepals persist as a black, five-pointed star on the ripe fruit. A corymb carries 80 to 100 pomes. A pome contains a star-shaped ovary with two to five locules each containing one or two flat, narrow, and pointed reddish seeds. The flesh of the fruit contains carotenoids, citric acid, malic acid, parasorbic acid, pectin, provitamin A, sorbitol, tannin, and vitamin C. The seeds contain glycoside.  "Sorbus aucuparia" has a chromosome number of 2"n"=34.

Distribution and habitat.

"Sorbus aucuparia" is found in five subspecies:  It can be found in almost all of Europe and the Caucasus up to Northern Russia and Siberia, but it is not native to Southern Spain, Southern Greece, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, the Azores, and the Faroe Islands. The species was introduced as an ornamental species in North America. It is widespread from plains to mountains up to the tree line where it grows as the only deciduous tree species among krummholz. In the Alps it grows at elevations of up to 2000 m. "S. aucuparia" appears north of the boreal forest at the arctic tree line; in Norway, it is found up to the 71st parallel north. It has naturalized in America from Washington to Alaska and eastward in Canada and the northeast of the US very successfully.  "Sorbus aucuparia" is an undemanding species and can withstand shade. It is frost hardy and can tolerate winter dryness and a brief growing season. The plant is also resistant to air pollution, wind, and snow pressure. "S. aucuparia" mostly grows on soil that is moderately dry to moderately damp, acidic, low on nutrients, sandy, and loose. It often grows in stony soil or clay soil, but also sandy soil or wet peat. The plant grows best on fresh, loose, and fertile soil, prefers average humidity, and does not tolerate saline soil or waterlogging. It can be found in light woodland of all kinds and as a pioneer species over fallen dead trees or in clearcuttings, and at the edge of forests or at the sides of roads. Seeds of "S. aucuparia" germinate easily, so the plant may appear on inaccessible rock, ruins, branch forks, or on hollow trees.  The tallest "S. aucuparia" in the United Kingdom stands in the Chiltern Hills in South East England. This exceptional specimen is 28 m tall and has a trunk diameter of 56 cm. In Germany, an unusually large specimen is located near Wendisch Waren, a village in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. This tree stands at more than 15 m tall, is around 100 years old, and has a diameter of 70 cm. The tallest known "S. aucuparia" in Ireland is an 18 m tall specimen at Glenstal Abbey, County Limerick.

Ecology.

"Sorbus aucuparia" is pollinated by bees and flies. Its seeds are not digested by birds and are thus propagated by being passed intact in their droppings. The fruit are eaten by about 60 bird species and several mammals. They are liked particularly by thrushes and other songbirds, and are also eaten by cloven-hoofed game, red fox, European badger, dormouse, and squirrel. Fruit of "S. aucuparia" are used as a food source by migratory birds in winter, including Bohemian waxwing, spotted nutcracker, and redwing. Cloven-hoofed game also excessively browse foliage and bark. The plant roots can be found in symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal and less commonly with ectomycorrhizal fungi.  It is usually later superseded by larger forest trees. In Central Europe it often grows in association with red elderberry, goat willow, Eurasian aspen, and silver birch. The plant is highly flammable and tends not to accumulate plant litter.  Other species of the genus "Sorbus" easily hybridize with "S. aucuparia" and hybrid speciation can result; hybrids include "Sorbus × hybrida", a small tree with oval serrated leaves and 2 to 3 pairs of leaflets, which is a hybrid with "Sorbus × intermedia", and "Sorbus thuringiaca", a medium-size tree with elongated leaves and 1 to 3 pairs of leaflets that are sometimes fused at the central vein, which is a hybrid with "Sorbus aria".  The main pests for "S. aucuparia" are the apple fruit moth "Argyresthia conjugella" and the mountain-ash sawfly "Hoplocampa alpina". The rust fungus "Gymnosporangium cornutum" produces leaf galls. The leaves are not palatable to insects, but are used by insect larvae, including by the moth "Venusia cambrica", the case-bearer moth "Coleophora anatipennella", and leaf miners of the genus "Stigmella". The snail "Cornu aspersum" feeds on the leaves. The plant can suffer from fire blight.

