text:
French
fraud
Aussonne
Midi-Pyrénées
France
Toulouse
inheritance
heart attack
smelling salts
will
collateral
Avenue de la Grande Armée
Le Matin
Crédit Lyonnais
brick
halfpenny
Henri Matisse
Madrid
United States
Chicago
Spurling, Hilary

wikipedia_title:
France
Fraud
Aussonne
Midi-Pyrénées
France
Toulouse
Inheritance
Myocardial infarction
Smelling salts
Will and testament
Collateral (finance)
Avenue de la Grande Armée
Le Matin (France)
Crédit Lyonnais
Brick
Halfpenny (British pre-decimal coin)
Henri Matisse
Madrid
United States
Chicago
Hilary Spurling

paragraph: Thérèse Humbert

paragraph: Thérèse Humbert (1856–1918) was a French female fraudster, who pretended to be an heir of an imaginary American millionaire Robert Crawford.

paragraph: Humbert was born Thérèse Daurignac, a peasant girl in Aussonne, Midi-Pyrénées, France. As a child, she once convinced her friends to pool their jewelry so that she could fool others into believing she was wealthy. She married Frédéric Humbert, son of the mayor of Toulouse. Soon after, she began to tell a tale that she had received an unusual inheritance.

paragraph: Humbert claimed that in 1879, when she was in a train, she heard groans from the next compartment. She entered into it by climbing along the outside of the train. There she found a man who was having a heart attack. When she had helped him with her smelling salts, the man told he was an American millionaire named Robert Henry Crawford. He was eternally grateful and would reward her some day. Two years later in 1881, she received a letter that stated that Crawford had died and made her beneficiary of his will. The will stated that the Humberts were to look after the family fortune in a safe that should remain sealed until her younger sister Marie was old enough to marry one of Crawford's two nephews, Henry Crawford.

paragraph: With this story, Humbert obtained a huge loan using the supposed inheritance as a collateral. She moved to Paris with her husband and bought an elaborate house in Avenue de la Grande Armée.

paragraph: Humbert gathered lots of influence, fame and wealth. Her salon became a center of socializing. Humbert and her associates, other members of the Humbert family, borrowed money against the nonexistent inheritance. They lived in luxury for about 20 years, spending their money on flowers, elaborate dresses and banquets. Eventually they had to borrow more money to cover the previous loans. There were suspicions, but nobody was able to prove the story false.

paragraph: In 1883, "Le Matin" newspaper published a skeptical article, but Humbert's father-in-law, who at the time was the minister of justice, backed up her story. Humbert claimed that the Crawfords had sued him so that she would have to place her part of the inheritance to Crédit Lyonnais bank. After lengthy litigation, during which the two Crawford nephews, Henry and Robert, appeared in court, the court ruled that the locked safe should remain in Humbert's possession.

paragraph: When Jules Bizat, official for the French bank, asked Humbert how she had invested her money, she claimed that it was in government bonds. Bizat checked and found that it was not the case. Humbert had organized a generous pension plan she had named "Rente Viagère" to get more money and used it to pay her debts and buy bonds.

paragraph: Eventually the creditors noticed that the supposed amount of the inheritance would never be able to cover all the loans and legal costs. "Le Matin" demanded that the safe should be opened. In 1901, Humbert's creditors sued her, and the next year the Parisian court gave an order that the fabled safe would be opened to prove the existence of the money. The safe was found nearly empty, containing only a brick and an English halfpenny.

paragraph: The scandal rocked the French financial world, and thousands of smaller creditors and investors were ruined. The in-laws of the painter Henri Matisse became scapegoats in the affair. Matisse's mother-in-law, who was the Humbert family's housekeeper, fell under suspicion, and her husband was arrested. Matisse's studio was searched by detectives, and his wife's family found themselves menaced by angry mobs of fraud victims.

paragraph: The Humberts had already fled the country, but they were arrested in Madrid in December 1902. Thérèse Humbert was tried and sentenced to five years' hard labor. Her two brothers, who had masqueraded as Crawford's nephews, were sentenced to two and three years each. Her husband Frédèric was also sentenced to five years. Her sister Marie, daughter Eve and deceased father-in-law, the justice minister Gustave Humbert, were stated to be victims of the fraud.

paragraph: The generally held theory is that when Thérèse Humbert was released from prison, she emigrated to the United States and that she died in Chicago in 1918. People whom she had defrauded remained mostly silent to avoid further embarrassment.

paragraph: Most sources repeat that Thérèse emigrated to Chicago where she died. However, in the weekly paper 'Détective', edition number 79 dated 1 May 1930, there is an article entitled 'Vingt Ans d'illusionnisme' (20 Years of Conjuring'). The article is written by Monsieur J. France who was one of the leading lights in the prosecution against Thérèse Humbert and who went to Madrid to take her back to Paris for trial. The story of the fraud is retold in the article following the death of Romain Daurignac, the brother of Thérèse. In this article, J. France says: 'Thérèse Humbert is still living, poorly, in Paris. She has lost her miraculous vitality. What a reverse of fortune her golden past has left her. She is a quite humble old lady, who never speaks to anyone." (Thérése Humbert vit toujours, petitement, à Paris. Elle a perdu sa miraculeuse vitalité. Quels revers lui a laissés le passé d'or? C'est une vieille femme assez humble, qui ne parle jamais'.) There are also two photos. One of these shows the door to a house in Paris and has underneath the note: 'Here, boulevard des Batignolles, lives to-day, she who was 'la Grande Thérèse". (Ici, boulevard des batignolles, demeure aujourd'hui celle qui fut 'la Grande Thérèse'.) On the second photo the note beneath says: ' Behind these windows with the white curtains, Thérèse Humbert meditates on her past'. (Derrière ces fenêtres aux rideaux blancs, Thérèse Humbert médite sur son passé...)

paragraph: Section::::References.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Spurling, Hilary - "La Grande Thérèse: The Greatest Swindle of the Century".

paragraph: BULLET::::- Spurling, Hilary, 2005, "Matisse's Pajamas", "The New York Review of Books", August 11, 2005, pp. 33–36.

paragraph: BULLET::::- The New York Times Scam Artiste Alice Kaplan July 9, 2000.

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- "L'Affaire Humbert", an in-depth look at her swindle and French society of the time.

description: French fraudster

wikidata_label: Thérèse Humbert

wikipedia_title: Thérèse Humbert


text: naturalist

text: conservation movement

text: Catskill Mountains

text: Roxbury

text: Delaware County, New York

text: Old Clump Mountain

text: Slide Mountain

text: Jay Gould

text: Olive, New York

text: Buffalo Grove

text: Illinois

text: Atlantic Monthly

text: James Russell Lowell

text: plagiarized

text: Treasury

text: Walt Whitman

text: Town of Esopus

text: Riverby

text: table grape

text: Adirondack-style

text: Slabsides

text: Vassar College

text: Woodchuck Lodge

text: Theodore Roosevelt

text: John Muir

text: Henry Ford

text: Hudson Valley

text: Harvey Firestone

text: Thomas Edison

text: E. H. Harriman

text: expedition to Alaska

text: Atlantic Monthly

text: nature fakers controversy

text: Ernest Thompson Seton

text: Charles G. D. Roberts

text: William J. Long

text: yellow journalism

text: Theodore Roosevelt

text: Walt Whitman

text: Ralph Waldo Emerson

text: Henry David Thoreau

text: American Academy of Arts and Letters

text: fly fishing

text: trout

text: Delaware River

text: natural selection

text: fly fisherman

text: Kingsville, Ohio

text: Roxbury, New York

text: Woodchuck Lodge

text: National Historic Landmark

text: Riverby

text: Slabsides

text: National Register of Historic Places

text: John Burroughs Association

text: Esopus, New York

text: Slabsides

text: Minneapolis, Minnesota

text: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

text: Burbank, California

text: John Burroughs School

text: St. Louis, Missouri

text: Burroughs Mountain

text: Kensington, Ohio

text: Yellowstone

text: University of Virginia

wikipedia_title: Slide Mountain (Ulster County, New York)

wikipedia_title: United States Department of the Treasury

categories: 19th-century atheists,People from Roxbury, New York,19th-century American writers,1837 births,20th-century atheists,American atheists,1921 deaths,People from Esopus, New York,20th-century American essayists,People from the Catskills,American nature writers,19th-century essayists,American naturalists

paragraph: John Burroughs

paragraph: John Burroughs (April 3, 1837 – March 29, 1921) was an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the U.S. conservation movement. The first of his essay collections was "Wake-Robin" in 1871.

paragraph: In the words of his biographer Edward Renehan, Burroughs' special identity was less that of a scientific naturalist than that of "a literary naturalist with a duty to record his own unique perceptions of the natural world." The result was a body of work whose resonance with the tone of its cultural moment explains both its popularity at that time, and its relative obscurity since.

paragraph: Section::::Early life and marriage.

paragraph: Burroughs was the seventh of Chauncy and Amy Kelly Burroughs' ten children. He was born on the family farm in the Catskill Mountains, near Roxbury in Delaware County, New York. As a child he spent many hours on the slopes of Old Clump Mountain, looking off to the east and the higher peaks of the Catskills, especially Slide Mountain, which he would later write about. As he labored on the family farm he was captivated by the return of the birds each spring and other wildlife around the family farm including frogs and bumblebees. In his later years he credited his life as a farm boy for his subsequent love of nature and feeling of kinship with all rural things.

paragraph: During his teen years Burroughs showed a keen interest in learning. Among Burroughs's classmates was future financier Jay Gould. Burroughs' father believed the basic education provided by the local school was enough and refused to support the young Burroughs when he asked for money to pay for the books or the higher education he wanted. At the age of 17 Burroughs left home to earn the money he needed for college by teaching at a school in Olive, New York.

paragraph: From 1854 to 1856 Burroughs alternated periods of teaching with periods of study at higher education institutions including Cooperstown Seminary; he left the Seminary and completed his studies in 1856. He continued to teach until 1863. In 1857 Burroughs left a teaching position in the small village of Buffalo Grove in Illinois to seek employment closer to home, drawn back by "the girl I left behind me." On September 12, 1857, Burroughs married Ursula North (1836–1917). Burroughs later became an atheist with an inclination towards pantheism.

paragraph: Section::::Career.

paragraph: Burroughs had his first break as a writer in the summer of 1860 when the "Atlantic Monthly", then a fairly new publication, accepted his essay "Expression". Editor James Russell Lowell found the essay so similar to Emerson's work that he initially thought Burroughs had plagiarized his longtime acquaintance. "Poole's Index" and "Hill's Rhetoric", both periodical indexes, even credited Emerson as the author of the essay.

paragraph: In 1864, Burroughs accepted a position as a clerk at the Treasury; he would eventually become a federal bank examiner, continuing in that profession into the 1880s. All the while, he continued to publish essays, and grew interested in the poetry of Walt Whitman. Burroughs met Whitman in Washington, DC in November 1863, and the two became close friends.

