Characteristics.

In general.

Authoritarianism is characterized by highly concentrated and centralized power maintained by political repression and the exclusion of potential challengers. It uses political parties and mass organizations to mobilize people around the goals of the regime. Adam Przeworski has theorized that "authoritarian equilibrium rests mainly on lies, fear and economic prosperity". Authoritarianism also tends to embrace the informal and unregulated exercise of political power, a leadership that is "self-appointed and even if elected cannot be displaced by citizens' free choice among competitors", the arbitrary deprivation of civil liberties and little tolerance for meaningful opposition. A range of social controls also attempt to stifle civil society, while political stability is maintained by control over and support of the armed forces, a bureaucracy staffed by the regime and creation of allegiance through various means of socialization and indoctrination. Authoritarianism is marked by "indefinite political tenure" of the ruler or ruling party (often in a one-party state) or other authority. The transition from an authoritarian system to a more democratic form of government is referred to as democratization.

Systemic weakness and resilience.

Andrew J. Nathan notes that "regime theory holds that authoritarian systems are inherently fragile because of weak legitimacy, overreliance on coercion, overcentralization of decision making, and the predominance of personal power over institutional norms...Few authoritarian regimes—be they communist, fascist, corporatist, or personalist—have managed to conduct orderly, peaceful, timely, and stable successions". Political scientist Theodore M. Vestal writes that authoritarian political systems may be weakened through inadequate responsiveness to either popular or elite demands, and that the authoritarian tendency to respond to challenges by exerting tighter control, instead of by adapting, may compromise the legitimacy of an authoritarian state and lead to its collapse. One exception to this general trend is the endurance of the authoritarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party, which has been unusually resilient among authoritarian regimes. Nathan posits that this can be attributed to four factors: (1) "the increasingly norm-bound nature of its succession politics"; (2) "the increase in meritocratic as opposed to factional considerations in the promotion of political elites"; (3) "the differentiation and functional specialization of institutions within the regime"; and (4) "the establishment of institutions for political participation and appeal that strengthen the CCP's legitimacy among the public at large".

Institutions.

Within authoritarian systems, there may be nominally democratic institutions such as political parties, legislatures and elections, but they are managed in a way so as to entrench authoritarian regimes. Within democracies, parties serve to coordinate the pursuit of interests for like-minded citizens, whereas in authoritarian systems, they are a way for authoritarian leaders to find capable elites for the regime. In a democracy, a legislature is intended to represent the diversity of interests among citizens, whereas authoritarians use legislatures to signal their own restraint towards other elites, as well as to monitor other elites who pose a challenge to the regime.  Fraudulent elections may serve the role of signaling the strength of the regime (to deter elites from challenging the regime), as well as force other elites to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime, whereas in democracies, free and fair elections are used to select representatives who represent the will of the citizens. Elections may also motivate authoritarian party members to strengthen patron–client and information-gathering networks, which strengthens the authoritarian regime. Elections may also motivate members of the ruling class to engage in public goods provision.  According to one study, "most dictatorships led by parties have regular popular elections." Prior to the 1990s, most of these elections had no alternative parties or candidates for voters to vote on. Since the end of the Cold War, about two-thirds of elections in authoritarian systems allow for some opposition, but the elections are structured in a way to heavily favor the incumbent authoritarian regime.  Hindrances to free and fair elections in authoritarian systems may include:

Constitutions in authoritarian regimes.

Authoritarian regimes often adopt "the institutional trappings" of democracies, such as constitutions. Constitutions in authoritarian states may serve a variety of roles, including "operating manual" (describing how the government is to function); "billboard" (signal of regime's intent), "blueprint" (outline of future regime plans), and "window dressing" (material designed to obfuscate, such as provisions setting forth freedoms that are not honored in practice). Authoritarian constitutions may help legitimize, strengthen, and consolidate regimes. For example, an authoritarian constitution "that successfully coordinates government action and defines popular expectations can also help consolidate the regime's grip on power by inhibiting re coordination on a different set of arrangements." Unlike democratic constitutions, authoritarian constitutions do not set direct limits on executive authority; however, in some cases such documents may function as ways for elites to protect their own property rights or constrain autocrats' behavior.  The concept of "authoritarian constitutionalism" has been developed by legal scholar Mark Tushnet. Tushnet distinguishes authoritarian constitutionalist regimes from "liberal constitutionalist" regimes ("the sort familiar in the modern West, with core commitments to human rights and self-governance implemented by means of varying institutional devices") and from purely authoritarian regimes (which reject the idea of human rights or constraints on leaders' power). He describes authoritarian constitutionalist regimes as (1) authoritarian dominant-party states that (2) impose sanctions (such as libel judgments) against, but do not arbitrarily arrest, political dissidents; (3) permits "reasonably open discussion and criticism of its policies"; (4) hold "reasonably free and fair elections," without systemic intimidation, but "with close attention to such matters as the drawing of election districts and the creation of party lists to ensure as best it can that it will prevail—and by a substantial margin"; (4) reflect at least occasional responsiveness to public opinion; and (5) create "mechanisms to ensure that the amount of dissent does not exceed the level it regards as desirable." Tushnet cites Singapore as an example of an authoritarian constitutionalism state, and connects the concept to that of hybrid regimes.

Violence.

Yale University political scientist Milan Svolik argues that violence is a common characteristic of authoritarian systems. Violence tends to be common in authoritarian states because of a lack of independent third parties empowered to settle disputes between the dictator, regime allies, regime soldiers and the masses.  Authoritarians may resort to measures referred to as "coup-proofing" – structures that make it hard for any small group to seize power. These coup-proofing strategies may include the strategic placing of family, ethnic, and religious groups in the military; creation of an armed force parallel to the regular military; and development of multiple internal security agencies with overlapping jurisdiction that constantly monitor one another. Research shows that some coup-proofing strategies reduce the risk of coups occurring. However, coup-proofing reduces military effectiveness, and limits the rents that an incumbent can extract. A 2016 study shows that the implementation of succession rules reduce the occurrence of coup attempts. Succession rules are believed to hamper coordination efforts among coup plotters by assuaging elites who have more to gain by patience than by plotting. According to political scientists Curtis Bell and Jonathan Powell, coup attempts in neighbouring countries lead to greater coup-proofing and coup-related repression in a region. A 2017 study finds that countries' coup-proofing strategies are heavily influenced by other countries with similar histories. A 2018 study in the "Journal of Peace Research" found that leaders who survive coup attempts and respond by purging known and potential rivals are likely to have longer tenures as leaders. A 2019 study in "Conflict Management and Peace Science" found that personalist dictatorships are more likely to take coup-proofing measures than other authoritarian regimes; the authors argue that this is because "personalists are characterized by weak institutions and narrow support bases, a lack of unifying ideologies and informal links to the ruler."  According to a 2019 study, personalist dictatorships are more repressive than other forms of dictatorship.

Manipulation of information.

According to a 2019 study by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman, authoritarian regimes have over time become less reliant on violence and mass repression to maintain control. The study shows instead that authoritarians have increasingly resorted to manipulation of information as a means of control. Authoritarians increasingly seek to create an appearance of good performance, conceal state repression, and imitate democracy.

Interactions with other elites and the masses.

The foundations of stable authoritarian rule are that the authoritarian prevents contestation from the masses and other elites. The authoritarian regime may use co-optation or repression (or carrots and sticks) to prevent revolts.

Economy.

Scholars such as Seymour Lipset, Carles Boix, Susan Stokes, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Stephens, and John Stephens argue that economic development increases the likelihood of democratization. Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi argue that while economic development makes democracies less likely to turn authoritarian, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that development causes democratization (turning an authoritarian state into a democracy). Eva Bellin argues that under certain circumstances, the bourgeoise and labor are more likely to favor democratization, but less so under other circumstances. Economic development can boost public support for authoritarian regimes in the short-to-medium term.

Typologies.

Several subtypes of authoritarian regimes have been identified by Linz and others. Linz identified the two most basic subtypes as traditional authoritarian regimes and bureaucratic-military authoritarian regimes:  Subtypes of authoritarian regime identified by Linz are: corporatist or organic-statistic, racial and ethnic "democracy" and post-totalitarian.  Authoritarian regimes are also sometimes subcategorized by whether they are personalistic or populist. Personalistic authoritarian regimes are characterized by arbitrary rule and authority exercised "mainly through patronage networks and coercion rather than through institutions and formal rules". Personalistic authoritarian regimes have been seen in post-colonial Africa. By contrast, populist authoritarian regimes "are mobilizational regimes in which a strong, charismatic, manipulative leader rules through a coalition involving key lower-class groups". Examples include Argentina under Perón, Egypt under Nasser and Venezuela under Chávez and Maduro.  A typology of authoritarian regimes by political scientists Brian Lai and Dan Slater includes four categories: machine (oligarchic party dictatorships); bossism (autocratic party dictatorships); juntas (oligarchic military dictatorships); and strongman (autocratic military dictatorships). Lai and Slater argue that single‐party regimes are better than military regimes at developing institutions (e.g., mass mobilization, patronage networks, coordination of elites) that are effective at continuing the regime's incumbency and diminishing domestic challengers; Lai and Slater also argue that military regimes more often initiate military conflicts or undertake other "desperate measures" to maintain control, as compared to single‐party regimes.  John Duckitt suggests a link between authoritarianism and collectivism, asserting that both stand in opposition to individualism. Duckitt writes that both authoritarianism and collectivism submerge individual rights and goals to group goals, expectations and conformities.