Fossil record.

Fossils of "Sorbus aucuparia" have been described from the fossil flora of Kızılcahamam district in Turkey, which is of early Pliocene age.

Usage.

The fruit of "S. aucuparia" were used in the past to lure and catch birds. To humans, the fruit are bitter, astringent, laxative, diuretic and a cholagogue. They have vitamin C, so they prevent scurvy, but the parasorbic acid irritates the gastric mucosa. Pharmacist Mannfried Pahlow wrote that he doubted the toxicity of the fruit but advised against consuming large amounts. The fruit contain sorbitol, which can be used as a sugar substitute by diabetics, but its production is no longer relevant. "Sorbus aucuparia" fruits have been used in the traditional Austrian medicine internally (as tea, syrup, jelly or liqueur) for treatment of disorders of the respiratory tract, fever, infections, colds, flu, rheumatism and gout.  Fresh fruit are usually not tasty, but they can be debittered and made into compote, jelly, jam, a tangy syrup, a tart chutney, or juice, as well as wine and liqueur, or used for tea or to make flour. Fruit are served as a side dish to lamb or game. Debittering can be accomplished by freezing, cooking, or drying, which degrades the parasorbic acid. The fruit are red colored in August but usually only harvested in October after the first frost by cutting the corymbs. The robust qualities of "S. aucuparia" make it a source for fruit in harsh mountain climate and Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg Monarchy, recommended the planting of the species in 1779.  A more palatable variety, named "Sorbus aucuparia" var. "dulcis" Kraetzl, or var. "edulis" Dieck, or var. "moravica" Dippel, was first discovered in 1810 near Ostružná in the Hrubý Jeseník mountain range of Northern Moravia and became widespread in Germany and Austria the early 20th century. Its leaves are larger and pointed, only the front part of the leaflets is serrated, and they have darker bark, larger buds and larger fruit. Similar non-bitter varieties found in Southern Russia were first introduced in Central Europe in 1900 as 'Rossica' and 'Rossica Major', which has large fruit up to 1.5 cm in diameter.  Two widespread cultivars of the Moravian variety are 'Konzentra' and 'Rosina', which were selected beginning in 1946 by the Institut für Gartenbau Dresden-Pillnitz, an agricultural research institute in Saxony, from 75 specimen found mostly in the Ore Mountains, and made available in 1954. Fruit of the more widely used 'Konzentra' are small to medium-sized, mildly aromatic and tart, easier to transport because of their thicker peel, and used for juicing, while fruit of 'Rosina' are larger, sweet and tart, and aromatic, and candied or used in compote. The two cultivars are self-pollinating, yield fruit early, and the sugar content increases while the acid content decreases as the fruit ripen. 'Beissneri' is a cultivar with reddish foliage and bark and serrated leaves. Other edible varieties originate in and are named after Klosterneuburg, Lower Austria.  Russian botanist Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin began in 1905 to crossbreed common "S. aucuparia" with other species to create fruit trees. His experiments resulted in the cultivars 'Burka', 'Likjornaja', 'Dessertnaja', 'Granatnaja', 'Rubinovaja', and 'Titan'. Other "S. aucuparia" hybrids planted in Western Europe beginning in the 1980s include 'Apricot Queen', 'Brilliant Yellow', 'Chamois Glow', 'Pink Queen', and 'Salmon Queen'.  The leaves were fermented with leaves of sweet gale and oak bark to create herb beer. Fruit are eaten as a mash in small amounts against lack of appetite or an upset stomach and stimulate production of gastric acid. In folk medicine they are used as a laxative, against rheumatism and kidney disease, and as a gargled juice against hoarseness.  Wood of "S. aucuparia" is used for cartwright's work, turner's work, and woodcarving. Wood can be used from trees as young as 20 years. The sapwood is golden and white, while the heart-wood is brown. In almost treeless regions it is used as firewood. The leaves are sometimes used as fodder for livestock while the fruit are used against erysipeloid infections in domestic pigs and goats. Bark of the plant was used to dye wool brown or red. Honey from "S. aucuparia" flowers is strongly aromatic and has a reddish color.  "Sorbus aucuparia" is planted in mountain ranges to fortify landslides and avalanche zones.

