|
The Distrest Poet
''The Distrest Poet'' is an oil painting produced sometime around 1736 by the British artist William Hogarth. Reproduced as an etching and engraving, it was published in 1741 from a third state plate produced in 1740. The scene was probably inspired by Alexander Pope's satirical poem ''The Dunciad''. It depicts a scene in a small, dingy attic room where a poet sits at his desk in the dormer and, scratching his head, stares at the papers on the desk before him, evidently looking for inspiration to complete the poem he is writing. Near him sits his wife darning clothes, surprised by the entrance of a milkmaid, who impatiently demands payment of debts. Background The engraving of ''The Distrest Poet'' in its third state was issued on 15 December 1741 as a companion piece to ''The Enraged Musician'', a comic scene of a violinist driven to distraction by the noise from the street outside his practice room. The initial plate for ''The Distrest Poet'' was produced soon after Hogart ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Hogarth
William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects", and he is perhaps best known for his series ''A Harlot's Progress'', ''A Rake's Progress'' and '' Marriage A-la-Mode''. Knowledge of his work is so pervasive that satirical political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian". Hogarth was born in London to a lower-middle-class family. In his youth he took up an apprenticeship with an engraver, but did not complete the apprenticeship. His father underwent periods of mixed fortune, and was at one time imprisoned in lieu of outstanding debts, an event that is thought to have informed William's paintings and prints with a hard edge. Influenced by French and Italian painting and engraving, Hogarth's works are mostly sat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Papal Tiara
The papal tiara is a crown that was worn by popes of the Catholic Church from as early as the 8th century to the mid-20th. It was last used by Pope Paul VI in 1963 and only at the beginning of his reign. The name "tiara" refers to the entire headpiece, including the various crowns, circlets, and diadems that have adorned it through the ages, while the three-tiered form that it took in the 14th century is also called the triregnum, triple tiara, or triple crown. From 1143 to 1963, the papal tiara was solemnly placed on the pope's head during a papal coronation. The surviving papal tiaras are all in the triple form, the oldest from 1572. A representation of the triregnum combined with two crossed keys of Saint Peter continues to be used as a symbol of the papacy and appears on papal documents, buildings, and insignia. History Origins The papal tiara originated from a conical Phrygian cap or frigium. Shaped like a candle-extinguisher, the papal tiara and the episcopal mitr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dunce
Dunce is a mild insult in English meaning "a person who is slow at learning or stupid". The etymology given by Richard Stanyhurst is that the word is derived from the name of the Scottish Scholasticism, Scholastic theologian and philosopher John Duns Scotus. Dunce cap A dunce cap, also variously known as a dunce hat, dunce's cap or dunce's hat, is a pointed hat, formerly used as an article of discipline in schools in Europe and the United States—especially in the 19th and early 20th centuries—for children who were disruptive or were considered slow in learning. In the 19th century, it was seen by some as degrading: in 1831, children's book author Sidney Babcock wrote of the dunce cap as debasing and harsh, and in 1899, historian Alice Morse Earle compared it to other forms of school discipline she saw as degrading and outdated. It became unpopular in the early 20th century. Some American schools still permitted caps as late as the 1950s, however, and it was more recently ban ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Sea Company
The South Sea Company (officially The Governor and Company of the merchants of Great Britain, trading to the South Seas and other parts of America, and for the encouragement of the Fishery) was a British joint-stock company founded in January 1711, created as a public-private partnership to consolidate and reduce the cost of the national debt. To generate income, in 1713 the company was granted a monopoly (the Asiento de Negros) to supply African slaves to the islands in the "South Seas" and South America. When the company was created, Britain was involved in the War of the Spanish Succession and Spain and Portugal controlled most of South America. There was thus no realistic prospect that trade would take place, and as it turned out, the Company never realised any significant profit from its monopoly. However, Company stock rose greatly in value as it expanded its operations dealing in government debt, and peaked in 1720 before suddenly collapsing to little above its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emblematical Print On The South Sea Scheme
''Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme'' (also known as ''The South Sea Scheme'') is an early print by William Hogarth, created in 1721 and widely published from 1724. It caricatures the financial speculation, corruption and credulity that caused the South Sea Bubble in England in 1720–21. The print is often considered the first editorial cartoon or as a precursor of the form. Background The South Sea Company was a British joint stock company founded in 1711. It was granted a monopoly to trade with Spain's South American colonies as part of a treaty during the War of Spanish Succession, in return for the company's assumption of the national debt run up by England during the war. Speculation in the company's stock led to a great economic bubble in 1720, with company's shares rising rapidly in price from around £100 to over £1,000. Many investors were ruined when the bubble burst and the value of stock in the South Sea Company crashed. Political scandal ensued when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gay