paragraph: Whitman encouraged Burroughs to develop his nature writing as well as his philosophical and literary essays. In 1867, Burroughs published "Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person", the first biography and critical work on the poet, which was extensively (and anonymously) revised and edited by Whitman himself before publication. Four years later, the Boston house of Hurd & Houghton published Burroughs's first collection of nature essays, "Wake-Robin".

paragraph: In January 1873, Burroughs left Washington for New York. The next year he bought a farm in West Park, NY (now part of the Town of Esopus) where he built his Riverby estate. There he grew various crops before eventually focusing on table grapes. He continued to write, and continued as a federal bank examiner for several more years. In 1895 Burroughs bought additional land near Riverby where he and son Julian constructed an Adirondack-style cabin that he called "Slabsides". At Slabsides he wrote, grew celery, and entertained visitors, including students from local Vassar College. After the turn of the 20th century, Burroughs renovated an old farmhouse near his birthplace and called it "Woodchuck Lodge." This became his summer residence until his death.

paragraph: Burroughs accompanied many personalities of the time in his later years, including Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, Henry Ford (who gave him an automobile, one of the first in the Hudson Valley), Harvey Firestone, and Thomas Edison. In 1899, he participated in E. H. Harriman's expedition to Alaska.

paragraph: In 1901, Burroughs met an admirer, Clara Barrus (1864–1931). She was a physician with the state psychiatric hospital in Middletown, N.Y. Clara was 37 and nearly half his age. She was the great love of his life and ultimately his literary executrix. She moved into his house after Ursula died in 1917. She published "Whitman and Burroughs: Comrades" in 1931, relying on firsthand accounts and letters to documents Burroughs' friendship with poet Walt Whitman.

paragraph: Section::::Career.:Nature fakers controversy.

paragraph: In 1903, after publishing an article entitled "Real and Sham Natural History" in the "Atlantic Monthly", Burroughs began a widely publicized literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy. Attacking popular writers of the day such as Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles G. D. Roberts and William J. Long for their fantastical representations of wildlife, he also denounced the booming genre of "naturalistic" animal stories as "yellow journalism of the woods". The controversy lasted for four years and involved American environmental and political figures of the day, including President Theodore Roosevelt, who was friends with Burroughs.

paragraph: Section::::Writing.

paragraph: Many of Burroughs' essays first appeared in popular magazines. He is best known for his observations on birds, flowers and rural scenes, but his essay topics also range to religion, philosophy, and literature. Burroughs was a staunch defender of Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson, but somewhat critical of Henry David Thoreau, even while praising many of Thoreau's qualities. His achievements as a writer were confirmed by his election as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

paragraph: Some of Burroughs' essays came out of trips back to his native Catskills. In the late 1880s, in the essay "The Heart of the Southern Catskills," he chronicled an ascent of Slide Mountain, the highest peak of the Catskills range. Speaking of the view from the summit, he wrote: "The works of man dwindle, and the original features of the huge globe come out. Every single object or point is dwarfed; the valley of the Hudson is only a wrinkle in the earth's surface. You discover with a feeling of surprise that the great thing is the earth itself, which stretches away on every hand so far beyond your ken." The first sentence of this quote is now on a plaque commemorating Burroughs at the mountain's summit, on a rock outcrop known as Burroughs Ledge. Slide and neighboring "Cornell" and "Wittenberg" mountains, which he also climbed, have been collectively named the Burroughs Range.

paragraph: Other Catskill essays told of fly fishing for trout, of hikes over Peekamoose Mountain and Mill Brook Ridge, and of rafting down the East Branch of the Delaware River. It is for these that he is still celebrated in the region today, and chiefly known, although he traveled extensively and wrote about other regions and countries, as well as commenting on natural-science controversies of the day such as the theory of natural selection. He entertained philosophical and literary questions, and wrote another book about Whitman in 1896, four years after the poet's death.

paragraph: Section::::Fishing.

paragraph: From his youth, Burroughs was an avid fly fisherman and known among Catskill anglers. Although he never wrote any purely fishing books, he did contribute some notable fishing essays to angling literature. Most notable of these was "Speckled Trout", which appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly" in October 1870 and was later published in "In The Catskills." In his essay "Speckled Trout" Burroughs highlights his experiences as an angler and celebrates the trout, streams and lakes of the Catskills.

paragraph: Section::::Death and legacy.

paragraph: Burroughs enjoyed good physical and mental health during his later years until only a few months before his death when he began to experience lapses in memory and show general signs of advanced age including declining heart function. In February 1921 Burroughs underwent an operation to remove an abscess from his chest. Following this operation, his health steadily declined. Burroughs died on March 29, 1921 while on a train near Kingsville, Ohio. Burroughs was buried in Roxbury, New York on what would have been his 84th birthday, at the foot of a rock he had played on as a child and affectionately referred to as '’Boyhood Rock'’. A line that he had written years before is etched on the tablet that marks the spot: "I stand amid the eternal ways". Woodchuck Lodge was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962. Riverby and Slabsides were similarly designated in 1968. All three are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

paragraph: Since his death in 1921, John Burroughs has been commemorated by the John Burroughs Association. The association maintains the John Burroughs Sanctuary in Esopus, New York, a 170-acre plot of land surrounding Slabsides, and awards a medal each year to "the author of a distinguished book of natural history".

paragraph: Twelve U.S. schools have been named after Burroughs, including public elementary schools in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, Minnesota, public middle schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, a public high school in Burbank, California, and a private secondary school, John Burroughs School, in St. Louis, Missouri. Burroughs Mountain in Mount Rainier National Park is named in his honor. There was a medal named after John Burroughs and the John Burroughs Association publicly recognizes well-written and illustrated natural history publications. Each year the Burroughs medal is awarded to the author of a distinguished book of natural history, with the presentation made during the Association's annual meeting on the first Monday of April.

paragraph: An award bearing Burroughs name is available to Boy Scouts who attend Seven Ranges Scout Reservation in Kensington, Ohio. The requirements to achieve this award require ample knowledge in the field of plants, rocks and minerals, astronomy, and animals. The award has three levels: bronze, gold, and silver being the highest. Each level requires more knowledge in the given fields.

paragraph: Section::::Famous quotes.

paragraph: "The Kingdom of heaven is not a place, but a state of mind."

paragraph: "Leap, and the net will appear."

paragraph: "A man can get discouraged many times, but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else and stops trying."

paragraph: Section::::Works by John Burroughs.

paragraph: "The Complete Writings of John Burroughs" totals 23 volumes. The first volume, "Wake-Robin", was published in 1871 and subsequent volumes were published regularly until the final volume, "The Last Harvest", was published in 1922. The final two volumes, "Under the Maples" and "The Last Harvest", were published posthumously by Clara Barrus. Burroughs also published a biography of John James Audubon, a memoir of his camping trip to Yellowstone with President Theodore Roosevelt, and a volume of poetry titled "Bird and Bough".

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person" (1867)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Wake Robin" (1871)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Winter Sunshine" (1875)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Birds and Poets" (1877)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Locusts and Wild Honey" (1879)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Pepacton" (1881)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Fresh Fields" (1884)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Signs and Seasons" (1886)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Birds and bees and other studies in nature" (1896)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Indoor Studies" (1889)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Riverby" (1894)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Whitman: A Study" (1896)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "The Light of Day" (1900)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers (1900)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Songs of Nature" (Editor) (1901)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "John James Audubon" (1902)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Literary Values and other Papers" (1902)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Far and Near" (1904)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Ways of Nature" (1905)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt" (1906)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Bird and Bough" (1906)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Afoot and Afloat" (1907)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Leaf and Tendril" (1908)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Time and Change" (1912)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "The Summit of the Years" (1913)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "The Breath of Life" (1915)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Under the Apple Trees" (1916)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Field and Study" (1919)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Accepting the Universe" (1920)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Under the Maples" (1921)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "The Last Harvest" (1922)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "My Boyhood, with a Conclusion by His Son Julian Burroughs" (1922)

paragraph: Section::::Further reading.

paragraph: Works about John Burroughs

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Our Friend John Burroughs" by Clara Barrus (Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1914)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "John Burroughs Boy and Man" by Clara Barrus (Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company, 1920)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "The Life and Letters of John Burroughs" by Clara Barrus (Volume 1, Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1925)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "John Burroughs: An American Naturalist" by Edward J. Renehan Jr. (Chelsea, VT: Chelsea Green, 1992; paperback – Hensonville, NY: Black Dome Press, 1998)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "John Burroughs and The Place of Nature" by James Perrin Warren (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2006)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Sharp Eyes: John Burroughs and American Nature Writing" edited by Charlotte Zoe Walker, ed. (Syracuse University Press)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "The Art Of Seeing Things by John Burroughs" edited by Charlotte Zoe Walker, ed. (Syracuse University Press)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "John Burroughs: The Sage of Slabsides" by Ginger Wadsworth (Clarion Books)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "The Birds of John Burroughs: Keeping a Sharp Lookout" edited by Jack Kligerman (Hawthorn Books, 1976)

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1919 silent film "A Day With John Burroughs"

paragraph: BULLET::::- The John Burroughs Association

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Burroughs' Woodchuck Lodge

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Burroughs page at the Catskill Archive

paragraph: BULLET::::- American Memory "In the Catskills"

paragraph: BULLET::::- Quotes

paragraph: BULLET::::- Afterword to "John Burroughs: An American Naturalist" by Edward J. Renehan Jr.

paragraph: BULLET::::- "The Half More Satisfying Than the Whole: John Burroughs and the Hudson" by Edward J. Renehan Jr.

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Burroughs Postcard Collection

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Rediscovering John Burroughs' Catskills Retreat: Woodchuck Lodge" by Edward J. Renehan Jr.