Ornamental.

It is also used as an ornamental plant in parks, gardens, or as an avenue tree. Ornamental cultivars include 'Asplenifolia', which has divided and sharply serrated leaflets, 'Blackhawk', which has large fruit and dark green foliage, 'Fastigiata', which has an upright columnar form, 'Fructu Luteo', which has orange yellow fruit, 'Michred', which has brilliant red fruit, 'Pendula', which is a weeping tree, and 'Xanthocarpa', which has orange yellow fruit.  ‘Sheerwater Seedling', an upright and slender cultivar, has gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit.  Cultivars are vegetatively propagated via cuttings, grafting, or shield budding.

Mythology and customs.

In the "Prose Edda", the Norse god Thor saves himself from a rapid river created by the giantess Gjálp by grabbing hold of a rowan, which became known as "Thor's protection".  In English folklore, twigs of "S. aucuparia" were believed to ward off evil spirits and witches. The plant was called "the witch" in England and dowsing rods to find ores were made out of its wood. Twigs of "S. aucuparia" were used to drive cattle to the pasture for the first time in spring to ensure their health and fertility. The wooden shafts of forks and other farm implements were constructed from "S. aucuparia", to protect farm animals and production from witches' spells. In weather lore, a year with plentiful rowan fruit would have a good grain harvest but be followed by a severe winter.  "S. aucuparia" is used in the coats of arms of the German municipalities Ebernhahn, Eschenrode, and Hermsdorf, and of the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic. Rowan is part of the coat of arms of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and the logo of both Wigan Athletic and Wigan Warriors.

Sorbus aucuparia, commonly called rowan (UK: /ˈrəʊən/, US: /ˈroʊən/) and mountain-ash, is a species of deciduous tree or shrub in the rose family. It is a highly variable species, and botanists have used different definitions of the species to include or exclude trees native to certain areas; a recent definition includes trees native to most of Europe and parts of Asia, as well as northern Africa. The range extends from Madeira and Iceland to Russia and northern China. Unlike many plants with similar distributions, it is not native to Japan.

Le Sorbier des oiseleurs ou Sorbier des oiseaux ("Sorbus aucuparia" L.) est un petit arbre qui peut atteindre les 15 mètres de haut. Il vit principalement en lisière de forêts d'épicéas. Le sorbier est cousin avec le cormier. Ses feuilles sont composées de 17 ou 15 folioles lancéolées doublement dentées reliées au pétiole.


Terminology.

The word has been recorded in the English language since early 17th century. It comes from the Arabic "ḥarīm", which can mean "a sacred inviolable place", "harem" or "female members of the family". In English the term harem can mean also "the wives (or concubines) of a polygamous man." The triliteral "Ḥ-R-M" appears in other terms related to the notion of interdiction such as "haram" (forbidden), "mahram" (unmarriageable relative), "ihram" (a pilgrim's state of ritual consecration during the Hajj) and "al-Ḥaram al-Šarīf" ("the noble sanctuary", which can refer to the Temple Mount or the sanctuary of Mecca).  In Turkish of the Ottoman era, the harem, i.e., the part of the house reserved for women was called "haremlik", while the space open for men was known as "selamlık".  The practice of female seclusion is not exclusive to Islam, but the English word harem usually denotes the domestic space reserved for women in Muslim households. Some scholars have used the term to refer to polygynous royal households throughout history.

"The ideal of seclusion".