Authoritarianism and totalitarianism.

Linz distinguished new forms of authoritarianism from personalistic dictatorships and totalitarian states, taking Francoist Spain as an example. Unlike personalistic dictatorships, new forms of authoritarianism have institutionalized representation of a variety of actors (in Spain's case, including the military, the Catholic Church, Falange, monarchists, technocrats and others). Unlike totalitarian states, the regime relies on passive mass acceptance rather than popular support. Totalitarianism is an extreme version of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism primarily differs from totalitarianism in that social and economic institutions exist that are not under governmental control. Building on the work of Yale political scientist Juan Linz, Paul C. Sondrol of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has examined the characteristics of authoritarian and totalitarian dictators and organized them in a chart:  Sondrol argues that while both authoritarianism and totalitarianism are forms of autocracy, they differ in "key dichotomies": Compared to totalitarianism, "the authoritarian state still maintains a certain distinction between state and society. It is only concerned with political power and as long as that is not contested it gives society a certain degree of liberty. Totalitarianism, on the other hand, invades private life and asphyxiates it". Another distinction is that "authoritarianism is not animated by utopian ideals in the way totalitarianism is. It does not attempt to change the world and human nature". Carl Joachim Friedrich writes that "a totalist ideology, a party reinforced by a secret police, and monopoly control of... industrial mass society" are the three features of totalitarian regimes that distinguish them from other autocracies.

Competitive authoritarian regimes.

Another type of authoritarian regime is the competitive authoritarian regime, a type of civilian regime that arose in the post-Cold War era. In a competitive authoritarian regime, "formal democratic institutions exist and are widely viewed as the primary means of gaining power, but... incumbents' abuse of the state places them at a significant advantage vis-à-vis their opponents." The term was coined by Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way in their 2010 book of the same name to discuss a type of hybrid regime that emerged during and after the Cold War. Competitive authoritarian regimes differ from fully authoritarian regimes in that elections are regularly held, the opposition can openly operate without a high risk of exile or imprisonment, and "democratic procedures are sufficiently meaningful for opposition groups to take them seriously as arenas through which to contest for power." However, competitive authoritarian regimes lack one or more of the three characteristics of democracies: free elections (i.e., elections untainted by substantial fraud or voter intimidation); protection of civil liberties (i.e., the freedom of speech, press, and association), and an even playing field (in terms of access to resources, the media, and legal recourse).

Authoritarianism and democracy.

Authoritarianism and democracy are not necessarily fundamental opposites, as it is possible for some democracies to possess authoritarian elements, and for an authoritarian system to have democratic elements. An illiberal democracy (or procedural democracy) is distinguished from liberal democracy (or substantive democracy) in that illiberal democracies lack features such as the rule of law, protections for minority groups, an independent judiciary, and the real separation of powers.  A further distinction that liberal democracies have rarely made war with one another; research has extended the theory and finds that more democratic countries tend to have few wars (sometimes called militarized interstate disputes) causing fewer battle deaths with one another and that democracies have far fewer civil wars.  Research shows that the democratic nations have much less democide or murder by government. Those were also moderately developed nations before applying liberal democratic policies. Research by the World Bank suggests that political institutions are extremely important in determining the prevalence of corruption and that parliamentary systems, political stability and freedom of the press are all associated with lower corruption.  A 2006 study by economist Alberto Abadie has concluded that terrorism is most common in nations with intermediate political freedom. The nations with the least amount of terrorism are the most and least democratic nations, and that "transitions from an authoritarian regime to a democracy may be accompanied by temporary increases in terrorism." Studies in 2013 and 2017 similarly found a nonlinear relationship between political freedom and terrorism, with the most terrorist attacks occurring in partial democracies and the fewest in "strict autocracies and full-fledged democracies." A 2018 study by Amichai Magen demonstrated that liberal democracies and polyarchies not only suffer fewer terrorist attacks as compared to other regime types, but also suffer fewer casualties in terrorist attacks as compared to other regime types, which may be attributed to higher-quality democracies' responsiveness to their citizens' demands, including "the desire for physical safety," resulting in "investment in intelligence, infrastructure protection, first responders, social resilience, and specialized medical care," which averts casualties. Magen also noted that terrorism in closed autocracies sharply increased starting in 2013.

Effect on development.

Some commentators, such as Seymour Martin Lipset, argue that low-income authoritarian regimes have certain technocratic "efficiency-enhancing advantages" over low-income democracies that gives authoritarian regimes an advantage in economic development. By contrast, Morton H. Halperin, Joseph T. Siegle and Michael M. Weinstein (2005) argue that democracies "realize superior development performance" over authoritarianism, pointing out that poor democracies are more likely to have steadier economic growth and less likely to experience economic and humanitarian catastrophes (such as refugee crises) than authoritarian regimes; that civil liberties in democracies act as a curb on corruption and misuse of resources; and that democracies are more adaptable than authoritarian regimes.  Studies suggest that several health indicators (life expectancy and infant and maternal mortality) have a stronger and more significant association with democracy than they have with GDP per capita, size of the public sector or income inequality. Prominent economist Amartya Sen has theorized that no functioning liberal democracy has ever suffered a large-scale famine.

Examples.

There is no one consensus definition of authoritarianism, but several annual measurements are attempted, including Freedom House's annual Freedom in the World report.

Current.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of examples of states which are currently (or frequently) characterized as authoritarian:

Historical.

Examples of states which were historically authoritarian include the following:

Historical trends.

Anti-authoritarianism.

Both World War II (ending in 1945) and the Cold War (ending in 1991) resulted in the replacement of authoritarian regimes by either democratic regimes or regimes that were less authoritarian.  World War II saw the defeat of the Axis powers by the Allied powers. All the Axis powers — Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan — had totalitarian or authoritarian governments, and two of the three were replaced by governments based on democratic constitutions. The Allied powers were an alliance of Democratic states and (later) the Communist Soviet Union. At least in Western Europe the initial post-war era embraced pluralism and freedom of expression in areas that had been under control of authoritarian regimes. The memory of fascism and Nazism was denigrated. The new Federal Republic of Germany banned its expression. In reaction to the centralism of the Nazi state, for example, the new constitution of West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) exercised "separation of powers" and placed "law enforcement firmly in the hands" of the sixteen "Länder" or states of the republic, not with the federal German government (at least not at first).  Culturally there was also a strong sense of anti-authoritarianism based on anti-fascism in Western Europe. This was attributed to the active resistance from occupation and to fears arising from the development of superpowers. Anti-authoritarianism also became associated with countercultural and bohemian movements such as the Beat Generation in the 1950s, the hippies in the 1960s and punks in the 1970s.  In South America, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay moved away from dictatorships to democracy between 1982 and 1990.  With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991, the other authoritarian/totalitarian "half" of the Allied Powers of World War II collapsed. This led not so much to revolt against authority in general, but to the belief that authoritarian states (and state control of economies) were outdated. The idea that "liberal democracy was the final form toward which all political striving was directed", became very popular in Western countries and was celebrated in Francis Fukuyama's book "The End of History and the Last Man". According to Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., "all the new states that stumbled out of the ruins of the Soviet bloc, except Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, seemed indeed to be moving toward democracy in the early 1990s," as where the countries of East Central Europe and the Balkans.  In late 2010, the "Arab Spring" arose in response to unrest over economic stagnation but also in opposition to oppressive authoritarian regimes, first in Tunisia and spreading to Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, and elsewhere. Regimes were toppled in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and partially in Yemen, and other countries saw riots, civil wars or insurgencies.

Authoritarian revival.

From 2005 to 2015 observers noted what some called a "democratic recession" (although some — Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way — have disputed this theory). In 2018 Freedom House declared that from 2006 to 2018, "113 countries" around the world showed "a net decline" in "political rights and civil liberties" while "only 62" experienced "a net improvement."  Writing in 2018, U.S. political journalist David Frum stated: The hopeful world of the very late 20th century—the world of NAFTA and an expanding NATO; of the World Wide Web 1.0 and liberal interventionism; of the global spread of democracy under leaders such as Václav Havel and Nelson Mandela—now looks battered and delusive." Michael Ignatieff wrote that Fukuyama's idea of liberalism vanquishing authoritarianism "now looks like a quaint artifact of a vanished unipolar moment", and Fukuyama himself expressed concern. By 2018 only one Arab Spring uprising — in Tunisia — resulted in a transition to constitutional democratic governance, and a "resurgence of authoritarianism and Islamic extremism" in the region was dubbed the "Arab Winter".  Various explanations have been offered for the new spread of authoritarianism, including the downside of globalization, and the success of the Beijing Consensus, i.e. the authoritarian model of the People's Republic of China. In at least one country, (the U.S.) factors blamed for the growth of authoritarianism include the Financial crisis of 2007–2008 and slower real wage growth; and social media's elimination of "gatekeepers" of knowledge, so that a large fraction of the population considers to be opinion what were once "viewed as verifiable facts” – everything from the danger of global warming to the preventing the spread of disease through vaccination.

Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by strong central power and limited political freedoms. Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic in nature, and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military.

威权主义或权威主义(英语:Authoritarianism)是一种政体或意识形态。奉行该主义的人认为政府应要求民众绝对服从其权威,并限制个人的思想跟言论和行为自由,将权力集中於单一领袖或一小撮精英,即权威。


Plot.

In the present, adult siblings Michael and Carolyn Johnson arrive at their recently deceased mother's Iowa farmhouse to settle her estate. While sorting through Francesca's will and safe deposit box, they are shocked by their mother's specific request to be cremated and her ashes scattered from the nearby Roseman Bridge, superseding previous arrangements for burial next to her late husband, Richard. Michael initially refuses to comply until Carolyn discovers unseen photos of her mother taken at the Holliwell Bridge and letters to Francesca from a man named Robert Kincaid. Francesca's note, along with a key, lead her children to a locked hope chest containing three notebooks, a National Geographic magazine featuring Madison County's covered wood bridges, old cameras, and other mementos. A photo of Kincaid is in the magazine.  In 1965, Francesca, a WWII Italian war bride, met Robert Kincaid, a National Geographic photojournalist who was on assignment to photograph the county's historic bridges. Robert, looking for the Roseman Bridge, stopped by the Johnson farm to ask for directions. Francesca then rode along to show him the way. Their subsequent affair occurred over the four days that Francesca's husband and children were away at the Illinois State Fair.  Francesca's three notebooks detail the affair and its lasting impact on both her and Robert, who fell deeply in love and nearly ran away together. After wrenching soul-searching, Francesca, trapped in a passionless marriage, was unable to abandon her teenage children and loyal husband, knowing the irreparable pain it would cause and the realization that what she and Robert shared was unlikely to survive, given their circumstances. Robert, forever affected by their brief encounter, found renewed meaning in his life and a true calling as an artist. Francesca's memories helped sustain her through her remaining years on the farm. Years later, Francesca attempted to contact Robert after her husband's death, but he had since left National Geographic and his whereabouts were unknown. Francesca learned that Robert died about three years after her husband and left her his belongings. His ashes were scattered from Roseman Bridge. Michael and Carolyn, both experiencing marital problems, are deeply moved by their mother's story and find new direction to their individual lives. The Johnson siblings respect their mother's wishes and scatter her ashes at the covered bridge.

Production.

Development.

Amblin Entertainment, a production company founded by Steven Spielberg, bought the film rights to Waller's novel for $25,000 in late 1991, before its publication—by the time of the film's release, the novel sold 9.5 million copies worldwide. Spielberg first asked Sydney Pollack to direct, who got Kurt Luedtke to draft the first version of the adaptation but then bowed out; Ronald Bass was brought in by Kathleen Kennedy and Spielberg to work on the script, but they were unsatisfied with the results. But a third draft by Richard LaGravenese was liked by Eastwood, who quite early had been cast for the male lead, and by Spielberg, who liked LaGravenese's version enough to consider making "Bridges" his next film after "Schindler's List", which was in post-production at the time. Both men liked that LaGravenese's script presented the story from Francesca's point of view; Spielberg then had LaGravenese introduce the framing device of having Francesca's adult children discover and read her diaries. When Spielberg decided not to direct, he then brought in Bruce Beresford, who got Alfred Uhry to draft another version of the script; when Warner Bros., Spielberg, and Eastwood all preferred LaGravenese's draft, Beresford dropped out.  Waller championed Isabella Rossellini to play Francesca; she was a "strong contender" in a list that also included Anjelica Huston, Jessica Lange, Mary McDonnell, Cher, and Susan Sarandon. But despite Spielberg's initial reluctance, Eastwood had advocated Meryl Streep for the role from the beginning.

Filming.

Principal photography took 42 days, ending on November 1, 1994, ten days ahead of Eastwood's 52-day schedule; Eastwood filmed it chronologically from Francesca's point of view, "because it was important to work that way. We were two people getting to know each other, in real time, as actors and as the characters." It was filmed on location in Madison County, Iowa, including the town of Winterset, and in the Dallas County town of Adel.

Post-production.

The MPAA ratings board initially gave the film an "R" rating, for the line "Or should we just fuck on the linoleum one last time?", a line of dialogue spoken sarcastically by Francesca; Eastwood appealed, and the rating was reduced to a PG-13.

Release.

Box office.

"The Bridges of Madison County" opened theatrically on June 2, 1995 in 1,805 venues. It earned $10,519,257 in its opening weekend, ranking number two in the North American box office, behind "Casper" (which was in its second weekend and coincidentally features Eastwood in a cameo). At the end of its run, the film grossed $71,516,617 domestically and $110,500,000 overseas for a worldwide total of $182,016,617.

Critical reception.

Rotten Tomatoes reports a score of 90% based on 58 reviews, with an average rating of 7.39/10. The site's consensus states: "Sentimental, slow, schmaltzy, and very satisfying, "The Bridges of Madison County" finds Clint Eastwood adapting a bestseller with heft, wit, and grace." On Metacritic, the film has a 66 out of 100 rating, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".  According to Janet Maslin, "Clint Eastwood, director and alchemist, has transformed "The Bridges of Madison County" into something bearable—no, something even better. Limited by the vapidity of this material while he trims its excesses with the requisite machete, Mr. Eastwood locates a moving, elegiac love story at the heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill. The movie has leanness and surprising decency, and Meryl Streep has her best role in years. Looking sturdy and voluptuous in her plain housedress (the year is 1965), Ms. Streep rises straight out of 'Christina's World' to embody all the loneliness and fierce yearning Andrew Wyeth captured on canvas. And yet, despite the Iowa setting and the emphasis on down-home Americana, Mr. Eastwood's "Bridges of Madison County" has a European flavor. Its pace is unhurried, which is not the same as slow. It respects long silences and pays attention to small details. It sustains an austere tone and staves off weepiness until the last reel. It voices musings that would definitely sound better in French." Richard Corliss said Eastwood is the "most reticent of directors—where the book ogles, the film discreetly observes—and, here, the courtliest of stars...As scripted by Richard LaGravenese ("The Fisher King"), the Madison County movie has a slightly riper theme than the book's. It is about the anticipation and consequences of passion—the slow dance of appraisal, of waiting to make a move that won't be rejected, of debating what to do when the erotic heat matures into love light. What is the effect of an affair on a woman who has been faithful to her husband, and on a rootless man who only now realizes he needs the one woman he can have but not hold?" Corliss concludes ""Madison County" is Eastwood's gift to women: to Francesca, to all the girls he's loved before—and to Streep, who alchemizes literary mawkishness into intelligent movie passion."

Accolades.

Others.

The film tied with "Goodbye South, Goodbye" and "Carlito's Way" as the best film of the 1990s in a poll by "Cahiers du cinéma".  The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

The Bridges of Madison County is a 1995 American romantic drama film based on the 1992 best-selling novel of the same name by Robert James Waller. It was produced by Amblin Entertainment and Malpaso Productions, and distributed by Warner Bros. Entertainment. The film was produced and directed by Clint Eastwood with Kathleen Kennedy as co-producer. The screenplay was adapted by Richard LaGravenese. The film is about an Italian war bride, Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep), who lives with her husband and two children on their Iowa farm. In 1965, she meets "National Geographic" photojournalist, Robert Kinkaid (Eastwood) who arrives in Madison County to photograph its historic covered bridges. They have a four-day love affair that forever changes them. The film earned $182 million worldwide and was well received by critics. Streep received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination in 1996 for her performance in the film.

《麦迪逊之桥》(英语:The Bridges of Madison County)是1995年根据美国畅销书《廊桥遗梦》(罗伯特·詹姆斯·华勒著)改编而来的电影,由著名导演克林·伊斯威特亲自执导并主演。女主角梅丽·史翠普获得当年奥斯卡最佳女主角奖提名。


History.

Development.

Development of Blowpipe traces to a 1966 Ministry of Defense industry contract for a MANPADS system. Whether or not there was need of such a weapon was constantly debated, with the Secretary of State for Defence stating as late as 1968 that the question remained open. Ultimately, the decision was made in 1968 to start development of the Shorts proposal, which won the contract specifically because it was believed to be the least expensive option.  To lower cost of the missile, Shorts' design did not include a guidance system. Instead, the guidance was on the launcher, which communicated with the missile using a radio command system. This meant the missile itself had few electronics in it, and the expensive systems were not expended when firing. Shorts, additionally, claimed that this system made it suitable for head-on engagements, while infrared homing systems of the era, like the FIM-43 Redeye, were only useful in tail-chase engagements, where the missile's short range would make it almost useless.  Concerns about the control fins at the front of the missile led to one of the distinguishing features of Blowpipe. It was considered to be a difficult problem to make movable control fins that also folded for storage so the decision was made to have the guidance fins unfoldable. This required the forward section of the launcher to be large enough to hold them in their flight positions, which leads to the seemingly oversized cylinder at the front of the launcher. The rear fins, used for stabilization only, are placed at the rear of this cylinder on a separate ring, and the missile flies through it until they reach the end of the fuselage where the ring locks into place. As they exit the tube, the tips of the rear fins fold out further.  The program immediately ran into problems. On 2 May 1969, MP Sir John Morris claimed that the Blowpipe's development was "...proceeding satisfactorily but is at too early a stage for any firm production order." Two years later, on 11 February 1971, Minister of State Robert Lindsay noted that "The development programme for this missile continues to make progress although it will still be some time before it is completed." On 16 March 1972, Under-Secretary for Defence for the Army Geoffrey Johnson-Smith stated that Blowpipe "...should be in service in about two years' time."  A low-rate production contract was finally signed in September of that year. On 24 July 1973 it was stated that the system was still undergoing flight tests and ground tests, which were not officially completed until 1975. The missile entered service later that year. On 10 June 1976, further controversy sparked when it was revealed the Royal Air Force (RAF) was reluctant to use the weapon in test launches because of its high cost, limiting training to only two launches per year. By 1979, only half the units slated to receive Blowpipe actually had them.