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Bird and Bough" by John Burroughs. Complete text of his only book of published poems plus poems published in periodicals; also public domain recordings of his poems.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Quotes by John Burroughs

paragraph: BULLET::::- Papers of John Burroughs at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia

paragraph: BULLET::::- Correspondence by Burroughs to and about Walt Whitman in the Walt Whitman collection, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

description: American naturalist and essayist

enwikiquote_title: John Burroughs

wikidata_label: John Burroughs

wikipedia_title: John Burroughs


text:
Carnea
Academic skeptic
Cyrene
Stoicism
Epicurean
Academy
Rome
justice
Clitomachus
reason
truth
Cyrene
North Africa
Athens
Stoics
Diogenes
Chrysippus
Academy
Hegesinus
Arcesilaus
Diogenes the Stoic
Critolaus the Peripatetic
Rome
Oropus
Cato the Elder
Justice
virtue
Roman justice
Roman Senate
Athens
Cicero
Clitomachus
Latin
Valerius Maximus
Chrysippus
hellebore
poison himself
Academic skeptic
Plato
Academy
Athens
Clitomachus
ethics
Justice
truth
reason
concept
practical life
Anti-realism
Moral relativism
Plank of Carneades
Philosophical skepticism
Pyrrhonism
Subjectivism

wikipedia_title:
Carnea
Academic skepticism
Cyrene, Libya
Stoicism
Epicureanism
Platonic Academy
Rome
Justice
Clitomachus (philosopher)
Reason
Truth
Cyrene, Libya
North Africa
Athens
Stoicism
Diogenes of Babylon
Chrysippus
Platonic Academy
Hegesinus of Pergamon
Arcesilaus
Diogenes of Babylon
Critolaus
Rome
Oropus
Cato the Elder
Justice
Justice (virtue)
Roman law
Roman Senate
Athens
Cicero
Clitomachus (philosopher)
Latin
Valerius Maximus
Chrysippus
Hellebore
Suicide
Academic skepticism
Plato
Platonic Academy
Athens
Clitomachus (philosopher)
Ethics
Justice
Truth
Reason
Concept
Personal life
Anti-realism
Moral relativism
Plank of Carneades
Philosophical skepticism
Pyrrhonism
Subjectivism

categories: 2nd-century BC philosophers,Ancient Skeptic philosophers,210s BC births,Cyrenean Greeks,2nd-century BC Greek people,Academic philosophers,120s BC deaths,Ancient Greeks in Rome,Hellenistic-era philosophers in Athens

paragraph: Carneades

paragraph: Carneades (; , "Karneadēs", "of Carnea"; 214/3–129/8 BC) was an Academic skeptic born in Cyrene. By the year 159 BC, he had started to refute all previous dogmatic doctrines, especially Stoicism, and even the Epicureans whom previous skeptics had spared. As head of the Academy, he was one of three philosophers sent to Rome in 155 BC where his lectures on the uncertainty of justice caused consternation among leading politicians. He left no writings and many of his opinions are known only via his successor Clitomachus. He seems to have doubted the ability not just of the senses but of reason too in acquiring truth. His skepticism was, however, moderated by the belief that we can, nevertheless, ascertain probabilities of truth, to enable us to live and act correctly.

paragraph: Section::::Biography.

paragraph: Carneades, the son of Epicomus or Philocomiis, was born at Cyrene, North Africa in 214/213 BC. He migrated early to Athens, and attended the lectures of the Stoics, and learned their logic from Diogenes. He studied the works of Chrysippus, and exerted his energy of a very acute and original mind in their refutation.

paragraph: He attached himself to the Academy, which had suffered from the attacks of the Stoics; and on the death of Hegesinus, he was chosen to preside at the meetings of Academy, and was the fourth in succession from Arcesilaus. His great eloquence and skill in argument revived the glories of his school; and, defending himself in the negative vacancy of asserting nothing (not even that nothing can be asserted), carried on a vigorous war against every position that had been maintained by other sects.

paragraph: In the year 155 BC, when he was fifty-eight years old, he was chosen with Diogenes the Stoic and Critolaus the Peripatetic to go as ambassador to Rome to deprecate the fine of 500 talents which had been imposed on the Athenians for the destruction of Oropus. During his stay at Rome, he attracted great notice from his eloquent speeches on philosophical subjects, and it was here that, in the presence of Cato the Elder, he delivered his several orations on Justice. The first oration was in commendation of the virtue of Roman justice, and the next day the second was delivered, in which all the arguments he'd made on the first were refuted, as he persuasively attempted to prove that justice was inevitably problematic, and not a given when it came to virtue, but merely a compact device deemed necessary for the maintenance of a well-ordered society. Recognizing the potential danger of the argument, Cato was shocked at this and he moved the Roman Senate to send the philosopher home to his school, and prevent exposure of Roman youth to the threat of re-examining all Roman doctrines. Carneades lived twenty-seven years after this at Athens.

paragraph: Carneades was succeeded (137/136 BC), by his namesake Carneades, son of Polemarchus, but the younger Carneades died 131/0 BC and was succeeded by Crates of Tarsus. The elder Carneades died at the advanced age of 85 (although Cicero says 90), in 129/128 BC. After the death of Crates of Tarsus in 127/126 BC Clitomachus became head of the Academy.

paragraph: Carneades is described as a man of unwearied industry. He was so engrossed in his studies, that he let his hair and nails grow to an immoderate length, and was so absent at his own table (for he would never dine out), that his servant and concubine, Melissa, was constantly obliged to feed him. Latin writer and author Valerius Maximus, to whom we owe the last anecdote, tells us that Carneades, before discussing with Chrysippus, was wont to purge himself with hellebore, to have a sharper mind. In his old age, he suffered from cataract in his eyes, which he bore with great impatience, and was so little resigned to the decay of nature, that he used to ask angrily, if this was the way in which nature undid what she had done, and sometimes expressed a wish to poison himself.

paragraph: Section::::Philosophy.

paragraph: Carneades is known as an Academic skeptic. Academic skeptics (so called because this was the type of skepticism taught in Plato's Academy in Athens) hold that all knowledge is impossible, except for the knowledge that all other knowledge is impossible.

paragraph: Carneades left no writings, and all that is known of his lectures is derived from his intimate friend and pupil, Clitomachus; but so true was he to his own principles of withholding assent, that Clitomachus confesses he never could ascertain what his master really thought on any subject. In ethics, which more particularly were the subject of his long and laborious study, he seems to have denied the conformity of the moral ideas with nature. This he particularly insisted on in the second oration on Justice, in which he manifestly wished to convey his own notions on the subject; and he there maintains that ideas of justice are not derived from nature, but that they are purely artificial for purposes of expediency.

paragraph: All this, however, was nothing but the special application of his general theory, that people did not possess, and never could possess, any criterion of truth.

paragraph: Carneades argued that, if there were a criterion, it must exist either in reason ("logos"), or sensation ("aisthêsis"), or conception ("phantasia"). But then reason itself depends on conception, and this again on sensation; and we have no means of judging whether our sensations are true or false, whether they correspond to the objects that produce them, or carry wrong impressions to the mind, producing false conceptions and ideas, and leading reason also into error. Therefore, sensation, conception, and reason, are alike disqualified for being the criterion of truth.

paragraph: But after all, people must live and act, and must have some rule of practical life; therefore, although it is impossible to pronounce anything as absolutely true, we may yet establish probabilities of various degrees. For, although we cannot say that any given conception or sensation is in itself true, yet some sensations appear to us more true than others, and we must be guided by that which seems the most true. Again, sensations are not single, but generally combined with others, which either confirm or contradict them; and the greater this combination the greater is the probability of that being true which the rest combine to confirm; and the case in which the greatest number of conceptions, each in themselves apparently most true, should combine to affirm that which also in itself appears most true, would present to Carneades the highest probability, and his nearest approach to truth.

paragraph: Section::::See also.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Anti-realism

paragraph: BULLET::::- Moral relativism

paragraph: BULLET::::- Plank of Carneades

paragraph: BULLET::::- Philosophical skepticism

paragraph: BULLET::::- Pyrrhonism

paragraph: BULLET::::- Subjectivism

description: ancient Greek philosopher

wikidata_label: Carneades

wikipedia_title: Carneades


text: Bohemian

text: physician

text: politician

text: philosopher

text: House of Jeszenszky

text: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Slovak

text: Polish

text: German

text: Turóc County

text: Turiec

text: Slovakia

text: Upper Hungary

text: Silesia

text: Breslau

text: University of Wittenberg

text: University of Leipzig

text: University of Padua

text: Saxony

text: anatomy

text: University of Wittenberg

text: Prague

text: autopsy

text: Karolinum

text: rector

text: Charles University of Prague

text: Habsburg

text: Crown of Bohemia

text: Bohemian estates

text: Frederick of the Palatinate

text: Pressburg

text: Vienna

text: Latin

text: Emperor Mathias

text: King Frederick of Bohemia

text: Emperor Ferdinand II

text: Battle of White Mountain

text: Old Town Square

text: Bohemian Revolt

text: Móra Ferenc

text: Ruttkay László

categories: Hungarian scientists,1621 deaths,16th-century Slovak people,Czech philosophers,1566 births,Executed Hungarian people,17th-century Slovak people,Charles University in Prague faculty,16th-century German people,16th-century Bohemian people,17th-century Bohemian people,People from Austrian Silesia,17th-century German people,German people of Hungarian descent,Slovak scientists,Expatriates in the Czech lands,Austrian people of Hungarian descent,Czech politicians,Austrian people of Slovak descent,Executed Slovak people,Leipzig University alumni,People from Wrocław,German people of Slovak descent

paragraph: Jan Jesenius

paragraph: Jan Jesenius (also written as Jessenius, , , ; December 27, 1566 – June 21, 1621) was a Bohemian physician, politician and philosopher.

paragraph: Section::::Early life.

paragraph: He was from an old noble family, the House of Jeszenszky, originally from the Kingdom of Hungary. He presented himself in his own works as "eques Ungarus" ('Hungarian knight'). According to scholar publications, he had Slovak, Polish or German roots. His father, Boldizsár Jeszenszky de Nagyjeszen, left Turóc County (today the Turiec region in Slovakia) because of the Ottomans' military campaign against Upper Hungary and settled down in Silesia in 1555. He married Marta Schülerin, who came from a wealthy German bourgeois family.

paragraph: Jesenius was born in Breslau (Wrocław), where he studied at the Elisabeth gymnasium. From 1583 he studied at the University of Wittenberg, from 1585 at the University of Leipzig, and from 1588 at the University of Padua.

paragraph: Section::::Professional achievements.

paragraph: His most important philosophical work was Zoroaster (1593), a work of universal philosophy which attempted to recover the lost wisdom of the ancients.

paragraph: From 1593 Jesenius was the physician of the Prince of Saxony, and from 1594 professor of anatomy at the University of Wittenberg. After 1600 he settled down in Prague as professor and anatomical consultant for Rudolf II, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor.

paragraph: In 1600 he attracted considerable public interest by performing a public autopsy in Prague. (His notes on the autopsy were published in 2005 by Karolinum, a publishing house of Charles University of Prague.)

paragraph: In 1617 he was elected rector of Charles University of Prague.

paragraph: Section::::Political career.

paragraph: He was also a diplomat and orator, and after the dethroning of Habsburgs in the Crown of Bohemia, he took several diplomatic missions for Bohemian estates and for the newly elected king Frederick of the Palatinate.

paragraph: In 1618, Jesenius was arrested in Pressburg (today: "Bratislava, Slovakia") after being sent as a deputy by the Bohemian estates, and was held in a prison of Vienna. In December, he was released in exchange for two Habsburg captives. There is a legend that, before his release, he wrote the inscription "IMMMM" on the wall of his prison cell. Ferdinand explained this as "Imperator Mathias Mense Martio Morietur" (Latin for "Emperor Mathias will die in the month of March"), and he wrote another prophecy next to it: "Iesseni, Mentiris, Mala Morte Morieris" ("Jesenius, you lie, you will die a horrible death").