Leila Ahmed describes the "ideal of seclusion" as a "a man's right to keep his women concealed—invisible to other men." Ahmed identifies the practice of seclusion as a social ideal and one of the major factors that shaped the lives of women in the Mediterranean Middle East. For example, contemporary sources from the Byzantine Empire describe the social mores that governed women's lives. Women were not supposed to be seen in public. They were guarded by eunuchs and could only leave the home "veiled and suitably chaperoned." Some of these customs were borrowed from the Persians, but Greek society also influenced the development of patriarchal tradition.  The ideal of seclusion was not fully realized as social reality. This was in part because working class women often held jobs that required interaction with men. In the Byzantine empire, the very ideal of gender segregation created economic opportunities for women as midwives, doctors, bath attendants and artisans, since it was considered inappropriate for men to attend to women's needs. At times women lent and invested money and engaged in other commercial activities.  Female seclusion has historically signaled social and economic prestige. Eventually, the norms of female seclusion spread beyond the elites, but the practice remained characteristic of upper and middle classes, for whom the financial ability to allow one's wife to remain at home was a mark of high status. In some regions, such as the Arabian peninsula, seclusion of women was practiced by poor families at the cost of great hardship, but it was generally economically unrealistic for the lower classes.  Where historical evidence is available, it indicates that the harem was much more likely to be monogamous. For example, in late Ottoman Istanbul, only 2.29 percent of married men were polygynous, with the average number of wives being 2.08. In some regions, like Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, prevalence of women in agricultural work leads to wider practice of polygyny, but makes seclusion impractical. In contrast, in Eurasian and North African rural communities that rely on male-dominated plough farming, seclusion is economically possible but polygyny is undesirable. This indicates that the fundamental characteristic of the harem is seclusion of women rather than polygyny.

Pre-Islamic origins.

The idea of the harem or seclusion of women did not originate with Muhammad or Islam. The practice of secluding women was common to many Ancient Near East communities, especially where polygamy was permitted. In pre-Islamic Assyria, Persia, and Egypt, most royal courts had a harem, where the ruler’s wives and concubines lived with female attendants, and eunuchs. "Encyclopædia Iranica" uses the term "harem" to describe the practices of the ancient Near East.  In Assyria, rules of harem etiquette were stipulated by royal edicts. The women of the harem lived in seclusion, guarded by eunuchs, and the entire harem traveled together with the king. A number of regulations were designed to prevent disputes among the women from developing into political intrigues.  Female seclusion and a special part of the house reserved for women were common among the elites of ancient Greece (where it was known as the gynaeceum). These traditions were taken up in the Byzantine empire, though the rigid norms of seclusion expressed in Byzantine literature did not necessarily reflect actual practice.  There is no evidence of harem practices among early Iranians, but Iranian dynasties adopted them after their conquests in the Middle East. According to Greek sources, the nobility of the Medes kept no less than five wives who were watched over by eunuchs. Greek historians report that Persian notables of the Achaemenid empire as well as the king himself had several wives and a larger number of concubines. The Old Persian word for the harem is not attested, but it can be reconstructed as "xšapā.stāna" (lit. night station or place where one spends the night). The chief consort, who was usually the mother of the heir to the throne, was in charge of the household. She had her own living quarters, revenues, and a large staff. Three other groups of women lived in separate quarters: the other legal wives, royal princesses, and concubines. The Achaemenid harem served as a model for later Iranian empires, and the institution remained almost unchanged. Little is known about the harems of the Parthians, but the information about the Sasanian harem reveals a picture that closely mirrors Achaemenid customs. A peculiar characteristic of the Sasanian royalty and aristocracy, which was attested in later times under the Safavid and Qajar empires, was that the highest female rank was not necessarily given to the chief wife, but could be held by a daughter or a sister.  According to Sasanian legend, of all the Persian kings, Khosrow II was the most extravagant in his hedonism. He searched his realm to find the most beautiful girls, and it was rumored that about 3,000 of them were kept in his harem. This practice was widely condemned and it was counted as one of the crimes for which he was later tried and executed. Khosrow himself claimed that he sent his favorite wife Shirin every year to offer them a possibility of leaving his harem with a dowry for marriage, but that their luxurious lifestyle always prompted them to refuse his offer.  South Asian traditions of female seclusion, called "purdah", may have been influenced by Islamic customs, but the practice of segregation by gender in Hindu society predates the Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent. Ashoka, the great emperor of the Mauryan Dynasty in India, kept a harem of around 500 women. Once when a few of the women insulted him, he had all of them burnt to death.

In Islamic cultures.

Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates.