Variants.

After requests from the Israeli and Brazilian navies for a submarine-launched weapon, Blowpipe was developed in a cluster of six missiles on a mast that could be raised from the submarine's conning tower. Known as "Submarine Launched Airflight Missile", or SLAM, the system was trialled on the WWII-era HMS "Aeneas" in 1972. These were for a time installed on Israeli "Gal" class submarines, but later removed. The Brazilians never installed the system.  A four-round launcher similar to the one developed for SLAM was also considered for mounting on the M113 and FV103 Spartan, but it is unclear if either reached trials. The programs were officially ended in June 1981. The basic concept was later re-introduced as the three-round "Lightweight Multiple Launchers" (LML) for Blowpipe or Javelin. A larger five-round mount was later offered as "Sea Javelin".  In the 1970s, Northrop introduced a new MANPADS combining the Blowpipe missile with a semi-active laser guidance system into the competition that was ultimately won by the Raytheon FIM-92 Stinger. This was the guidance system that was ultimately used by Starburst.

Description.

The missile is supplied as a single round in a storage cylinder/firing tube. The aiming unit is clipped to the launch tube and fired from the operator's shoulder. To reduce the overall size of the container, the rear fins of the missile are stored in the larger diameter cylinder at the front of the tube (this also contains the Yagi antenna for transmitting guidance signals); during firing, the fins slip onto the rear of the missile as it flies through and are held there by heat-activated adhesive tapes. This gives the launch container a unique shape, seemingly oversized at the front and extremely thin at the rear. The missile is powered by a short duration solid rocket for launch, then by a sustainer motor once it is well clear of the launch tube.  The Blowpipe's guidance is initially semi-automatic with the missile gathered to the centre of the sight's crosshairs by the infrared optic atop the aiming unit. Two to three seconds after launch, missile guidance is switched to fully MCLOS mode, and the operator regains full control of the missile. The operator has to steer the missile all the way to its target manually via a small thumb joystick. The operator can opt not to use auto-gathering when engaging low flying targets such as helicopters, but then has to super-elevate the launcher to ensure that the missile does not hit the ground. Four flares in the tail of the missile make it visible in flight, first to the infrared optic, then to the operator. Detonation is either by proximity or contact fuse. In emergencies, the operator can end an engagement by shutting off the power to the transmitter with the system switch, after which the missile will immediately self-destruct. The aiming unit can then be removed from the empty missile container and fitted to a new round.

Combat performance.

Blowpipe was used by both sides during the Falklands War in 1982. With the targets being fast flying aircraft, flying low and using the ground to hide their approach, the Blowpipe operator had about 20 seconds to spot the target, align the unit and fire. Brigadier Julian Thompson compared using the weapon to "trying to shoot pheasants with a drainpipe". The official report stated that, of the 95 missiles fired by the British, only 9 managed to destroy their targets and all of these were slow flying planes and helicopters. A later report determined that only two kills could be attributed to Blowpipe: A British Harrier GR3 (XZ972) attacked by Argentine Army special forces (Commandos Company), and an Argentine Aermacchi MB-339 (0766 (4-A-114)) during the Battle of Goose Green.  Blowpipe was found to be particularly ineffective when used to engage a crossing target or to chase a target moving rapidly away from the operator. Its poor performance led to it being withdrawn from British service. In 1986, some of the mothballed units were sent clandestinely to equip the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. The system again proved ineffective, and was eventually supplanted by the US Stinger missile. While Blowpipe was available on the international arms market and therefore its origins were open to speculation, the Stinger was restricted, which at the time indicated a more open acknowledgment of Western support for the Mujahideen. Blowpipe missile systems are still being found in weapon caches as recently as May 2012 in Afghanistan.  The Canadian military took Blowpipe from storage to provide protection for their naval contribution to the 1991 Gulf War, although age had degraded the weapons, and nine out of 27 missiles tested misfired in some manner. The Javelin GL, which was backward compatible to the Blowpipe, was then hastily purchased as a replacement.  Blowpipe saw use in the Cenepa War of 1995 between Ecuador and Peru, where it was deployed mainly against Peruvian Mil Mi-17 and Mil Mi-18 helicopters. Although there are claims of some success, none of these have been verified.

Replacement.

Production of the Blowpipe ended in 1993, with an official total of 34,382 missiles and approximately 3,000 launchers produced. These numbers include test rounds. In contrast to the claimed low-cost of the system, in 1994 the missile was US$55,570, and the aiming unit approximately $94,000. This makes it much more expensive than Stinger, which was roughly $35,000 at the same time.  Blowpipe was replaced by the Javelin surface-to-air missile, which was of a generally similar design but with an improved performance and a semi-automatic guidance system (SACLOS) – the operator now controls the missile by keeping the target in his sight, and the aiming unit steers the missile to remain centered in the sight. A computer in the missile launcher calculates the difference between the current aim spot and the missile's location, and sends commands to the missile via radio to bring it to an impact point.  The basic Javelin missile body was retained in the upgraded Javelin S15, which replaced the original's radio command guidance system with a semi-automatic laser system. This uses a laser in the launcher to "paint" the target, and a seeker in the missile nose cone sees the reflected signal and homes in on it. This renders it largely immune to any possible jamming. S15 was better known as Starburst, although it was known by a variety of names in service.  Starburst was used only briefly, before being replaced by Starstreak. Starstreak uses the same beam-riding concept as Starburst, but dramatically improves the missile and warhead. In Starstreak, the missile quickly accelerates to Mach 3.5, then separates to release three dart-like interceptors. Each dart is independently guided by riding the laser beam, thus improving the chances of a hit. The darts are also effective against armour.

The Shorts Blowpipe is a man-portable (MANPADS) surface-to-air missile that was in use with the British Army and Royal Marines from 1975. It also saw service in other military forces around the world. Most examples were retired by the mid-1990s. It is unique among MANPADS in that it is manually guided to its target with a small joystick, sending guidance corrections to the missile over a radio control link.

吹管防空导弹(英语:Blowpipe surface-to-air missile)是由英国萧特公司(Short)研发的步兵用肩射式防空导弹。吹管导弹比其他肩射式防空导弹不同的是采用无线电控制而非被动式红外线导引,因此射手在导弹击中目标前仍需要导引故而不能射后不理。


Biography.

Early life: 1929–1949.

Yayoi Kusama was born on 22 March 1929 in Matsumoto, Nagano. Born into an affluent family of merchants who owned a plant nursery and seed farm, Kusama started creating art at an early age and began writing poetry at age 18. Her mother was not supportive of her creative endeavors; Kusama would rush to finish her art because her mother would take it away to discourage her. Her mother was also apparently physically abusive, and Kusama remembers her father as "the type who would play around, who would womanize a lot". The artist says that her mother would often send her to spy on her father's extramarital affairs, which instilled within her a lifelong contempt for sexuality, particularly the male body and the phallus: "I don't like sex. I had an obsession with sex. When I was a child, my father had lovers and I experienced seeing him. My mother sent me to spy on him. I didn't want to have sex with anyone for years [...] The sexual obsession and fear of sex sit side by side in me." Her traumatic childhood, including her fantastic visions, can be said to be the origin of her artistic style.  When she was ten years old, she began to experience vivid hallucinations which she has described as "flashes of light, auras, or dense fields of dots". These hallucinations also included flowers that spoke to Kusama, and patterns in fabric that she stared at coming to life, multiplying, and engulfing or expunging her, a process which she has carried into her artistic career and which she calls "self-obliteration". Kusama's art became her escape from her family and her own mind when she began to have hallucinations. She was reportedly fascinated by the smooth white stones covering the bed of the river near her family home, which she cites as another of the seminal influences behind her lasting fixation on dots.  When Kusama was 13, she was sent to work in a military factory where she was tasked with sewing and fabricating parachutes for the Japanese army, then embroiled in World War II. Discussing her time in the factory, she says that she spent her adolescence "in closed darkness" although she could always hear the air-raid alerts going off and see American B-29s flying overhead in broad daylight. Her childhood was greatly influenced by the events of the war, and she claims that it was during this period that she began to value notions of personal and creative freedom.  She went on to study "Nihonga" painting at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts in 1948. Frustrated with this distinctly Japanese style, she became interested in the European and American avant-garde, staging several solo exhibitions of her paintings in Matsumoto and Tokyo in the 1950s.