paragraph: Both predictions came true: Emperor Mathias died in March 1619, and Jesenius was arrested after the defeat of King Frederick of Bohemia by Emperor Ferdinand II in 1620 (Battle of White Mountain) and executed, along with 26 other Bohemian estates leaders, on the Old Town Square in 1621.

paragraph: Section::::See also.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Bohemian Revolt

paragraph: Section::::References.

paragraph: BULLET::::- : Doktor Jesenius, Szlovákiai Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó-Móra Ferenc Könyvkiadó, Bratislava(Pozsony)-Budapest, 1958.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Ľudo Zúbek: Doktor Jesenius, Móra Ferenc Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1966.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Ruttkay László: Jeszenszky (Jessenius) János és kora 1566-1621, Semmelweis Orvostörténeti Múzeum és Könyvtár, Budapest, 1971.

description: Czech philosopher, doctor, politician and science writer

wikidata_label: Jan Jesenius

wikipedia_title: Jan Jesenius


text:
Greek vase-painter and potter
Athens
black-figure
Andokides painter
Lysippides Painter
John Boardman
John Beazley
iambic trimeter
column krater
hydria
Athenian Acropolis
Etruria
Italy
Vulci
Orvieto
Etruscan
Group E
amphora
calyx krater
Athena
Theseus
Minotaur
Herakles
Nemean Lion
Geryon
Panathenaic amphora
kylix
Munich
eye-cup
Dionysos
Ajax
backgammon
checkers
die
Trojan War
"kalós"
Penthesilea
Pottery of Ancient Greece
Ancient Greek vase painters
Achilles and Penthesilea

categories: 6th-century BC Athenians,6th-century BC deaths,Ancient Greek vase painters,Ancient Greek potters

paragraph: Exekias

paragraph: Exekias (, "Exēkías") was an ancient Greek vase-painter and potter who was active in Athens between roughly 545 BC and 530 BC. Exekias worked mainly in the black-figure technique, which involved the painting of scenes using a clay slip that fired to black, with details created through incision. Exekias is regarded by art historians as an artistic visionary whose masterful use of incision and psychologically sensitive compositions mark him as one of the greatest of all Attic vase painters. The Andokides painter and the Lysippides Painter are thought to have been students of Exekias.

paragraph: Section::::Background.

paragraph: The works of Exekias are distinguished by their innovative compositions, precise draughtsmanship, and subtle psychological characterization, all of which transcend the inherent challenges of the black-figure technique. John Boardman, the eminent historian of Greek art, described Exekias' style as follows: "The hallmark of his style is a near statuesque dignity which brings vase painting for the first time close to claiming a place as a major art." He was an innovative painter and potter, who experimented with new shapes and devised unusual painting techniques, such as the use a coral-red slip, to enhance colour.

paragraph: Fourteen signed works by Exekias have survived, while many more have been attributed to him based on the stylistic connoisseurship method developed by John Beazley. His signed pieces provide insight not only into the work of Exekias himself but also into the way ancient pottery workshops operated. Twelve of the fourteen vessels bearing his name refer to him not as their painter but as their potter, by adding the word "epoíēsen" (ἐποίησεν) to his name. This may be translated as "Exekias made [me]", in contrast to "égrapsen" (ἓγραψεν), which translates as "painted [me]" (literally: "drew [me]"). On two amphorae, Berlin 1720 and Vatican 344, both terms are used in the iambic trimeter inscription, "Exēkías égrapse kapoíēsé me" ("Exekias made and painted me"), indicating that in these cases Exekias was responsible for both the potting of the vase and its painted decoration. Fragments of a third amphora (Taranto 179196) also show the use of both terms, when the inscriptions are restored. This leads to speculation regarding the meaning of the "epoíēsen" signatures and why, in some instances, Exekias signed only as potter on vases that he clearly painted as well. It has been suggested that he chose to sign as painter only the works he was particularly proud of. According to a different approach, Exekias' "epoíēsen" signatures could be understood as functioning as a general workshop stamp, which would mean that Exekias may have simply been the master-potter who supervised the production of the vessel. Seven of the vessels signed ""Exēkias epoíēsen,"" however, carry too little decoration to afford comparison. Only two of the remaining vases signed with "epoíēsen" can be attributed to the same hand as those signed ""... égrapse kapoíēsé me""—that is, to the painter Exekias. Beazley attributed one of the vases with the potter-only signature to the so-called Group E, to which Exekias is closely related".

paragraph: While Exekias' work itself offers a glimpse of the culture of ancient pottery, the find spots of his vases also reveal information about the market in which Exekias positioned himself. Fragments of column krater and a hydria attributed to Exekias were excavated on the Athenian Acropolis, suggesting that Exekias maintained a clientele in his home city. The fact that two of his vases were found on the Acropolis, an important religious sanctuary, underscores his prestige as a vase painter. Exekias not only enjoyed a thriving market in Athens; many of his extant vases were also exported to Etruria, Italy, found at sites such as Vulci and Orvieto, where they were buried in Etruscan tombs. Being admirers of Greeks and their arts and letters, the Etruscans developed a taste for Greek vases, over 30,000 of which have been found in the region. The presence of Exekias' work in Etruria indicates that foreigners also admired his vases, and that he catered to markets both at home and abroad.

paragraph: Section::::Group E.

paragraph: In the words of Beazley, Group E is "the soil from which the art of Exekias springs, the tradition which on his way from fine craftsman to true artist he absorbs and transcends.” Based on the overarching stylistic similarities between the work of Group E and Exekias, Beazley hypothesized that Exekias first began his career in the workshop of the so-called Group E artists. "Group E" produced work that is not only considered closely related to the work of Exekias, but also represents a conscious break from the pottery traditions of the first half of the sixth century BC. Group E has been credited with the development of new, elegant vessel shapes such as the "Type A amphora". Exekias, however, is the only member of the Group who signed his products which suggests that Exekias may have been responsible for the development of such vessel shapes as the Type A cup, the Type A belly amphora and the calyx krater. Apart from the specialization in certain vessel shapes, the Group E artists also shared a common range of subjects: the birth of Athena, Theseus fighting the Minotaur, Herakles fighting the Nemean Lion, and Herakles and the three-bodied Geryon, are among the themes most often pictured on vases by this group.

paragraph: Section::::Vessel shapes.

paragraph: Exekias does not seem to have specialized in a specific vessel type. Among the vases made or decorated by him are neck amphorae, Type A and B amphorae, calyx kraters, column kraters, Type A cups, dinoi, hydriai, and at least one Panathenaic amphora. Probably his most unusual work is represented by two series of funerary plaques found in Athens (Berlin Antikensammlung 1811, 1814). The plaques, showing the funerary ritual for a deceased man, were probably attached to the walls of a funerary monument.

paragraph: Section::::Themes.

paragraph: In his vase-paintings, Exekias does not only reinterpret the mythological traditions of his time, but at times even sets new fashions.

paragraph: One of his most famous works is the so-called "Dionysus Cup", a kylix now in Munich (Antikensammlung 2044). The kylix falls into the "eye-cup" category, and is decorated on the exterior with two pairs of eyes, which may be an original Exekian motif. The interior shows a depiction of the god Dionysos against a background of coral-red slip, which coats the entire picture space. Here, Exekias uses the tondo as a working surface for the main scenario: Dionysus was the god of inspiration, and the painting depicts his initial journey to Athens by ship. Pirates had seized the ship and were planning, perhaps, to sell Dionysus into slavery. Instead, the god caused vines to grow from the mast, frightening the pirates so much that they jumped overboard and were changed into dolphins, here seen swimming around the ship. Exekias is the first Athenian vase painter to depict Dionysus sailing in the expanse of the interior of a cup. While many of Exekias' pieces display an image from a mythological story they are generally not the most famous moments. The "Eye-cup" that depicts Dionysus does not show the God fighting his kidnappers but instead shows him relaxing in his boat with his kidnappers turned into dolphins around him. Exekias could have chosen any moment but this is the one he painted.

paragraph: Another visual adaptation of the mythological past can be seen on the Vatican amphora 344, which is regarded by some art historians as Exekias' masterpiece. The Vatican amphora depicts Achilles and Ajax playing a board game, with both men identified by their names added in the genitive. Ajax and Achilles sit across from each other, looking down at a block situated between them. The board game they are playing, which might be compared to a backgammon or checkers variant, was played with a die. According to the words written next to the two players, Achilles proclaims he has thrown a four, while Ajax has a three. Although the two of them are pictured playing, they are clearly depicted as being on duty, accompanied by their body armor and holding their spears, suggesting that they might head back into battle at any moment. There are small details that Exekias adds to this piece that separate it from other depictions of this narrative. Achilles is shown with his helmet still resting on his head which represents he has more power than Ajax. Also, Ajax is shown with his heel slightly lifted, suggesting that he is nervous in the presence of Achilles. Apart from the selection of this very intimate, seemingly relaxed scene as a symbol for the Trojan War, this vase-painting also showcases the talent of Exekias as an artist: the figures of both Achilles and Ajax are decorated with fine incised details, showing elaborate textile patterns and almost every hair in place. There is no extant literary source that is known to have circulated in the sixth century BC in Athens regarding a narrative involving Ajax and Achilles playing a board game. Exekias may have drawn his inspiration for this innovative composition from local oral bardic traditions regarding the Trojan War, which may have developed during his lifetime in the cultural context of sixth century Athens. Despite the ambiguity surrounding the origin of this mythological narrative, Exekias' new depiction of Ajax and Achilles playing a board game was popular and was copied over 150 times in the ensuing fifty years.

paragraph: The only "kalós" name used on vases attributed to or signed by Exekias as a painter is the "Onētorídēs" love name. The "Onētorídēs" love name appears on the Vatican 344 amphora, the London B 210 amphora, the Berlin F 1720 amphora, and the Athenian calyx-krater which has traditionally been attributed to Exekias. The "Stēsías" love name, "Stēsías kalós", (Stesias [is] beautiful), is inscribed on the Louvre F 53 amphora, which Beazley attributed to the Group E phase of Exekias' artistic career.

paragraph: Section::::Composition.