The harem system first became fully institutionalized in the Islamic world under the Abbasid caliphate. Seclusion of women was established in various communities of the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, and Persia before the advent of Islam, and some scholars believe that Muslims adopted the custom from the Byzantine Empire and Persia, retrospectively interpreting the Quran to justify it. Although the term "harem" does not denote women's quarters in the Quran, a number of Quranic verses discussing modesty and seclusion were held up by Quranic commentators as religious rationale for the separation of women from men, including the so-called "hijab verse" (33:53). In modern usage "hijab" colloquially refers to the religious attire worn by Muslim women, but in this verse it meant "veil" or "curtain" that physically separates female from male space. Although classical commentators agreed that the verse spoke about a curtain separating the living quarters of Muhammad's wives from visitors to his house, they usually viewed this practice as providing a model for all Muslim women.  In contrast to the earlier era of the Prophet Muhammad and the Rashidun Caliphate, women in Umayyad and Abbasid society were absent from all arenas of the community's central affairs. While their early Muslim forbearers led men into battle, started rebellions, and played an active role in community life, as demonstrated in the Hadith literature, Abbasid women were ideally kept in seclusion. Conquests had brought enormous wealth and large numbers of slaves to the Muslim elite. The majority of the slaves were women and children, many of whom had been dependents or harem-members of the defeated Sassanian upper classes. In the wake of the conquests an elite man could potentially own a thousand slaves, and ordinary soldiers could have ten people serving them.  Nabia Abbott, preeminent historian of elite women of the Abbasid Caliphate, describes the lives of harem women as follows. The choicest women were imprisoned behind heavy curtains and locked doors, the strings and keys of which were entrusted into the hands of that pitiable creature – the eunuch. As the size of the harem grew, men indulged to satiety. Satiety within the individual harem meant boredom for the one man and neglect for the many women. Under these conditions... satisfaction by perverse and unnatural means crept into society, particularly in its upper classes.  The marketing of human beings, particularly women, as objects for sexual use meant that elite men owned the vast majority of women they interacted with, and related to them as would masters to slaves. Being a slave meant relative lack of autonomy during this time period, and belonging to a harem caused a wife and her children to have little insurance of stability and continued support due to the volatile politics of harem life.  Elite men expressed in literature the horror they felt for the humiliation and degradation of their daughters and female relatives. For example, the verses addressed to Hasan ibn al-Firat on the death of his daughter read:  Even so, courtesans and princesses produced prestigious and important poetry. Enough survives to give us access to women's historical experiences, and reveals some vivacious and powerful figures, such as the Sufi mystic Raabi'a al-Adwiyya (714–801 CE), the princess and poet 'Ulayya bint al-Mahdi (777–825 CE), and the singing-girls Shāriyah (–70 CE), Fadl Ashsha'ira (d. 871 CE) and Arib al-Ma'muniyya (797–890 CE).

Ottoman Empire.

The Imperial Harem of the Ottoman sultan, which was also called "seraglio" in the West, was part of Topkapı Palace. It also housed the Valide Sultan, as well as the sultan's daughters and other female relatives. Eunuchs and servant girls were also part of the harem. During the later periods, the sons of the sultan lived in the Harem until they were 12 years old.  It is being more commonly acknowledged today that the purpose of harems during the Ottoman Empire was for the royal upbringing of the future wives of noble and royal men. These women would be educated so that they were able to appear in public as a royal wife.  Some women of Ottoman harem, especially wives, mothers and sisters of sultans, played very important political roles in Ottoman history, and in times it was said that the empire was ruled from harem. This period of Ottoman history is known as the Sultanate of Women. Hürrem Sultan (wife of Suleiman the Magnificent, mother of Selim II), was one of the most powerful women in Ottoman history, and wielded vast political power. The title of Haseki Sultan, was created for her and was used by her successors.  Kösem Sultan was also one of the most powerful women in Ottoman history. Kösem Sultan achieved power and influenced the politics of the Ottoman Empire when she became Haseki Sultan as favourite consort and later legal wife of Ottoman Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603–1617) and Valide Sultan as mother of Murad IV (r. 1623–1640) and Ibrahim (r. 1640–1648), and grandmother of Mehmed IV (r. 1648–1687).  Kösem's son, Sultan Ibrahim the Mad, Ottoman ruler from 1640 to 1648, is said to have drowned 280 concubines of his harem in the Bosphorus. At least one of his concubines, Turhan Sultan, a Rus' girl (from the area around modern Ukraine) who came into the Ottoman empire as a slave sold by Nogai slavers, survived his reign.  In Istanbul, the separation of men's and women's quarters was never practiced among the poor, and by 1920s and 1930s it had become a thing of the past in middle and upper-class homes.