Early success in Japan: 1950–1956.

By 1950, Kusama was depicting abstract natural forms in watercolour, gouache, and oil, primarily on paper. She began covering surfaces—walls, floors, canvases, and later, household objects, and naked assistants—with the polka dots that would become a trademark of her work.  The vast fields of polka dots, or "infinity nets", as she called them, were taken directly from her hallucinations. The earliest recorded work in which she incorporated these dots was a drawing in 1939 at age 10, in which the image of a Japanese woman in a kimono, presumed to be the artist's mother, is covered and obliterated by spots. Her first series of large-scale, sometimes more than 30 ft-long canvas paintings, "Infinity Nets", were entirely covered in a sequence of nets and dots that alluded to hallucinatory visions.  On her 1954 painting "Flower (D.S.P.S)" Kusama has said:

New York City: 1957–1972.

After living in Tokyo and France, Kusama left Japan at the age of 27 for the United States. She has stated that she began to consider Japanese society "too small, too servile, too feudalistic, and too scornful of women". In 1957, she moved to Seattle, where she had an exhibition of paintings at the Zoe Dusanne Gallery. She stayed there for a year before moving on to New York City, following correspondence with Georgia O'Keeffe in which she professed an interest in joining the limelight of the city, and sought O'Keeffe's advice. During her time in the US, she quickly established her reputation as a leader in the avant-garde movement and received praise for her work from the anarchist art critic Herbert Read.  In 1961 she moved her studio into the same building as Donald Judd and sculptor Eva Hesse; Hesse became a close friend. In the early 1960s Kusama began to cover items such as ladders, shoes and chairs with white phallic protrusions. Despite the micromanaged intricacy of the drawings, she turned them out fast and in bulk, establishing a rhythm of productivity which she still maintains. She established other habits too, like having herself routinely photographed with new work and regularly appearing in public wearing her signature bobbed wigs and colorful, avant-garde fashions.  Since 1963, Kusama has continued her series of "Mirror/Infinity" rooms. In these complex infinity mirror installations, purpose-built rooms lined with mirrored glass contain scores of neon-colored balls, hanging at various heights above the viewer. Standing inside on a small platform, an observer sees light repeatedly reflected off the mirrored surfaces to create the illusion of a never-ending space.  During the following years, Kusama was enormously productive, and by 1966 she was experimenting with room-size, freestanding installations that incorporated mirrors, lights, and piped-in music. She counted Judd and Joseph Cornell among her friends and supporters. However, she did not profit financially from her work. Around this time, Kusama was hospitalized regularly from overwork, and O'Keeffe convinced her own dealer Edith Herbert to purchase several works to help Kusama stave off financial hardship. Many men artists copied her creativity, which made the men famous, but not Kusama. Thus, she was not able to make the money she believed she deserved. This frustration became so extreme that she attempted suicide.  In the 1960s, Kusama organized outlandish happenings in conspicuous spots like Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge, often involving nudity and designed to protest the Vietnam War. In one, she wrote an open letter to Richard Nixon offering to have sex with him if he would stop the Vietnam war. Between 1967 and 1969 she concentrated on performances held with the maximum publicity, usually involving Kusama painting polka dots on her naked performers, as in the "Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead at the MoMA" (1969), which took place at the Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art. During the unannounced event, eight performers under Kusama's direction removed their clothing, stepped nude into a fountain, and assumed poses mimicking the nearby sculptures by Picasso, Giacometti, and Maillol.  In 1968, Kusama presided over the happening "Homosexual Wedding" at the Church of Self-obliteration at 33 Walker Street in New York and performed alongside Fleetwood Mac and Country Joe and the Fish at the Fillmore East in New York City. She opened naked painting studios and a gay social club called the "Kusama 'Omophile Kompany (kok)".  The nudity present in Kusama's art and art protests was severely shameful for her family. This made her feel alone, and she attempted suicide again.  In 1966, Kusama first participated in the Venice Biennale for its 33rd edition. Her "Narcissus Garden" comprised hundreds of mirrored spheres outdoors in what she called a "kinetic carpet". As soon as the piece was installed on a lawn outside the Italian pavilion, Kusama, dressed in a golden kimono, began selling each individual sphere for 1,200 lire (US$2), until the Biennale organizers put an end to her enterprise. "Narcissus Garden" was as much about the promotion of the artist through the media as it was an opportunity to offer a critique of the mechanization and commodification of the art market.  During her time in New York, Kusama had a brief relationship with artist Donald Judd. She then began a passionate, but platonic, relationship with the surrealist artist Joseph Cornell. She was 26 years his junior – they would call each other daily, sketch each other, and he would send personalized collages to her. Their lengthy association would last until his death in 1972.

Return to Japan: 1973–1977.

In 1973, Kusama returned to Japan in ill health, where she began writing shockingly visceral and surrealistic novels, short stories, and poetry. She became an art dealer, but her business folded after several years and in 1977 Kusama checked herself into the Seiwa Hospital for the Mentally Ill, where she eventually took up permanent residence. She has been living at the hospital since, by choice. Her studio, where she has continued to produce work since the mid-1970s, is a short distance from the hospital in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Kusama is often quoted as saying: "If it were not for art, I would have killed myself a long time ago."  From this base, she has continued to produce artworks in a variety of media, as well as launching a literary career by publishing several novels, a poetry collection, and an autobiography. Her painting style shifted to high-colored acrylics on canvas, on an amped-up scale.

Revival: 1980s–present.

Her organically abstract paintings of one or two colors (the "Infinity Nets" series), which she began upon arriving in New York, garnered comparisons to the work of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman. When she left New York she was practically forgotten as an artist until the late 1980s and 1990s, when a number of retrospectives revived international interest. "Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective" was the first critical survey of Yayoi Kusama presented at the Center for International Contemporary Arts (CICA) in New York in 1989, and was organized by Alexandra Munroe.  Following the success of the Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1993, a dazzling mirrored room filled with small pumpkin sculptures in which she resided in color-coordinated magician's attire, Kusama went on to produce a huge, yellow pumpkin sculpture covered with an optical pattern of black spots. The pumpkin came to represent for her a kind of alter-ego or self-portrait. Kusama's later installation "I'm Here, but Nothing (2000–2008)" is a simply furnished room consisting of table and chairs, place settings and bottles, armchairs and rugs, however its walls are tattooed with hundreds of fluorescent polka dots glowing in the UV light. The result is an endless infinite space where the self and everything in the room is obliterated. The multi-part floating work "Guidepost to the New Space", a series of rounded "humps" in fire-engine red with white polka dots, was displayed in Pandanus Lake. Perhaps one of Kusama's most notorious works, various versions of "Narcissus Garden" have been presented worldwide venues including Le Consortium, Dijon, 2000; Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2003; as part of the Whitney Biennial in Central Park, New York in 2004; and at the Jardin de Tuileries in Paris, 2010.  In her ninth decade, Kusama has continued to work as an artist. She has harkened back to earlier work by returning to drawing and painting; her work remained innovative and multi-disciplinary, and a 2012 exhibition displayed multiple acrylic-on-canvas works. Also featured was an exploration of infinite space in her "Infinity Mirror" rooms. These typically involve a cube-shaped room lined in mirrors, with water on the floor and flickering lights; these features suggest a pattern of life and death. In 2017, a 50-year retrospective of her work opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. The exhibit featured six "Infinity Mirror" rooms, and was scheduled to travel to five museums in the US and Canada.  On 25 February 2017, Kusama's "All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins" exhibit, one of the six components to her "Infinity Mirror" rooms at the Hirshhorn Museum, was temporarily closed for three days following damage to one of the exhibit's glowing pumpkin sculptures. The room, which measures and was filled with over 60 pumpkin sculptures, was one of the museum's most popular attractions ever. Allison Peck, a spokeswoman for the Hirshhorn, said in an interview that the museum "has never had a show with that kind of visitor demand", with the room averaging over 8,000 visitors between its opening and the date of its temporary closing. While there were conflicting media reports about the cost of the damaged sculpture and how exactly it was broken, Allison Peck stated that "there is no intrinsic value to the individual piece. It is a manufactured component to a larger piece." The exhibit was reconfigured to make up for the missing sculpture, and a new one was to be produced for the exhibit by Kusama. The Infinity Mirrors exhibit became a sensation among art critics as well as on social media. Museum visitors shared 34,000 images of the exhibition to their Instagram accounts, and social media posts using the hashtag #InfiniteKusama garnered 330 million impressions, as reported by the Smithsonian the day after the exhibit's closing. The works provided the perfect setting for Instagram-able selfies which inadvertently added to the performative nature of the works.  Also in 2017, the Yayoi Kusama Museum opened in Tokyo, featuring her works.  On 9 November 2019, Kusama's Everyday I Pray For Love exhibit was showcased in the David Zwirner Gallery until 14 December 2019. The gallery has represented the artist since 2013. This exhibition incorporated sculptures and paintings. The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue published by David Zwirner books containing never before published texts and poems from the artist. This exhibition also included the debut of her INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM - DANCING LIGHTS THAT FLEW UP TO THE UNIVERSE, 2019.  In January 2020, the Hirshhorn announced it would debut new Kusama acquisitions, including two Infinity Mirror Rooms, at a forthcoming exhibition called, ""One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection."" The name of the exhibit is derived from an open letter Kusama wrote to then-President Richard Nixon in 1968, writing: "let’s forget ourselves, dearest Richard, and become one with the absolute, all together in the altogether."