paragraph: In addition to the main tableau, in which figures interact physically and often with psychological import, there are often subordinate areas of interest on the vases of Exekias. Border decoration, and particularly large, beautifully constructed spirals with palmettes, frame and enliven the compositions. The central tableau is sometimes framed by areas of black, so that it appears suddenly out of the darkness, so to speak. Characteristically, Exekias uses the shape of the vessel, with its curving surface, as a terrain to which the lines and forms of the painting conform. As the viewer contemplates the vase, attention is drawn to the central scene: the game board, the face of Penthesilea, the starry robe of Dionysus, the sword implanted in the earth. On the rounded surface of the vase, this point is seen head on. All the other main lines of the composition either radiate around the thematic center or lead to it as the spokes of a wheel: the spears of the warriors, the curved backs of their hunching forms, the wind-filled sails of the ship and its curved bottom, the circle of dolphins. Other scenes are crowded with figures, such that attention is drawn toward the complex composition itself, or to individual men and women in a chariot or the magnificent horses arranged in groups. A variety of compositional devices are used to brilliant effect in the painting of Exekias, riveting the attention of the viewer, who then lingers to appreciate the finely executed forms and exquisite details.

paragraph: Section::::Line.

paragraph: Also characteristic of Exekias is his expert use of line, both in terms of his finely drawn figures and also his carefully incised detail—to delineate hair, beards, unique facial features, aspects of armor and furniture, traits of plants and animals, and particularly the patterns on woven or embroidered garments, which are impressively varied and spectacularly precise. This can be appreciated in the famous Vatican amphora (344), on which Achilles and Ajax are both shown wearing richly ornamented cloaks, with almost every element clearly visible and identifiable despite the small scale. Incised designs include rosettes of various types, swastikas with squared or rounded arms, stars, and loops, arranged in panels divided by bands of many types of geometric decoration. Musculature is deftly executed, as are details of hands, feet, and armor, and hair is precisely drawn with a series of lines that run exactly parallel and end in curls; the facial expressions of the two heroes are likewise perfectly accomplished, so as to indicate, within the conventions of black figure, the intense concentration as shown by the gaze of both players.

paragraph: Section::::See also.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Pottery of Ancient Greece

paragraph: BULLET::::- Ancient Greek vase painters

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Achilles and Penthesilea

description: Ancient Athenian vase painter

wikidata_label: Exekias

wikipedia_title: Exekias


text: surrealist

text: war artist

text: landscape

text: Modernism

text: Buckinghamshire

text: Slade School of Art

text: Iron Age

text: hill fort

text: Wittenham Clumps

text: Avebury

text: World War I

text: World War II

text: John Nash

text: Earl's Court

text: Iver Heath

text: Buckinghamshire

text: St Paul's School

text: Eric Kennington

text: South-Western Polytechnic

text: Fleet Street

text: Selwyn Image

text: Gordon Bottomley

text: William Rothenstein

text: Slade School of Art

text: University College, London

text: Henry Tonks

text: Ben Nicholson

text: Stanley Spencer

text: Mark Gertler

text: William Roberts

text: Dora Carrington

text: Christopher R. W. Nevinson

text: Edward Wadsworth

text: William Blake

text: Samuel Palmer

text: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

text: Iver Heath

text: Thames Valley

text: Wittenham Clumps

text: Dymchurch

text: Romney Marshes

text: Avebury

text: Swanage

text: Omega Workshops

text: Roger Fry

text: Mantegna

text: Hampton Court Palace

text: The London Group

text: Artists' Rifles

text: Women's Suffrage

text: St Martin-in-the-Fields

text: Western Front

text: second lieutenant

text: Hampshire Regiment

text: Ypres Salient

text: Hill 60

text: Vorticist

text: BLAST

text: Goupil Gallery

text: Christopher Nevinson

text: Charles Masterman

text: War Propaganda Bureau

text: Ypres Salient

text: Third Battle of Ypres

text: crown of thorns

text: Battle of Langemarck

text: Third Battle of Ypres

text: Arthur Lee

text: Leicester Galleries

text: British War Memorials Committee

text: Hall of Remembrance

text: Battle of the Menin Road Ridge

text: Chalfont St Peter

text: J. M. Barrie

text: Society of Wood Engravers

text: Eric Fitch Daglish

text: wood engraving

text: Dymchurch

text: Romney Marsh

text: Claud Lovat Fraser

text: still-lifes

text: Royal College of Art

text: Eric Ravilious

text: Edward Bawden

text: Leicester Galleries

text: Nice

text: Florence

text: Pisa

text: Iden

text: Rye in Sussex

text: Giorgio de Chirico

text: St Pancras Station

text: cubist

text: Robert Graves

text: Siegfried Sassoon

text: T. E. Lawrence

text: Seven pillars of wisdom

text: Richard Aldington

text: Heal's

text: Stoke-on-Trent

text: Harrods

text: The Listener

text: Giorgio de Chirico

text: Léonce Rosenberg

text: modernism

text: avant-garde

text: abstraction

text: surrealism

text: Unit One

text: Henry Moore

text: Barbara Hepworth

text: Ben Nicholson

text: Edward Wadsworth

text: Herbert Read

text: Thomas Browne

text: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

text: The Garden of Cyrus

text: Marlborough

text: Silbury Hill

text: Avebury

text: neolithic

text: Alexander Keiller

text: John Betjeman

text: Shell Guides

text: Dorset

text: Swanage

text: Dorset

text: Eileen Agar

text: Objet trouvé

text: Hampstead

text: collage

text: assemblages

text: Uffington White Horse

text: War Artists' Advisory Committee

text: Royal Air Force

text: Air Ministry

text: Kenneth Clark

text: Totes Meer

text: Totes Meer

text: Cowley

text: Thames Estuary

text: English Channel

text: vapour trail

text: collage

text: Ministry of Information

text: Short Sunderland

text: Portland Bill

text: Eric Ravilious

text: Boars Hill

text: Wittenham Clumps

text: Samuel Palmer

text: William Blake

text: Ah! Sun-flower

text: Corfe

text: Worth Matravers

text: Kimmeridge Bay

text: Boscombe

text: Hampshire

text: St Mary the Virgin

text: Langley

text: Buckinghamshire

text: Berkshire

text: Queen Elizabeth

text: Tate Gallery

text: Aberdeen Art Gallery

text: Art Gallery of New South Wales

text: Beaverbrook Art Gallery

text: Cleveland Museum of Art

text: Courtauld Institute of Art

text: Glynn Vivian Art Gallery

text: Harvard University Art Museums

text: Imperial War Museum

text: Manchester City Art Gallery

text: National Museums Liverpool

text: Tate Gallery

text: The Huntington Library

text: The Priseman Seabrook Collection

text: Whitworth Art Gallery

text: The Norfolk Museums Collection

text: Wichita Art Museum

text: Tate Britain

text: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

text: Archibald Russell

text: Paul Nash's Work - Imperial War Museum

categories: British Army personnel of World War I,Modern painters,Alumni of Chelsea College of Art & Design,English illustrators,Alumni of the Slade School of Art,1946 deaths,English wood engravers,People educated at St Paul's School, London,British war artists,Artists from London,20th-century British printmakers,World War I artists,Members of Unit One,English male painters,Royal Hampshire Regiment officers,Academics of the Royal College of Art,English landscape painters,World War II artists,1889 births,20th-century English painters,Artists' Rifles soldiers

paragraph: Paul Nash (artist)

paragraph: Paul Nash (11 May 1889 – 11 July 1946) was a British surrealist painter and war artist, as well as a photographer, writer and designer of applied art. Nash was among the most important landscape artists of the first half of the twentieth century. He played a key role in the development of Modernism in English art.

paragraph: Born in London, Nash grew up in Buckinghamshire where he developed a love of the landscape. He entered the Slade School of Art but was poor at figure drawing and concentrated on landscape painting. Nash found much inspiration in landscapes with elements of ancient history, such as burial mounds, Iron Age hill forts such as Wittenham Clumps and the standing stones at Avebury in Wiltshire. The artworks he produced during World War I are among the most iconic images of the conflict. After the war Nash continued to focus on landscape painting, originally in a formalized, decorative style but, throughout the 1930s, in an increasingly abstract and surreal manner. In his paintings he often placed everyday objects into a landscape to give them a new identity and symbolism.

paragraph: During World War II, although sick with the asthmatic condition that would kill him, he produced two series of anthropomorphic depictions of aircraft, before producing a number of landscapes rich in symbolism with an intense mystical quality. These have perhaps become among the best known works from the period. Nash was also a fine book illustrator, and also designed stage scenery, fabrics and posters.

paragraph: He was the older brother of the artist John Nash.

paragraph: Section::::Early life.

paragraph: Nash was the son of a successful barrister, William Harry Nash, and his wife Caroline Maude, the daughter of a Captain in the Royal Navy. He was born in Kensington and grew up in Earl's Court in West London, but in 1902 the family moved to Iver Heath in Buckinghamshire. It was hoped the move to the countryside would help Caroline Nash, who was increasingly showing symptoms of mental illness. The growing cost of Caroline Nash's treatment led to the house at Iver Heath being rented out while Paul and his father lived together in lodgings and his younger sister and brother went to boarding schools. On Valentine's Day 1910, aged forty-nine, Caroline Nash died in a mental institution. Paul Nash was originally intended for a career in the navy, following the path of his maternal grandfather, but despite additional training at a specialist school in Greenwich, he failed the Naval Entrance Examination and returned to finish his schooling at St Paul's School. Encouraged by a fellow student at St Paul's, Eric Kennington, Nash considered the possibility of a career as an artist. After studying for a year at the South-Western Polytechnic in Chelsea, he then enrolled at the London County Council School of Photo-engraving and Lithography, in Bolt Court off Fleet Street, in the autumn of 1908. Nash spent two years studying at Bolt Court, where he began to write poetry and plays and where his work was spotted and praised by Selwyn Image. He was advised by his friend, the poet Gordon Bottomley, and by the artist William Rothenstein, that he should attend the Slade School of Art at University College, London. He enrolled in October 1910, though he later recorded that on his first meeting with the Professor of Drawing, Henry Tonks, 'It was evident he considered that neither the Slade, nor I, were likely to derive much benefit'.

paragraph: The Slade was then opening its doors to a remarkable crop of young talents – what Tonks later described as the school's second and last 'Crisis of Brilliance'. Nash's fellow students included Ben Nicholson, Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler, William Roberts, Dora Carrington, Christopher R. W. Nevinson and Edward Wadsworth. Nash struggled with figure drawing, and spent only a year at the school. Nash had shows in 1912 and 1913, sometimes with his brother John, largely devoted to drawings and watercolours of brooding landscapes, influenced by the poetry of William Blake and the paintings of Samuel Palmer and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Two locations in particular featured in his landscape work at this time, the view from his father's house in Iver Heath and a pair of tree-topped hills in the Thames Valley known as the Wittenham Clumps. These were the first in a series of locations, which would eventually include Ypres, Dymchurch, the Romney Marshes, Avebury and Swanage, that would inspire Nash in his landscape paintings throughout his life. By the summer of 1914 Nash was enjoying some success and during that year he worked briefly at the Omega Workshops under Roger Fry and also worked with him on restoring the Mantegna cartoons at Hampton Court Palace.