Mughal Empire.

The king's wives, concubines, dancing girls and slaves were not the only women of the Mughal harem. Many others, including the king's mother lived in the harem. Aunts, grandmothers, sisters, daughters and other female relatives of the king all lived in the harem. Male children also lived in the harem until they grew up. Within the precincts of the harem were markets, bazaars, laundries, kitchens, playgrounds, schools and baths. The harem had a hierarchy, its chief authorities being the wives and female relatives of the emperor and below them were the concubines.  Urdubegis were the class of women assigned to protect the emperor and inhabitants of the zenana. Because the women of the Mughal court lived sequestered under purdah, the administration of their living quarters was run entirely by women. The division of the administrative tasks was dictated largely by the vision of Akbar, who organized his zenana of over 5,000 noble women and servants. The women tasked with the protection of the zenana were commonly of Habshi, Tatar, Turk and Kashmiri origin. Kashmiri women were selected because they did not observe purdah. Many of the women were purchased as slaves, and trained for their positions.  The women of the Mughal harem could exercise enormous political power. Nur Jahan, chief consort of Jahangir, was the most powerful and influential woman at court during a period when the Mughal Empire was at the peak of its power and glory. More decisive and proactive than her husband, she is considered by historians to have been the real power behind the throne for more than fifteen years. Nur Jahan was granted certain honours and privileges which were never enjoyed by any Mughal empress before or after. Nur Jahan was the only Mughal empress to have coinage struck in her name. She was often present when the Emperor held court, and even held court independently when the Emperor was unwell. She was given charge of his imperial seal, implying that her perusal and consent were necessary before any document or order received legal validity. The Emperor sought her views on most matters before issuing orders. The only other Mughal empress to command such devotion from her husband was Nur Jahan's niece Mumtaz Mahal, for whom Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum. However, Mumtaz took no interest in affairs of state and Nur Jahan is therefore unique in the annals of the Mughal Empire for the political influence she wielded.

Safavid Empire.

The royal harem played an important role in the history of Safavid Persia. In the early Safavid period, young princes were placed in the care of a "lala" (high-ranking Qizilbash chief who acted as a guardian) and eventually given charge of important governorates. Although this system had the danger of encouraging regional rebellions against the shah, it gave the princes education and training which prepared them for dynastic succession. This policy was changed by Shah Abbas I (1571-1629), who "largely banished" the princes to the harem, where their social interactions were limited to the ladies of the harem and eunuchs. This deprived them of administrative and military training as well as experience of dealing with the aristocracy of the realm, which, together with the princes' indulgent upbringing, made them not only unprepared to carry out royal responsibilities, but often also uninterested in doing so. The confinement of royal princes to the harem was an important factor contributing to the decline of the Safavid dynasty.  The administration of the royal harem constituted an independent branch of the court, staffed mainly by eunuchs. These were initially black eunuchs, but white eunuchs from Georgia also began to be employed from the time of Abbas I. The mothers of rival princes together with eunuchs engaged in palace intrigues in an attempt to place their candidate on the throne. From the middle of the sixteenth century, rivalries between Georgian and Circassian women in the royal harem gave rise to dynastic struggles of an ethnic nature previously unknown at the court. When Shah Abbas II died in 1666, palace eunuchs engineered the succession of Suleiman I and effectively seized control of the state. Suleiman set up a privy council, which included the most important eunuchs, in the harem, thereby depriving traditional state institutions of their functions. The eunuchs' influence over military and civil affairs was checked only by their internal rivalries and the religious movement led by Muhammad Baqir Majlisi. The royal harem reached such proportions under Sultan Husayn (1668–1726) that it consumed a large part of state revenues. After the fall of the Safavid dynasty, which occurred soon afterwards, eunuchs were never again able to achieve significant political influence as a class in Persia.

Morocco.

Moulay Ismail, Alaouite sultan of Morocco from 1672 to 1727, had over 500 concubines. He is said to have fathered a total of 525 sons and 342 daughters by 1703 and achieved a 700th son in 1721.