Meaning and origins of her work.

Curator Mika Yoshitake has stated that Kusama's works on display are meant to immerse the whole person into Kusama's accumulations, obsessions, and repetitions. These infinite, repetitive works were originally meant to eliminate Kusama's intrusive thoughts, but she now shares it with the world. Claire Voon has described one of Kusama's mirror exhibits as being able to, "...transport you to quiet cosmos, to a lonely labyrinth of pulsing light, or to what could be the enveloping innards of a leviathan with the measles".  Creating these feelings amongst audiences was intentional. These experiences seem to be unique to her work because Kusama wanted others to sympathise with her in her troubled life. Bedatri D. Choudhury has described how Kusama's lack of feeling in control throughout her life made her, either consciously or subconsciously, want to control how others perceive time and space when entering her exhibits. This statement seems to imply that without her trauma, Kusama would not have created these works as well or perhaps not at all. Art had become a coping mechanism for Kusama.

Works and publications.

Performance.

In Yayoi Kusama's "Walking Piece" (1966), a performance that was documented in a series of eighteen color slides, Kusama walked along the streets of New York City in a traditional Japanese kimono while holding a parasol. The kimono suggested traditional roles for women in Japanese custom. The parasol, however, was made to look inauthentic, as it was actually a black umbrella, painted white on the exterior and decorated with fake flowers. Kusama walked down unoccupied streets in an unknown quest. She then turned and cried without reason, and eventually walked away and vanished from view.  This performance, through the association of the kimono, involved the stereotypes that Asian-American women continued to face. However, as an avant-garde artist living in New York, her situation altered the context of the dress, creating a cross-cultural amalgamation. Kusama was able to highlight the stereotype in which her white American audience categorized her, by showing the absurdity of culturally categorizing people in the world's largest melting pot.

Film.

In 1968, the film "Kusama's Self-Obliteration" which Kusama produced and starred in won a prize at the Fourth International Experimental Film Competition in Belgium and the Second Maryland Film Festival and the second prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. In 1991, Kusama starred in the film "Tokyo Decadence", written and directed by Ryu Murakami, and in 1993, she collaborated with British musician Peter Gabriel on an installation in Yokohama.

Fashion.

In 1968, Kusama established Kusama Fashion Company Ltd, and began selling avantgarde fashion in the "Kusama Corner" at Bloomingdales. In 2009, Kusama designed a handbag-shaped cell phone entitled "Handbag for Space Travel", "My Doggie Ring-Ring", a pink dotted phone in accompanying dog-shaped holder, and a red and white dotted phone inside a mirrored, dotted box dubbed "Dots Obsession, Full Happiness With Dots", for Japanese mobile communication giant KDDI Corporation's "iida" brand. Each phone was limited to 1,000 pieces.  In 2011, Kusama created artwork for six limited-edition lipglosses from Lancôme. That same year, she worked with Marc Jacobs (who visited her studio in Japan in 2006) on a line of Louis Vuitton products, including leather goods, ready-to-wear, accessories, shoes, watches, and jewelry. The products became available in 2012 at a SoHo pop-up shop, which was decorated with Kusama's trademark tentacle-like protrusions and polka-dots. Eventually, six other pop-up shops were opened around the world. When asked about her collaboration with Marc Jacobs, Kusama replied that "his sincere attitude toward art" is the same as her own.

Writing.

In 1977, Kusama published a book of poems and paintings entitled "7". One year later, her first novel "Manhattan Suicide Addict" appeared. Between 1983 and 1990, she finished the novels "The Hustler's Grotto of Christopher Street" (1983), "The Burning of St Mark's Church" (1985), "Between Heaven and Earth" (1988), "Woodstock Phallus Cutter" (1988), "Aching Chandelier" (1989), "Double Suicide at Sakuragazuka" (1989), and "Angels in Cape Cod" (1990), alongside several issues of the magazine "S&M Sniper" in collaboration with photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. Her most recent writing endeavor includes her autobiography "Infinity Net" published in 2003 that depicts her life from growing up in Japan, her departure to the United States, and her return to her home country, where she now resides. "Infinity Net" also includes some of the artist's poetry and photos of her exhibitions.

Commissions.

To date, Kusama has completed several major outdoor sculptural commissions, mostly in the form of brightly hued monstrous plants and flowers, for public and private institutions including "Pumpkin" (1994) for the Fukuoka Municipal Museum of Art; "The Visionary Flowers" (2002) for the Matsumoto City Museum of Art; "Tsumari in Bloom" (2003) for Matsudai Station, Niigata; "Tulipes de Shangri-La" (2003) for Euralille in Lille, France; "Pumpkin" (2006) at Bunka-mura on Benesse Island of Naoshima; "Hello, Anyang with Love" (2007) for Pyeonghwa Park, Anyang; and "The Hymn of Life: Tulips" (2007) for the Beverly Gardens Park in Los Angeles. In 1998, she realized a mural for the hallway of the Gare do Oriente subway station in Lisbon. Alongside these monumental works, she has produced smaller scale outdoor pieces including "Key-Chan" and "Ryu-Chan", a pair of dotted dogs. All the outdoor works are cast in highly durable fiberglass-reinforced plastic, then painted in urethane to glossy perfection.  In 2010, Kusama designed a Town Sneaker styled bus, which she titled "Mizutama Ranbu (Wild Polka Dot Dance)" and whose route travels through her hometown of Matsumoto. In 2011, she was commissioned to design the front cover of millions of pocket London Underground maps; the result is entitled "Polka Dots Festival in London" (2011). Coinciding with an exhibition of the artist's work at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2012, a reproduction of Kusama's painting "Yellow Trees" (1994) covered a condominium building under construction in New York's Meatpacking District. That same year, Kusama conceived her floor installation "Thousands of Eyes" as a commission for the new Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law, Brisbane.

Exhibitions.

In 1959, Kusama had her first solo exhibition in New York at the Brata Gallery, an artist's co-op. She showed a series of white net paintings which were enthusiastically reviewed by Donald Judd (both Judd and Frank Stella then acquired paintings from the show). Kusama has since exhibited work with Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns, among others. Exhibiting alongside European artists including Lucio Fontana, Pol Bury, Otto Piene, and Gunther Uecker, in 1962 she was the only female artist to take part in the widely acclaimed "Nul" (Zero) international group exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Collections.

Kusama's work is in the collections of museums throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix; Tate Modern, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT; and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

Recognition.

In 2017, a fifty-year retrospective of Kusama's work opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. That same year, the Yayoi Kusama Museum was inaugurated in Tokyo. Other major retrospectives of her work have been held at the Museum of Modern Art (1998), the Whitney Museum (2012), and the Tate Modern (2012). In 2015, the website Artsy named Kusama one of its top 10 living artists of the year.  Kusama has received many awards, including the Asahi Prize (2001); Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2003); the National Lifetime Achievement Award from the Order of the Rising Sun (2006); and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women's Caucus for Art. In October 2006, Kusama became the first Japanese woman to receive the Praemium Imperiale, one of Japan's highest honors for internationally recognized artists. She also received the Person of Cultural Merit (2009) and Ango awards (2014). In 2014, Kusama was ranked the most popular artist of the year after a record-breaking number of visitors flooded her Latin American tour, "Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Obsession". Venues from Buenos Aires to Mexico City received over 8,500 visitors each day.  The octogenarian also gained media attention for partnering with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden to make her 2017 "Infinity Mirror" rooms accessible to visitors with disabilities or mobility issues; in a new initiative among art museums, the venue mapped out the six individual rooms and provided handicapped individuals visiting the exhibition access to a complete 360-degree virtual reality headset that allowed them to experience every aspect of the rooms, as if they were actually walking through them.

Art market.

In the 1960s, Beatrice Perry's Gres Gallery played an important role in establishing Kusama's career in the United States. Ota Fine Arts, Kusama's longtime Tokyo dealer, has worked with the artist since the 1980s. Kusama left Gagosian Gallery in late 2012; before moving to Gagosian, she had been with Robert Miller Gallery, New York. Kusama has been represented by Victoria Miro Gallery since the early 2000s, and joined David Zwirner in 2013., the artist is represented by David Zwirner, Ota Fine Arts, and Victoria Miro Gallery.  Kusama's work has performed strongly at auction: top prices for her work are for paintings from the late 1950s and early 1960s. As of 2012, her work has the highest turnover of any living woman artist. In November 2008, Christie's New York sold a 1959 white "Infinity Net" painting formerly owned by Donald Judd, "No. 2", for US$5.1 million, then a record for a living female artist. In comparison, the highest price for a sculpture from her New York years is £72,500 (US$147,687), fetched by the 1965 wool, pasta, paint and hanger assemblage "Golden Macaroni Jacket" at Sotheby's London in October 2007. A 2006 acrylic on fiberglass-reinforced plastic pumpkin earned $264,000, the top price for one of her sculptures, also at Sotheby's in 2007 Her "Flame of Life – Dedicated to Tu-Fu (Du-Fu)" sold for US$960,000 at Art Basel/Hong Kong in May 2013, the highest price paid at the show. Kusama became the most expensive living female artist at auction when "White No. 28" (1960) from her signature "Infinity Nets" series sold for $7.1 million at a 2014 Christie's auction.