John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for ''The Beggar's Opera'' (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names.. Early life Gay was born in Barnstaple, England, last of five children of William Gay (died 1695) and Katherine (died 1694), daughter of Jonathan Hanmer, "the leading Nonconformist divine of the town" as founder of the Independent Dissenting congregation in Barnstaple. The Gay family- "fairly comfortable... though far from rich"- lived in "a large house, called the Red Cross, on the corner of Joy Street". The Gay family was "of respectable antiquity" in North Devon, associated with the manor of Goldsworthy at Parkham and with the parish of Frithelstock (where the senior line remained, resident at the priory Cloister Hall with its lands, until 1823) and became "powerful and numerous" in the town, "established a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Thornhill
Sir James Thornhill (25 July 1675 or 1676 – 4 May 1734) was an English painter of historical subjects working in the Italian baroque tradition. He was responsible for some large-scale schemes of murals, including the "Painted Hall" at the Royal Hospital, Greenwich, the paintings on the inside of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral, and works at Chatsworth House and Wimpole Hall. Life Thornhill was born in Melcombe Regis, Dorset, the son of Walter Thornhill of Wareham and Mary, eldest daughter of Colonel William Sydenham, governor of Weymouth. In 1689 he was apprenticed to Thomas Highmore (1660–1720), a specialist in non-figurative decorative painting. He also learned a great deal from Antonio Verrio and Louis Laguerre, two prominent foreign decorative painters then working in England. He completed his apprenticeship in 1696 and, on 1 March 1704, became a Freeman of the Painter-Stainers' Company of London. Decorative schemes Thornhill decorated palace interiors w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl Of Burlington
Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, (25 April 1694 – 4 December 1753) was a British architect and noble often called the "Apollo of the Arts" and the "Architect Earl". The son of the 2nd Earl of Burlington and 3rd Earl of Cork, Burlington never took more than a passing interest in politics despite his position as a Privy Counsellor and a member of both the British House of Lords and the Irish House of Lords. His great interests in life were architecture and landscaping, and he is remembered for being a builder and a patron of architects, craftsmen and landscapers, Indeed, he is credited with bringing Palladian architecture to Britain and Ireland. His major projects include Burlington House, Westminster School, Chiswick House and Northwick Park. Life Lord Burlington was born in Yorkshire into a wealthy Anglo-Irish aristocratic family, the only son of Charles Boyle, 2nd Earl of Burlington and his wife, Juliana Boyle ( Noel; 1672–1750). He succeeded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Kent
William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but his real talent was for design in various media. Kent introduced the Palladian style of architecture into England with the villa at Chiswick House, and also originated the 'natural' style of gardening known as the English landscape garden at Chiswick, Stowe Gardens in Buckinghamshire, and Rousham House in Oxfordshire. As a landscape gardener he revolutionised the layout of estates, but had limited knowledge of horticulture. He complemented his houses and gardens with stately furniture for major buildings including Hampton Court Palace, Chiswick House, Devonshire House and Rousham. Early life Kent was born in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, and baptised on 1 January 1686, as William Cant. His parents were William and Esther Cant ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronald Paulson
Ronald Howard Paulson (born May 27, 1930 in Bottineau, North Dakota) is an American professor of English, a specialist in English 18th-century art and culture, and the world's leading expert on English Painting, artist William Hogarth. Education Paulson earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University in 1952, where he was an editorial associate of campus humor magazine ''The Yale Record''. He earned his doctorate degree from Yale in 1958. Academic career Paulson has taught and held various administrative positions at several universities in the United States, including the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, University of Illinois from 1959 to 1963 and Rice University from 1963 to 1967. He was the Chairman of the Johns Hopkins University English Department from 1967 to 1975. From 1975 to 1984 he was a professor at Yale University and served as the Director of Graduate Studies in the English Department from 1976 to 1983 and the Director of the British Studies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lewis Theobald
Lewis Theobald (baptised 2 April 1688 – 18 September 1744), English textual editor and author, was a landmark figure both in the history of Shakespearean editing and in literary satire. He was vital for the establishment of fair texts for Shakespeare, and he was the first avatar of Dulness in Alexander Pope's ''The Dunciad''. Life and work Lewis Theobald was the son of Peter Theobald, an attorney, and his second wife, Mary. He was born in Sittingbourne, Kent, and baptized there on 2 April 1688. When Peter Theobald died in 1690, Lewis was taken into the Rockingham household and educated with the sons of the family, which gave him the grounding in Greek and Latin that would serve his scholarship throughout his career. As a young man, he was apprenticed to an attorney and then set up his own law practice in London. In 1707, possibly while he was apprenticing, he published ''A Pindaric Ode on the Union of Scotland and England'' and ''Naufragium Britannicum.''. In 1708 his tragedy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