Modern Era.

The practice of female seclusion witnessed a sharp decline in the early 20th century as a result of education and increased economic opportunity for women, as well as Western influences, but it is still practiced in some parts of the world, such as rural Afghanistan and conservative states of the Persian Gulf region. Since the early 1980s, a rise in conservative Islamic currents has led to a greater emphasis on traditional notions of modesty and gender segregation, with some radical preachers in Saudi Arabia calling for a return to seclusion of women and an end of female employment. Many working women in conservative societies have adopted hijab as a way of coping with a social environment where men are uncomfortable interacting with women in the public space. Some religious women have tried to emulate seclusion practices abandoned by their grandmothers' generation in an effort to affirm traditional religious values in the face of pervasive Westernization.

Eunuchs, slavery and imperial harems.

Eunuchs were probably introduced into Islam through the influence of Persian and Byzantine imperial courts. The Ottomans employed eunuchs as guardians of the harem. Istanbul's Topkapı Palace housed several hundred eunuchs in the late-sixteenth century. The head eunuch who guarded the entrance of the harem was known as "kızlar ağası." Eunuchs were either Nilotic slaves captured in the Nile vicinity and transported through ports in Upper Egypt, the Sudan and Abyssinia, or European slaves such as Slavs and Franks.  According to Encyclopedia of Islam, castration was prohibited in Islamic law "by a sort of tacit consensus" and eunuchs were acquired from Christian and Jewish traders. Al-Muqaddasi identifies a town in Spain where the operation was performed by Jews and the survivors were then sent overseas. Encyclopedia Judaica states that Talmudic law counts castration among mutilations entitling a slave to immediate release, so that the ability of Jewish slave traders to supply eunuchs to harems depended on whether they could acquire castrated males.  The dark eunuch was held as the embodiment of the sensual tyranny that held sway in the fantasized Ottoman palace, for he had been "clipped" or "completely sheared" to make of him the "ultimate slave" for the supreme ruler. In the Ottoman court, white eunuchs, who were mostly brought from castration centers in Christian Europe and Circassia, were responsible for much of the palace administration, while black eunuchs, who had undergone a more radical form of castration, were the only male slaves employed in the royal harem.  The chief black eunuch, or the Kizlar Agha, came to acquire a great deal of power within the Ottoman Empire. He not only managed every aspect of the Harem women's lives but was also responsible for the education and social etiquette of the princes and young women in the Harem. He arranged for all ceremonial events within the Harem including weddings and circumcision parties, and even notified women of death sentences when "accused of crimes or implicated in intrigues of jealousy and corruption."  Nineteenth-century travelers accounts tell of being served by black eunuch slaves. The trade was suppressed in the Ottoman Empire beginning in the mid-19th century, and slavery was legally abolished in 1887 or 1888. Late 19th-century slaves in Palestine included enslaved Africans and the sold daughters of poor Palestinian peasants. Both Arabs and Jews owned slaves. Circassians and Abazins from North of the Black Sea may have also be involved in the Ottoman slave trade.

Similar institutions in other cultures.

In Muscovite Russia the area of aristocratic houses where women were secluded was known as "terem".  In Mexico, Aztec ruler Montezuma II, who met Cortes, kept 4,000 concubines; every member of the Aztec nobility was supposed to have had as many consorts as he could afford.  "Harem" is also the usual English translation of the Chinese language term "hougong" ("hou-kung"; ), in reference to the Imperial Chinese Harem. "Hougong" refers to the large palaces for the Chinese emperor's consorts, concubines, female attendants and eunuchs. The women who lived in an emperor's "hougong" sometimes numbered in the thousands. In 1421, Yongle Emperor ordered 2,800 concubines, servant girls and eunuchs who guarded them to a slow slicing death as the Emperor tried to suppress a sex scandal which threatened to humiliate him.  In Africa, many chieftains have traditionally had harems. The Zulu king currently has six wives, for example, and members of the Nigerian chieftaincy system have historically had as many as three hundred of them.

Western representations.