Kusama was raised in Matsumoto, and trained at the Kyoto School of Arts and Crafts in a traditional Japanese painting style called nihonga. Kusama was inspired, however, by American Abstract impressionism. She moved to New York City in 1958 and was a part of the New York avant-garde scene throughout the 1960s, especially in the pop-art movement. Embracing the rise of the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s, she came to public attention when she organized a series of happenings in which naked participants were painted with brightly colored polka dots. Since the 1970s, Kusama has continued to create art, most notably installations in various museums around the world.

草间弥生(,1929年-3月22日),被称为日本现存的经典艺术家,出生于日本长野县松本市,在1957年移居美国纽约市,并开始展露她占有领导地位的前卫艺术创作,现居住在日本东京。她曾与当代其他艺术家如安迪·沃荷、克拉斯·奥尔登堡、贾斯培·琼斯一起联展。被美国艺术网站My Morden Met选为「21世纪十大前卫艺术家」,同时入选的日本艺术家还有山下工美与深堀隆介。


Geography.

The border with Baarle-Hertog, Belgium.

Baarle-Nassau is closely linked, with complicated borders, to the Belgian exclaves of Baarle-Hertog. Baarle-Hertog consists of 26 separate parcels of land. Apart from the main parcel, known as Zondereigen and located north of the Belgian town of Merksplas, there are 22 Belgian exclaves in the Netherlands and three other parcels on the Dutch-Belgian border. There are also six Dutch exclaves located within the largest Belgian exclave, one within the second-largest, and an eighth within Zondereigen. The smallest Belgian parcel, H7, locally named De Loversche Akkers, measures.  The border's complexity results from numerous medieval treaties, agreements, land-swaps and sales between the Lords of Breda and the Dukes of Brabant. Generally speaking, predominantly agricultural or built environments became constituents of Brabant, while other parts devolved to Breda. These distributions were ratified and clarified as a part of the borderline settlements arrived at during the Treaty of Maastricht in 1843.  For clarification and the interest of tourists, the border is made visible on all streets with iron pins. This way it is always clear whether one is in Belgium (Baarle-Hertog) or in The Netherlands (Baarle-Nassau). This is also visible on the house numbers: the style of house numbers is different in both countries and often one will find the Dutch or Belgian flag next to the number.  Outside of Belgium and the Netherlands, there is at least one other national counter-exclave (enclave enclosed within an enclave) at Nahwa, an enclave of the United Arab Emirates within an enclave of the Sultanate of Oman within the United Arab Emirates.

List of enclaves.

Netherlands enclaves.

These are all part of Baarle-Nassau Commune.

Belgian enclaves.

These are all part of Baarle-Hertog Commune, and are surrounded by Baarle-Nassau Commune (Netherlands).

Baarle-Nassau () is a municipality and town in the southern Netherlands, located in the province of North Brabant. It had a population of in. The town is the site of a complicated borderline between Belgium and Netherlands, with numerous small exclaves of Belgium, of which some contain counter-exclaves of the Netherlands.

巴勒拿骚(,)是一个位于南荷兰的一个市镇。至2007年,其人口有6,668人。


Etymology.

The term "stoichiometry" was first used by Jeremias Benjamin Richter in 1792 when the first volume of Richter's "Stoichiometry or the Art of Measuring the Chemical Elements" was published. The term is derived from the Ancient Greek words "stoicheion" "element" and "metron" "measure". In patristic Greek, the word "Stoichiometria" was used by Nicephorus to refer to the number of line counts of the canonical New Testament and some of the Apocrypha.

Definition.

A stoichiometric amount or stoichiometric ratio of a reagent is the optimum amount or ratio where, assuming that the reaction proceeds to completion:  Stoichiometry rests upon the very basic laws that help to understand it better, i.e., law of conservation of mass, the law of definite proportions (i.e., the law of constant composition), the law of multiple proportions and the law of reciprocal proportions. In general, chemical reactions combine in definite ratios of chemicals. Since chemical reactions can neither create nor destroy matter, nor transmute one element into another, the amount of each element must be the same throughout the overall reaction. For example, the number of atoms of a given element X on the reactant side must equal the number of atoms of that element on the product side, whether or not all of those atoms are actually involved in a reaction.  Chemical reactions, as macroscopic unit operations, consist of simply a very large number of elementary reactions, where a single molecule reacts with another molecule. As the reacting molecules (or moieties) consist of a definite set of atoms in an integer ratio, the ratio between reactants in a complete reaction is also in integer ratio. A reaction may consume more than one molecule, and the stoichiometric number counts this number, defined as positive for products (added) and negative for reactants (removed).  Different elements have a different atomic mass, and as collections of single atoms, molecules have a definite molar mass, measured with the unit mole (6.02 × 10 individual molecules, Avogadro's constant). By definition, carbon-12 has a molar mass of 12 g/mol. Thus, to calculate the stoichiometry by mass, the number of molecules required for each reactant is expressed in moles and multiplied by the molar mass of each to give the mass of each reactant per mole of reaction. The mass ratios can be calculated by dividing each by the total in the whole reaction.  Elements in their natural state are mixtures of isotopes of differing mass, thus atomic masses and thus molar masses are not exactly integers. For instance, instead of an exact 14:3 proportion, 17.04 kg of ammonia consists of 14.01 kg of nitrogen and 3 × 1.01 kg of hydrogen, because natural nitrogen includes a small amount of nitrogen-15, and natural hydrogen includes hydrogen-2 (deuterium).  A stoichiometric reactant is a reactant that is consumed in a reaction, as opposed to a catalytic reactant, which is not consumed in the overall reaction because it reacts in one step and is regenerated in another step.

Converting grams to moles.

Stoichiometry is not only used to balance chemical equations but also used in conversions, i.e., converting from grams to moles using molar mass as the conversion factor, or from grams to milliliters using density. For example, to find the amount of NaCl (sodium chloride) in 2.00 g, one would do the following:  In the above example, when written out in fraction form, the units of grams form a multiplicative identity, which is equivalent to one (g/g = 1), with the resulting amount in moles (the unit that was needed), as shown in the following equation,

Molar proportion.

Stoichiometry is often used to balance chemical equations (reaction stoichiometry). For example, the two diatomic gases, hydrogen and oxygen, can combine to form a liquid, water, in an exothermic reaction, as described by the following equation:  Reaction stoichiometry describes the 2:1:2 ratio of hydrogen, oxygen, and water molecules in the above equation.  The molar ratio allows for conversion between moles of one substance and moles of another. For example, in the reaction  the amount of water that will be produced by the combustion of 0.27 moles of is obtained using the molar ratio between and of 2 to 4.  The term stoichiometry is also often used for the molar proportions of elements in stoichiometric compounds (composition stoichiometry). For example, the stoichiometry of hydrogen and oxygen in HO is 2:1. In stoichiometric compounds, the molar proportions are whole numbers.

Determining amount of product.

Stoichiometry can also be used to find the quantity of a product yielded by a reaction. If a piece of solid copper (Cu) were added to an aqueous solution of silver nitrate (AgNO), the silver (Ag) would be replaced in a single displacement reaction forming aqueous copper(II) nitrate (Cu(NO)) and solid silver. How much silver is produced if 16.00 grams of Cu is added to the solution of excess silver nitrate?  The following steps would be used:  The complete balanced equation would be:  For the mass to mole step, the mass of copper (16.00 g) would be converted to moles of copper by dividing the mass of copper by its molecular mass: 63.55 g/mol.  Now that the amount of Cu in moles (0.2518) is found, we can set up the mole ratio. This is found by looking at the coefficients in the balanced equation: Cu and Ag are in a 1:2 ratio.  Now that the moles of Ag produced is known to be 0.5036 mol, we convert this amount to grams of Ag produced to come to the final answer:  This set of calculations can be further condensed into a single step:

Further examples.

For propane (CH) reacting with oxygen gas (O), the balanced chemical equation is:  The mass of water formed if 120 g of propane (CH) is burned in excess oxygen is then

Stoichiometric ratio.

Stoichiometry is also used to find the right amount of one reactant to "completely" react with the other reactant in a chemical reaction – that is, the stoichiometric amounts that would result in no leftover reactants when the reaction takes place. An example is shown below using the thermite reaction,  This equation shows that 1 mole of and 2 moles of aluminum will produce 1 mole of aluminium oxide and 2 moles of iron. So, to completely react with 85.0 g of (0.532 mol), 28.7 g (1.06 mol) of aluminium are needed.

Limiting reagent and percent yield.