paragraph: He was elected to The London Group in 1914.

paragraph: Section::::World War I.

paragraph: Section::::World War I.:Army officer.

paragraph: On 10 September 1914, shortly after the start of World War I, Nash reluctantly enlisted as a private for home service in the Second Battalion, the Artists' Rifles, part of the 28th London Regiment of Territorials. Nash's duties, which included guard duty at the Tower of London, allowed him time to continue drawing and painting. In December 1914 Nash married Margaret Odeh, an Oxford-educated campaigner for Women's Suffrage, at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square. Her father, Naser Odeh, had been the priest in charge of St Mary's mission and the pro-cathedral, Cairo. The couple had no children. Nash began officer training in August 1916 and was sent to the Western Front in February 1917 as a second lieutenant in the Hampshire Regiment. He was based at St. Eloi on the Ypres Salient at a relatively quiet time and although the area did come under shelling, no major engagements took place while he was there. Whilst clearly aware of the destruction that had taken place there, he was delighted to see that, with spring arriving, the landscape was recovering from the damage inflicted on it. However, on the night of 25 May 1917, Nash fell into a trench, broke a rib and, by 1 June, had been invalided back to London. A few days later the majority of his former unit were killed in an assault on a position known as Hill 60. Nash considered himself lucky to be alive. While recuperating in London, Nash worked from sketches he had done at the Front to produce a series of twenty drawings, mostly in ink, chalk and watercolours, of the war. Whilst some of these pieces showed the influence of the Vorticist movement and their manifesto, the literary magazine "BLAST", the majority concerned the spring landscape and were similar in tone to his pre-war work. "Chaos Decoratif", for example, shows part of a trench and a shattered tree amid a scene of almost pastoral calm. The collection was well received when exhibited in June that year at the Goupil Gallery. A further exhibition of these drawings was held in Birmingham in September 1917. As a result of these exhibitions, Christopher Nevinson advised Nash to approach Charles Masterman, head of the government's War Propaganda Bureau, to apply to become an official war artist. Nash was with a reserve battalion near Portsmouth, preparing to return to France in a combat role, when he received word that his commission as a war artist had been approved.

paragraph: Section::::World War I.:Official war artist – Belgium, 1917.

paragraph: In November 1917 Nash returned to the Ypres Salient as a uniformed observer with a batman and chauffeur. At this point the Third Battle of Ypres was three months old and Nash himself frequently came under shellfire after arriving in Flanders. The winter landscape he found was very different from the one he had last seen in spring. The system of ditches, small canals and dykes which usually drained the Ypres landscape had been all but destroyed by the constant shellfire. Months of incessant rain had led to widespread flooding and mile upon mile of deep mud. Nash was outraged at this desecration of nature. He believed the landscape was no longer capable of supporting life nor could it recover when spring came. Nash quickly grew angry and disillusioned with the war and made this clear in letters written to his wife. One such written, after a pointless meeting at Brigade HQ, on 16 November 1917 stands out,

paragraph: Nash's anger was a great creative stimulus which led him to produce up to a dozen drawings a day. He worked in a frenzy of activity and took great risks to get as close as possible to the frontline trenches. Despite the dangers and hardship, when the opportunity came to extend his visit by a week and work for the Canadians in the Vimy sector, Nash jumped at the chance. He eventually returned to England on 7 December 1917.

paragraph: Section::::World War I.:Official war artist – England, 1918.

paragraph: In six weeks on the Western Front, Nash completed what he called "fifty drawings of muddy places". When he returned to England, he started to develop these drawings into finished pieces and began working flat-out to have enough pictures ready for a one-man show in May 1918. While in Flanders Nash had mostly worked in pen-and-ink, often over painted in watercolours, but in England he learnt, from Nevinson, to produce lithographs. The 1917 drawing "Nightfall, Zillebecke District" showing soldiers walking along a zig-zagging duckboard became the 1918 lithograph "Rain". "After the Battle" shows a battlefield, deserted save for some corpses sinking into the mud. "The Landscape – Hill 60" shows fields of mud and shellholes with explosions filling the sky above. One of the largest and most powerful new drawings was "Wire", originally titled "Wire-The Hindenburg Line" and again uses the destruction of nature, in the form of a tree trunk wrapped in barbed wire, akin to a crown of thorns, to represent the catastrophe of war.

paragraph: Early in 1918, Nash began working in oils for the first time. The first oil painting he made was "The Mule Track" in which, amidst explosions from a bombardment, are the tiny figures of soldiers trying to stop their pack animals charging away along another zig-zagging duckboard. Switching to oils allowed Nash to make far greater use of colour and the explosions in "The Mule Track" contain yellow, orange and mustard shades. The canvas "The Ypres Salient at Night" captures the disorientation caused by the changes in direction of the defensive trenches at the Front, which Nash would have been familiar with, and which was exacerbated at night by the constant explosion of shells and flares.

paragraph: Whilst in France Nash had made a pen-and-ink drawing he called "Sunrise: Inverness Copse". Inverness Copse was the site of heavy fighting in the summer of 1917 during the Battle of Langemarck, part of the Third Battle of Ypres and Nash depicts the aftermath of the fighting, showing a landscape consisting of mud and blasted trees illuminated by a pale yellow sun. Early in 1918, when Nash decided to produce a larger oil painting based on this drawing, whatever little hope that pale sun represented had vanished. The bitter title, "We are Making a New World", clearly mocks the ambitions of the war but is also a more universal reference than the previous title and represents a scene of devastation that could be anywhere on the Western Front. There are no people in the picture nor any of the details of, for example, "The Mule Track" to distract from the broken tree stumps, shellholes and mounds of earth. The sun is a cold white orb and the brown clouds of the original drawing have become blood red. One modern critic, writing in 1994, likened it to a 'nuclear winter' whilst one of the first people to see it in 1918, Arthur Lee, the official censor responsible for the British war artists, thought it was a 'joke' at the expense of the public and the art establishment.

paragraph: These new works, alongside the 1917 pieces and some other works such as "Mackerel Sky", were exhibited in Nash's solo exhibition entitled "The Void of War" at the Leicester Galleries in May 1918. This exhibition was critically acclaimed with most commentators focusing on how Nash had portrayed nature, in the form of devastated woods, fields and hillsides, as the innocent victim of the war.

paragraph: Section::::World War I.:"The Menin Road".

paragraph: In April 1918 Nash was commissioned by the British War Memorials Committee to paint a battlefield scene for the Hall of Remembrance project. He chose to depict a section of the Ypres Salient known as 'Tower Hamlets' that had been devastated during the Battle of the Menin Road Ridge. Once his work for the "Void of War" exhibition was complete in June 1918, Nash started painting the huge canvas, now known as "The Menin Road", which was almost in size, at Chalfont St Peter in Buckinghamshire using a herb-drying shed as his studio. He completed the piece in February 1919 in London. The picture depicts a maze of flooded trenches and shell craters while tree stumps, devoid of any foliage, point towards a sky full of clouds and plumes of smoke bisected by shafts of sunlight resembling gun barrels. Two soldiers at the centre of the picture attempt to follow the now unrecognisable road itself but appear to be trapped by the landscape.

paragraph: When the war ended Nash was determined to continue his career as an artist but struggled with periodic bouts of depression and money worries. Throughout 1919 and 1920 Nash lived in Buckinghamshire and in London where he made theatre designs for a play by J. M. Barrie. Along with several other artists, Nash became prominent in the Society of Wood Engravers and in 1920 was involved in its first exhibition. He became close friends with Eric Fitch Daglish whom he educated in the art of wood engraving and as a result Daglish became a successful engraver. From 1920 until 1923 Nash taught, on an occasional basis, at the Cornmarket School of Art in Oxford.

paragraph: Section::::1920s.:Dymchurch and Iden.

paragraph: In 1921, after visiting his sick father, Nash collapsed and, after a week during which he repeatedly lost consciousness, was diagnosed as suffering from 'emotional shock' arising from the war. To aid his recovery, the Nashes moved to Dymchurch which they had first visited in 1919 and where he painted seascapes, the seawall and landscapes of Romney Marsh. The seawall at Dymchurch became a key location in Nash's work. The conflict between land and sea depicted in the seawall paintings at Dymchurch recalled elements of Nash's paintings on the Western Front and were also influenced by his grief at the death of his friend Claud Lovat Fraser in June 1921. In 1922, Nash produced "Places", a volume of seven wood engravings for which he also designed the cover, cut the lettering and wrote the text. At this time he also began painting floral still-lifes as well as continuing his landscape paintings, most notably with "Chilterns under Snow" in 1923. Throughout 1924 and 1925 Nash taught part-time at the Design School at the Royal College of Art, where his students included both Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden. In 1924 he held a commercially successful exhibition at the Leicester Galleries. This allowed the Nashes to spend the winter near Nice and visit Florence and Pisa at the start of 1925 after which they moved home to Iden near Rye in Sussex. Iden and the Romney Marshes became the settings for a series of paintings by Nash, most notably "Winter Sea" painted in 1925 and reworked in 1937. In 1927 Nash was elected to the London Artists' Association and in 1928 held another successful exhibition of his paintings at the Leicester Galleries whilst an exhibition of his wood-engravings was held at the Redfern Gallery the same year. The Leicester Galleries exhibition was notable for showing Nash turning away from his popular landscapes and beginning to explore abstraction in his work.

paragraph: This change in direction continued throughout 1929 and 1930 when Nash produced a number of innovative paintings,

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Landscape at Iden", with its seemingly unrelated objects placed beside each other amid strong architectural elements, showed the impression the 1928 London exhibition by the surrealist Giorgio de Chirico had made on Nash.