A distinct, imaginary vision of the harem emerged in the West starting from the 17th century, when Europeans became aware of Muslim harems housing numerous women. In contrast to the medieval European views, which conceived Muslim women as victimized but powerful through their charms and deceit, during the era of European colonialism the "imaginary harem" came to represent what Orientalist scholars saw as an abased and subjugated status of women in the Islamic civilization. These notions served to cast the West as culturally superior and justify the colonial enterprise. Under the influence of The Thousand and One Nights, the harem was often conceived as a personal brothel, where numerous women lounged in suggestive poses, directing their strong but oppressed sexuality toward a single man in a form of "competitive lust".  A centuries-old theme in Western culture is the depiction of European women forcibly taken into Oriental harems—evident for example in the Mozart opera "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" ("The Abduction from the Seraglio") concerning the attempt of the hero Belmonte to rescue his beloved Konstanze from the "seraglio"/harem of the Pasha Selim; or in Voltaire's "Candide", in chapter 12 of which the old woman relates her experiences of being sold into harems across the Ottoman Empire.  Much of Verdi's opera "Il corsaro" takes place in the harem of the Pasha Seid—where Gulnara, the Pasha's favorite, chafes at life in the harem, and longs for freedom and true love. Eventually she falls in love with the dashing invading corsair Corrado, kills the Pasha and escapes with the corsair—only to discover that he loves another woman.  "The Lustful Turk", a well-known British erotic novel, was also based on the theme of Western women forced into sexual slavery in the harem of the Dey of Algiers, while in "A Night in a Moorish Harem", a Western man is invited into a harem and engages in forbidden sex with nine concubines. In both works, the theme of "West vs. Orient" is clearly interwoven with the sexual themes.  The Sheik novel and the Sheik film, a Hollywood production from 1921, are both controversial and probably the best known works created by exploiting the motif. Much criticism ensued over decades, especially recently, on various strong and unambiguous Orientalist and colonialist elements, and in particularly directed at ideas closely related to the central rape plot in which for women, sexual submission is a necessary and natural condition, and that interracial love between an Englishwoman and Arab, a "native", is avoided, while the rape is ultimately justified by having the rapist turn out to be European rather than Arab.  "Angelique and the Sultan", part of the Angélique historical novel series by Anne and Serge Golon and later made into a film, has the theme of a 17th Century French noblewoman captured by pirates and taken into the harem of the King of Morocco. Thereupon, she stabs the King with his own dagger when he tries to have sex with her and stages a daring escape.  The Russian writer Leonid Solovyov, adapting the Middle Eastern and Central Asian folktales of Nasreddin into his book "Возмутитель спокойствия" (English translations under the varying titles "The Beggar in the Harem: Impudent Adventures in Old Bukhara", 1956, and "The Tale of Hodja Nasreddin: Disturber of the Peace", 2009) added prominently the theme of Nasreddin's beloved being taken into the harem of the Emir of Bukhara and the protagonist's efforts to extract her from there - a theme completely absent from the original folktales.

Image gallery.

Many Western artists have depicted their imaginary conceptions of the harem.

Harem ( "ḥarīm", "a sacred inviolable place; harem; female members of the family"), properly refers to domestic spaces that are reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. This private space has been traditionally understood as serving the purposes of maintaining the modesty, privilege, and protection of women. A harem may house a man's wife — or wives and concubines, as in royal harems of the past — their pre-pubescent male children, unmarried daughters, female domestic workers, and other unmarried female relatives. In former times some harems were guarded by eunuchs who were allowed inside. The structure of the harem and the extent of monogamy or polygamy has varied depending on the family's personalities, socio-economic status, and local customs. Similar institutions have been common in other Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations, especially among royal and upper-class families, and the term is sometimes used in other contexts. In traditional Persian residential architecture the women's quarters were known as "andaruni" (Persian: اندرونی; meaning inside, and in the Indian subcontinent as "zenana" (Persian: زنانه).

Un harem (arabe : حريم [ḥarīm], « harem » ou « gynécée ») désigne à la fois la suite de femmes (concubines ou simples « beautés ») qui entouraient un personnage important et leur lieu de résidence. Par extension, le terme est aussi utilisé pour d'autres civilisations, comme l'Égypte ancienne ou la Chine impériale.