The limiting reagent is the reagent that limits the amount of product that can be formed and is completely consumed when the reaction is complete. An excess reactant is a reactant that is left over once the reaction has stopped due to the limiting reactant being exhausted.  Consider the equation of roasting lead(II) sulfide (PbS) in oxygen (O) to produce lead(II) oxide (PbO) and sulfur dioxide (SO):  To determine the theoretical yield of lead(II) oxide if 200.0 g of lead(II) sulfide and 200.0 g of oxygen are heated in an open container:  Because a lesser amount of PbO is produced for the 200.0 g of PbS, it is clear that PbS is the limiting reagent.  In reality, the actual yield is not the same as the stoichiometrically-calculated theoretical yield. Percent yield, then, is expressed in the following equation:  If 170.0 g of lead(II) oxide is obtained, then the percent yield would be calculated as follows:

Example.

Consider the following reaction, in which iron(III) chloride reacts with hydrogen sulfide to produce iron(III) sulfide and hydrogen chloride:  Suppose 90.0 g of FeCl reacts with 52.0 g of HS. To find the limiting reagent and the mass of HCl produced by the reaction, we could set up the following equations:  Thus, the limiting reagent is FeCl and the amount of HCl produced is 60.8 g.  To find what mass of excess reagent (HS) remains after the reaction, we would set up the calculation to find out how much HS reacts completely with the 90.0 g FeCl:  By subtracting this amount from the original amount of HS, we can come to the answer:

Different stoichiometries in competing reactions.

Often, more than one reaction is possible given the same starting materials. The reactions may differ in their stoichiometry. For example, the methylation of benzene (CH), through a Friedel–Crafts reaction using AlCl as a catalyst, may produce singly methylated (CHCH), doubly methylated (CH(CH)), or still more highly methylated (CH(CH)) products, as shown in the following example,  In this example, which reaction takes place is controlled in part by the relative concentrations of the reactants.

Stoichiometric coefficient.

In lay terms, the "stoichiometric coefficient" (or "stoichiometric number" in the IUPAC nomenclature) of any given component is the number of molecules that participate in the reaction as written.  For example, in the reaction, the stoichiometric coefficient of CH is −1, the stoichiometric coefficient of O is −2, for it would be +1 and for HO it is +2.  In more technically precise terms, the stoichiometric coefficient in a chemical reaction system of the "i"th component is defined as  or  where "N" is the number of molecules of "i", and "ξ" is the progress variable or extent of reaction. The extent of reaction "ξ" can be regarded as [the amount of] a real (or hypothetical) product, one molecule of which produced each time the reaction event occurs. It is the extensive quantity describing the progress of a chemical reaction equal to the number of chemical transformations, as indicated by the reaction equation on a molecular scale, divided by the Avogadro constant (in essence, it is the amount of chemical transformations). The change in the extent of reaction is given by d"ξ" = d"n"/"ν", where "ν" is the stoichiometric number of any reaction entity B (reactant or product) and "n" is the corresponding amount. The stoichiometric coefficient "ν" represents the degree to which a chemical species participates in a reaction. The convention is to assign negative coefficients to "reactants" (which are consumed) and positive ones to "products". However, any reaction may be viewed as going in the reverse direction, and all the coefficients then change sign (as does the free energy). Whether a reaction actually "will" go in the arbitrarily selected forward direction or not depends on the amounts of the substances present at any given time, which determines the kinetics and thermodynamics, i.e., whether equilibrium lies to the "right" or the "left".  In reaction mechanisms, stoichiometric coefficients for each step are always integers, since elementary reactions always involve whole molecules. If one uses a composite representation of an overall reaction, some may be rational fractions. There are often chemical species present that do not participate in a reaction; their stoichiometric coefficients are therefore zero. Any chemical species that is regenerated, such as a catalyst, also has a stoichiometric coefficient of zero.  The simplest possible case is an isomerization  in which since one molecule of B is produced each time the reaction occurs, while since one molecule of A is necessarily consumed. In any chemical reaction, not only is the total mass conserved but also the numbers of atoms of each kind are conserved, and this imposes corresponding constraints on possible values for the stoichiometric coefficients.  There are usually multiple reactions proceeding simultaneously in any natural reaction system, including those in biology. Since any chemical component can participate in several reactions simultaneously, the stoichiometric coefficient of the "i"th component in the "k"th reaction is defined as  so that the total (differential) change in the amount of the "i"th component is  Extents of reaction provide the clearest and most explicit way of representing compositional change, although they are not yet widely used.  With complex reaction systems, it is often useful to consider both the representation of a reaction system in terms of the amounts of the chemicals present (state variables), and the representation in terms of the actual compositional degrees of freedom, as expressed by the extents of reaction. The transformation from a vector expressing the extents to a vector expressing the amounts uses a rectangular matrix whose elements are the stoichiometric coefficients.  The maximum and minimum for any "ξ" occur whenever the first of the reactants is depleted for the forward reaction; or the first of the "products" is depleted if the reaction as viewed as being pushed in the reverse direction. This is a purely kinematic restriction on the reaction simplex, a hyperplane in composition space, or "N"‐space, whose dimensionality equals the number of "linearly-independent" chemical reactions. This is necessarily less than the number of chemical components, since each reaction manifests a relation between at least two chemicals. The accessible region of the hyperplane depends on the amounts of each chemical species actually present, a contingent fact. Different such amounts can even generate different hyperplanes, all sharing the same algebraic stoichiometry.  In accord with the principles of chemical kinetics and thermodynamic equilibrium, every chemical reaction is "reversible", at least to some degree, so that each equilibrium point must be an interior point of the simplex. As a consequence, extrema for the "ξ"s will not occur unless an experimental system is prepared with zero initial amounts of some products.  The number of "physically"-independent reactions can be even greater than the number of chemical components, and depends on the various reaction mechanisms. For example, there may be two (or more) reaction "paths" for the isomerism above. The reaction may occur by itself, but faster and with different intermediates, in the presence of a catalyst.  The (dimensionless) "units" may be taken to be molecules or moles. Moles are most commonly used, but it is more suggestive to picture incremental chemical reactions in terms of molecules. The "N"s and "ξ"s are reduced to molar units by dividing by Avogadro's number. While dimensional mass units may be used, the comments about integers are then no longer applicable.

Stoichiometry matrix.

In complex reactions, stoichiometries are often represented in a more compact form called the stoichiometry matrix. The stoichiometry matrix is denoted by the symbol N.  If a reaction network has "n" reactions and "m" participating molecular species then the stoichiometry matrix will have correspondingly "m" rows and "n" columns.  For example, consider the system of reactions shown below:  This systems comprises four reactions and five different molecular species. The stoichiometry matrix for this system can be written as:  where the rows correspond to S, S, S, S and S, respectively. Note that the process of converting a reaction scheme into a stoichiometry matrix can be a lossy transformation, for example, the stoichiometries in the second reaction simplify when included in the matrix. This means that it is not always possible to recover the original reaction scheme from a stoichiometry matrix.  Often the stoichiometry matrix is combined with the rate vector, v, and the species vector, S to form a compact equation describing the rates of change of the molecular species:

Gas stoichiometry.

"Gas stoichiometry" is the quantitative relationship (ratio) between reactants and products in a chemical reaction with reactions that produce gases. Gas stoichiometry applies when the gases produced are assumed to be ideal, and the temperature, pressure, and volume of the gases are all known. The ideal gas law is used for these calculations. Often, but not always, the standard temperature and pressure (STP) are taken as 0 °C and 1 bar and used as the conditions for gas stoichiometric calculations.  Gas stoichiometry calculations solve for the unknown volume or mass of a gaseous product or reactant. For example, if we wanted to calculate the volume of gaseous NO produced from the combustion of 100 g of NH, by the reaction:  we would carry out the following calculations:  There is a 1:1 molar ratio of NH to NO in the above balanced combustion reaction, so 5.871 mol of NO will be formed. We will employ the ideal gas law to solve for the volume at 0 °C (273.15 K) and 1 atmosphere using the gas law constant of "R" = 0.08206 L·atm·K·mol :  Gas stoichiometry often involves having to know the molar mass of a gas, given the density of that gas. The ideal gas law can be re-arranged to obtain a relation between the density and the molar mass of an ideal gas:  and thus:  where:

Stoichiometric air-to-fuel ratios of common fuels.

In the combustion reaction, oxygen reacts with the fuel, and the point where exactly all oxygen is consumed and all fuel burned is defined as the stoichiometric point. With more oxygen (overstoichiometric combustion), some of it stays unreacted. Likewise, if the combustion is incomplete due to lack of sufficient oxygen, fuel remains unreacted. (Unreacted fuel may also remain because of slow combustion or insufficient mixing of fuel and oxygen – this is not due to stoichiometry). Different hydrocarbon fuels have different contents of carbon, hydrogen and other elements, thus their stoichiometry varies.  Gasoline engines can run at stoichiometric air-to-fuel ratio, because gasoline is quite volatile and is mixed (sprayed or carburetted) with the air prior to ignition. Diesel engines, in contrast, run lean, with more air available than simple stoichiometry would require. Diesel fuel is less volatile and is effectively burned as it is injected.

Stoichiometry is the calculation of reactants and products in chemical reactions.

化学计量数或化学计量是化学反应方程序中各反应物或生成物前的数值。例如,图中为甲烷在空气中完全燃烧的方程序,方程序中O、HO前的数值(或“系数”)2就是它的化学计量。当一个物质前的数值为1时,便省略不写,如式中的CH和CO。