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Northern Adventure" and "Nostalgic Landscape, St Pancras Station" both paintings of St Pancras Station seen through a lattice work of abstract elements, derived from the frame of an advertising hoarding.

paragraph: BULLET::::- The paintings "Coronilla" (1929) and "Opening" (1931) both depict openings between spaces in an abstract and cubist manner through which trees or the sea can be seen. The earlier "Lares" is in a similar style.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Nash completed "Dead Spring" in February 1929, immediately after the death of his father. The painting shows a dying pot plant on a window still surrounded by a lattice of geometrical shapes which include some draughtsman's tools. Like the painting "Lares", "Dead Spring" is thought to show the influence on Nash of having seen the 1928 Giorgio de Chirico exhibition in London.

paragraph: Section::::1920s.:Other media.

paragraph: Nash often worked in media other than paint. As well as two volumes of his own wood engravings, "Places" and "Genesis", throughout the 1920s Nash produced highly regarded book illustrations for several authors, including Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon. Nash was one of the contributors of illustrations to the Subscriber's Edition of T. E. Lawrence's "Seven pillars of wisdom", published in 1926. In 1930, Nash produced the dust jacket design for "Roads to Glory", a collection of World War I stories by Richard Aldington.

paragraph: In 1921 Nash displayed textile designs at an exhibition at Heal's and in 1925 developed four fabric designs for the "Footprints" series sold by Modern Textiles in London. Later still, in 1933, Brain & Co in Stoke-on-Trent commissioned Nash and other artists to produce designs for their Foley China range which was showcased at the "Modern Art for the Table" exhibition at Harrods. In 1931, Margaret Nash gave him a camera when he sailed to America to serve as a jury member at the Carnegie International Award in Pittsburgh. Nash became a prolific photographer and would often work from his own photographs alongside his preparatory sketches when painting a work.

paragraph: By April 1928, Nash wanted to leave Iden but did not do so until after his father's death in February 1929, when he sold the family home in Iver Heath and bought a house in Rye.

paragraph: In 1930 Nash started working as an art critic for "The Listener", and in his writings acknowledged the influence of the 1928 Giorgio de Chirico London exhibition and of the modernist works he had seen during a visit to Paris in 1930 at Léonce Rosenberg's gallery. Nash became a pioneer of modernism in Britain, promoting the avant-garde European styles of abstraction and surrealism throughout the 1930s. In 1933 he co-founded the influential modern art movement Unit One with fellow artists Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Edward Wadsworth and the critic Herbert Read. It was a short-lived but important move towards the revitalisation of British art in the inter-war period.

paragraph: When in 1931 he was invited to illustrate a book of his own choice, Nash choose Sir Thomas Browne's "Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial" and "The Garden of Cyrus", providing the publisher with a set of 30 illustrations to accompany Browne's discourses.

paragraph: For "Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial" Nash also produced six larger watercolours, including "Mansions of the Dead", and three oil paintings on the book's themes of death and burial customs. These became significant themes for Nash when in July 1933 he went to Marlborough on holiday and visited Silbury Hill and Avebury for the first time. This ancient landscape with its neolithic monuments and standing stones "excited and fascinated" Nash and stirred "his sensitiveness to magic and the sinister beauty of monsters" according to Ruth Clarke who had accompanied him to Marlborough. Nash went on to paint the landscape at Avebury several times in different styles, most notably in his two 1934 paintings, "Druid Landscape" and "Landscape of the Megaliths". The 1935 painting "Equivalents for the Megaliths" stresses the mystery of the site by portraying it in an abstract manner rather than a more literal depiction. Nash appears to have been unhappy with the restoration work, started in 1934, at Avebury by Alexander Keiller, seemingly preferring the previous wilder and more unkept appearance of the area.

paragraph: Nash wanted to move to live in Wiltshire but instead he left Rye for London in November 1933 before the Nashes undertook a long trip to France, Gibraltar and north Africa. When they returned to England in June 1934, the Nashes rented a cottage on the Dorset coast near Swanage. Nash was asked by John Betjeman to write a book in the Shell Guides series. Nash accepted and undertook writing a guide to Dorset.

paragraph: Between 1934 and 1936 Nash lived near Swanage in Dorset, hoping the sea air would ease his asthma whilst he worked on the "Shell Guide to Dorset". He produced a considerable number of paintings and photographs during this period, some of which he used in the guide book. The guide was published in 1935 and featured some peculiarities of landscape and architecture that are often overlooked. Nash found Swanage with its diverse flora and fauna, fossils and geology to have certain Surrealist qualities. In a 1936 essay, entitled "Swanage or Seaside Surrealism", he wrote that the place had something "of a dream image where things are so often incongruous and slightly frightening in their relation to time or place." Whilst there Nash met the artist Eileen Agar. The two began a relationship, which lasted some years, and also collaborated on a number of works together. In Swanage, Nash produced some notable surrealist works such as "Events on the Downs", a picture of a giant tennis ball and a tree trunk seemingly embarking on a journey together and, later, "Landscape from a Dream", a cliff-top scene with a hawk and mirror. For a collage of black and white photographs entitled "Swanage", Nash depicts objects found in, or connected to, locations around Dorset within a surrealist landscape. On Romany Marsh Nash found his first surrealist object, or Objet trouvé. This piece of wood retrieved from a stream was likened by Nash to a fine Henry Moore sculpture and was shown at the first International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936 under the title "Marsh Personage".

paragraph: By the time of the exhibition Nash had come to dislike Swanage and in mid-1936 moved to a large house in Hampstead. Here he wrote articles on "seaside surrealism", created collages and assemblages, began his autobiography and organised a large one-man show at the Redfern Gallery in April 1937. That summer he visited the site of the Uffington White Horse in Berkshire and shortly afterwards began work on "Landscape from a Dream". In 1939, shortly after World War II began, the Nashes left Hampstead and moved to Oxford.

paragraph: Section::::World War Two.

paragraph: At the start of World War Two Nash was appointed by the War Artists' Advisory Committee to a full-time salaried war artist post attached to the Royal Air Force and the Air Ministry. Nash was unpopular with the Air Ministry representative on the WAAC committee, partly because of the modernist nature of his work and partly because the RAF wanted the WAAC artists to concentrate on producing portraits of their pilots and aircrew. Whilst still a salaried WAAC artist Nash produced two series of watercolours, "Raiders" and "Aerial Creatures". "Raiders", or "Marching Against England", was a set of studies of crashed German aircraft set in English rural landscapes with titles such as "Bomber in the Corn", "The Messerschmidt in Windsor Great Park" and "Under the Cliff". Whilst the Air Ministry could appreciate the patriotic intent and propaganda value of those works, the "Aerial Creatures" series, with its anthropomorphic depictions of British aircraft, displeased the Air Ministry so much they insisted Nash's full-time contract was ended in December 1940. The Chairman of WAAC, Kenneth Clark was aghast at this development and in January 1941 the Committee agreed to put aside £500 to purchase works from Nash on the theme of aerial conflict. Nash worked intermittently under this arrangement until 1944 to produce four paintings for WAAC. The first two of these were "Totes Meer (Dead Sea)" and "The Battle of Britain".

paragraph: "Totes Meer (Dead Sea)" was submitted to WAAC in 1941 and shows a 'dead sea' of wrecked German plane wings and fuselages based on sketches, and photographs, made at the Metal and Produce Recovery Unit at Cowley near Oxford in 1940. The painting recalls a series of bleak sea and coastal paintings Nash made in the 1930s. Although the aircraft dump at Cowley contained many British planes, Nash only depicted German aircraft because he wished to show the fate of the 'hundreds and hundreds of flying creatures which invaded these shores'. He used the German title for the picture as he wanted it included in a series of postcards of crashed German planes he suggested be dropped over the Reich as propaganda. To this end Nash even created a postcard of the painting with Hitler's head superimposed on the wrecked aircraft. Kenneth Clark stated that "Totes Meer" was 'the best war picture so far I think' and is still considered among the most celebrated British paintings of World War II.

paragraph: "The Battle of Britain" (1941) is an imaginative representation of an aerial battle in progress over a wide landscape of land and sea, suggesting the Thames Estuary and the English Channel. The white vapour trails of the Allied aircraft form patterns resembling buds and petals and appear to be growing naturally from the land and clouds, in contrast to the rigid, formal ranks of the attacking forces. Clark recognised the allegorical nature of the work and wrote to Nash, "I think in this and "Totes Meer" you have discovered a new form of allegorical painting. It is impossible to paint great events without allegory... and you have discovered a way of making the symbols out of the events themselves."

paragraph: After completing "The Battle of Britain", Nash found himself creatively blocked and again sick with asthma. Whilst unable to paint he did produce a number of photographic collages which included symbols and motifs from previous works often alongside images of Hitler. Nash submitted a series of these pieces, entitled "Follow the Fuehrer", to the Ministry of Information for use as propaganda but they declined to use them. When he did resume painting, Nash produced "The Defence of Albion", which is considered the weakest of his four large WAAC paintings. Nash had great difficulties completing the painting which shows a Short Sunderland flying boat in the sea off Portland Bill. As he had only seen photographs of Sunderlands, and was too ill to go to the coast to view one, Nash wrote to Eric Ravilious, who had painted flying boats in Scotland, asking him to describe the effect of sunlight on the plane.

paragraph: Nash's final painting for WAAC was however an extraordinary, imagined scene of a bombing raid on a city. Despite being given access to official reports and accounts from aircrews who had flown on raids to Germany, for the "Battle of Germany", Nash adopted an unconventional abstract approach. Nash explained that it showed a city under attack with a pillar of smoke from burning buildings in the background and the white spheres of descending parachutes in the foreground. The pillar of smoke and the moon were as threatening to the city as the bombers, concealed within the red clouds, responsible for the explosions on the right side of the painting. Whilst Kenneth Clark found the painting difficult to understand because of what he called the "different planes of reality in which it is painted", he did recognize that it might herald one course that post-war art could take.

paragraph: Section::::Final works.

paragraph: From 1942 onwards, Nash often visited the artist Hilda Harrisson at her home, Sandlands on Boars Hill near Oxford, to convalesce after bouts of illness. From the garden at Sandlands, Nash had a view of the Wittenham Clumps, which he had first visited as a child and had painted both before World War I and again, as a background, in 1934 and 1935. He now painted a series of imaginative works of the Clumps under different aspects of the moon. Paintings such as "Landscape of the Vernal Equinox" (1943) and "Landscape of the Moon's Last Phase" (1944) show a mystical landscape rich in the symbolism of the changing seasons and of death and rebirth. The completion of "Battle of Germany" in September 1944 brought Nash's public commitments to an end and he spent the remaining eighteen months of his life in, by his own words, "reclusive melancholy". In these final months, Nash produced a series of paintings, including "Flight of the Magnolia" (1944), which he called 'Aerial Flowers' that combined his fascination with flying and his love of the works of Samuel Palmer. Nash also returned to the influence of William Blake that had so affected his early art, for example in the series of gigantic sunflowers including "Sunflower and Sun" (1942), "Solstice of the Sunflower" (1945) and "Eclipse of the Sunflower" (1945), based on Blake's 1794 poem "Ah! Sun-flower".

paragraph: Section::::Death.

paragraph: During the final ten days of his life Nash returned to Dorset and visited Swanage, Corfe, Worth Matravers and Kimmeridge Bay. Nash died in his sleep of heart failure, as a result of his long-term asthma, on 11 July 1946, at Boscombe in Hampshire (now Dorset) and was buried on 17 July, in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin, Langley in Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire). The Egyptian stone carving of a hawk, that Nash had painted in "Landscape from a Dream", was placed on his grave. A memorial exhibition and concert for Nash, attended by the then Queen Elizabeth, was held at the Tate Gallery in March 1948.

paragraph: Section::::Legacy and works on public display.

paragraph: Works by Nash are held in the collections of the Aberdeen Art Gallery, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Beaverbrook Art Gallery,

paragraph: Bolton Art Gallery, Brighton & Hove Museums, Cleveland Museum of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Harvard University Art Museums, Imperial War Museum, Manchester City Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool, Tate Gallery, The Huntington Library, The Priseman Seabrook Collection, Whitworth Art Gallery, The Norfolk Museums Collection and Wichita Art Museum.

paragraph: 'Paul Nash', a major exhibition of his work at Tate Britain in London, ran from October 2016 until 5 March 2017, thereafter moving to the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich from April to August 2017.

paragraph: Section::::Bibliography.

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1922: "Places", - text and wood-engravings,

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1924: "Genesis", - a book of wood-engravings,

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1932: "Room and Book", - essays on contemporary design,

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1935: "Shell Guide to Dorset", with Archibald Russell,

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1949: "Outline", - a partial autobiography, first published posthumously in 1949 and re-issued in 2016.

paragraph: Section::::Further reading.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Causey, Andrew "Paul Nash: A Catalogue Raisonee" (1980. Oxford University Press) .

paragraph: BULLET::::- Colvin, Claire, "Paul Nash book designs : a Minories touring exhibition" (1982. The Minories, Colchester)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Eates, Margot, "Paul Nash : the master of the image, 1889 - 1946" (1973. John Murray, London)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Haycock, David Boyd, "Paul Nash, Watercolours 1910-1946: Another Life, Another World" (2014 Piano Nobile Gallery, London)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Jenkins, David Fraser (ed.), "Paul Nash: The Elements" (2010. Dulwich Picture Gallery, London)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Postan, Alexander, "The complete graphic work of Paul Nash" (1973. Secker and Warburg, London)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Russell, James, "Paul Nash in Pictures: Landscape and Dream" (2011. Mainstone Press, Norwich) .

paragraph: BULLET::::- Seddon, Richard, "Paul Nash" "Studio" 135 (600), March 1948, p. 74

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Paul Nash's Work - Imperial War Museum

paragraph: BULLET::::- Tate Archive: Negatives of 1267 photographs taken by Paul Nash 1930–46

enwikiquote_title: Paul Nash (artist)

wikidata_label: Paul Nash

wikipedia_title: Paul Nash (artist)


text: Clerkenwell

text: Samuel Johnson

text: Moorfields

text: Quaker

text: Bishop's Stortford

text: Torquato Tasso

text: Jerusalem Delivered

text: Ariosto

text: Orlando Furioso

text: Cleonice, a Tragedy

text: Samuel Johnson

text: European Magazine

text: Robert Southey

text: Walter Scott

text: David Barclay of Youngsbury

text: John Scott of Amwell

text: John Hoole

categories: 1803 deaths,1727 births,British translators,Writers from London

paragraph: John Hoole

paragraph: John Hoole (December 1727 – 2 August 1803) was an English translator, the son of Samuel Hoole (born 1692), a mechanic, and Sarah Drury (c. 1700 – c. 1793), the daughter of a Clerkenwell clockmaker. He was a personal friend of Samuel Johnson.

paragraph: Section::::Family.

paragraph: Hoole was born in Moorfields, London, and married in 1757 Susannah Smith (c. 1730 – 1808), a Quaker from Bishop's Stortford. They had a son, Rev. Samuel Hoole, who became a poet and religious writer of some distinction.

paragraph: Section::::Works.

paragraph: John Hoole worked in India House (1744–83), of which he rose to be principal auditor. In connection with his post, he wrote "Present State of the English East India Company's Affairs" (1772).

paragraph: Meanwhile he translated Torquato Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered" (1763), and Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso" (1773–83), as well as other works from the Italian. He was also the author of "Cleonice, a Tragedy" and of two other dramas which failed.

paragraph: Samuel Johnson was a personal friend of Hoole, who wrote an account of Johnson's final days in the "European Magazine" of 1799. Robert Southey recalled that Hoole's "Jerusalem Delivered" was "the first book he ever possessed," apart from a set of sixpenny children's books. Hoole was a genial character, but as a translator he was described not unfairly by Sir Walter Scott as "a noble transmuter of gold into lead."

paragraph: David Barclay of Youngsbury turned to Hoole to write the biography of his friend John Scott of Amwell, when Johnson, his first choice, died before being able to undertake the work.

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Hoole at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)

description: British translator

enwikiquote_title: John Hoole

wikidata_label: John Hoole

wikipedia_title: John Hoole


text:
East Renfrewshire
Lochgoin
Albigensian
Covenanter
obelisk
Whitelee Wind Farm
Scotland
Patrick Hamilton
William McGavin
William Henderson Carslaw
Robert Buchanan
Michael Shields
Church of Scotland
Patrick Hamilton
George Wishart
Walter Mill
James Stuart, Earl of Moray
John Knox
George Buchanan
Robert Rollock
John Craig
David Black
John Davidson
William Row
Andrew Melville
Patrick Simpson
Andrew Duncan
John Scrimzeor
John Welch
Robert Boyd
Robert Bruce
Josias Welch
John Gordon, Viscount Kenmuir
Robert Cunningham
Alexander Henderson
George Gillespie
John M'Clelland
David Calderwood
Hugh Binning
Andrew Gray
James Durham
Samuel Rutherford
Archibald Campbell, Marquis of Argyle
James Guthrie
John Campbell, Earl of Loudon
Robert Bailey
David Dickson
Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston
James Wood
William Guthrie
Hugh M'Kail
John Nevay
John Livingston
John Semple
James Mitchell
William Gordon of Earlstoun
John Kid
John Brown of Wamphray
Henry Hall of Haugh-head
Richard Cameron
David Hackston of Rathillet
Robert Ker of Kersland
Donald Cargill
Robert Garnock
Robert M'Ward
John Paton
John Nisbet of Hardhill
Alexander Peden
John Blackadder
James Renwick
Alexander Moncrief
Angus MacBean
Thomas Hog
Robert Fleming
Alexander Shields
Sir Robert Hamilton of Preston
William Vetch
John Balfour of Kinloch
Robert Traill
Robert Traill

categories: 1735 births,1793 deaths,Scottish biographers

paragraph: John Howie (biographer)

paragraph: John Howie (14 November 1735 – 5 January 1793) was a Scottish biographer.

paragraph: He was an East Renfrewshire farmer from Lochgoin, who claimed descent from an Albigensian refugee. His family home at Lochgoin Farm was a noted refuge for Covenanters, and was subject to several searches by government soldiers. The farmhouse was rebuilt in the 18th century, with the date 1187 on a lintel marking when the Howies first settled there. Several relics were kept in what has become a small museum, and in 1896 a stone obelisk was erected nearby as a monument "in memory of John Howie, author of the "Scots Worthies"". It now lies within the area of Whitelee Wind Farm and has track access from the visitor centre.

paragraph: Section::::Works.

paragraph: Howie wrote "Lives" of the Protestant worthies of Scotland from Patrick Hamilton, the first martyr, under the title of "Biographia Scoticana". first published in 1775. It became a classic of Scottish Church History. He revised and enlarged the work, 1781-5, and this edition was reissued, with notes by William McGavin, in 1827. In 1870 the Rev. William Henderson Carslaw revised Howie's text and published it, with illustrations and notes, and a short biographical introduction; and in 1876 a further illustrated edition appeared, with biographical notice compiled from statements made by Howie's relatives, and an introductory essay by Dr. Robert Buchanan.

paragraph: "A Collection of Lectures and Sermons by Covenanting Clergymen" was issued by Howie in 1779, with an introduction by himself. He edited in 1780 Michael Shields's "Faithful Contendings Display'd", an account of the Church of Scotland between 1681 and 1691. He also wrote on the Lord's Supper, patronage, and other topics, and prefaced and annotated other religious works.

paragraph: Section::::The "Lives" in "Biographia Scoticana" (2nd edition).

paragraph: BULLET::::- Patrick Hamilton

paragraph: BULLET::::- George Wishart

paragraph: BULLET::::- Walter Mill

paragraph: BULLET::::- James Stuart, Earl of Moray

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Knox

paragraph: BULLET::::- George Buchanan

paragraph: BULLET::::- Robert Rollock

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Craig

paragraph: BULLET::::- David Black

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Davidson

paragraph: BULLET::::- William Row

paragraph: BULLET::::- Andrew Melville

paragraph: BULLET::::- Patrick Simpson

paragraph: BULLET::::- Andrew Duncan

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Scrimzeor

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Welch

paragraph: BULLET::::- Robert Boyd

paragraph: BULLET::::- Robert Bruce

paragraph: BULLET::::- Josias Welch

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Gordon, Viscount Kenmuir

paragraph: BULLET::::- Robert Cunningham

paragraph: BULLET::::- Alexander Henderson

paragraph: BULLET::::- George Gillespie

paragraph: BULLET::::- John M'Clelland

paragraph: BULLET::::- David Calderwood

paragraph: BULLET::::- Hugh Binning

paragraph: BULLET::::- Andrew Gray

paragraph: BULLET::::- James Durham

paragraph: BULLET::::- Samuel Rutherford

paragraph: BULLET::::- Archibald Campbell, Marquis of Argyle

paragraph: BULLET::::- James Guthrie

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Campbell, Earl of Loudon

paragraph: BULLET::::- Robert Bailey

paragraph: BULLET::::- David Dickson

paragraph: BULLET::::- Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston

paragraph: BULLET::::- James Wood

paragraph: BULLET::::- William Guthrie

paragraph: BULLET::::- Hugh M'Kail

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Nevay

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Livingston

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Semple

paragraph: BULLET::::- James Mitchell

paragraph: BULLET::::- William Gordon of Earlstoun

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Kid

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Brown of Wamphray

paragraph: BULLET::::- Henry Hall of Haugh-head

paragraph: BULLET::::- Richard Cameron

paragraph: BULLET::::- David Hackston of Rathillet

paragraph: BULLET::::- Robert Ker of Kersland

paragraph: BULLET::::- Donald Cargill

paragraph: BULLET::::- Robert Garnock

paragraph: BULLET::::- Robert M'Ward

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Paton

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Nisbet of Hardhill

paragraph: BULLET::::- Alexander Peden

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Blackadder

paragraph: BULLET::::- James Renwick

paragraph: BULLET::::- Alexander Moncrief

paragraph: BULLET::::- Angus MacBean

paragraph: BULLET::::- Thomas Hog

paragraph: BULLET::::- Robert Fleming

paragraph: BULLET::::- Alexander Shields

paragraph: BULLET::::- Sir Robert Hamilton of Preston

paragraph: BULLET::::- William Vetch

paragraph: BULLET::::- John Balfour of Kinloch

paragraph: BULLET::::- Robert Traill, father

paragraph: BULLET::::- Robert Traill, and son

paragraph: Section::::References.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Attribution

description: Scottish biographer

wikidata_label: John Howie

wikipedia_title: John Howie (biographer)