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Étienne-Gaspard Robert
Étienne-Gaspard Robert (15 June 1763 – 2 July 1837), often known by the stage name of "Robertson", was a prominent Liégeois (now part of Belgium) physicist, stage magician and influential developer of phantasmagoria. He was described by Charles Dickens as "an honourable and well-educated showman".Zeitler, William. E.G. Robertson". Accessed 29 July 2007. Alongside his pioneering work on projection techniques for his shows Robert was also a physics lecturer and a keen balloonist at a time of great development in aviation. Early work Born in Liège, Prince-Bishopric of Liège, Robert studied at Leuven and became a professor of physics specialising in optics. He was an avid painter and intended to move to France to pursue a career in art. He moved to Paris in the 1791 and maintained a living as a painter and draughtsman. While there he attended lectures in natural science at the Collège de France as well as those by Jacques Charles, a fellow scientist and important figu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magic (illusion)
Magic, which encompasses the subgenres of illusion, stage magic, and close up magic, among others, is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural means. It is to be distinguished from paranormal magic which are effects claimed to be created through supernatural means. It is one of the oldest performing arts in the world. Modern entertainment magic, as pioneered by 19th-century magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, has become a popular theatrical art form. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, magicians such as Maskelyne and Devant, Howard Thurston, Harry Kellar, and Harry Houdini achieved widespread commercial success during what has become known as "the Golden Age of Magic." During this period, performance magic became a staple of Broadway theatre, vaudeville, and music halls. Magic retained its popularity in the television age, with magicians such as Paul Daniels, David ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century; the oldest of the UK's armed services, it is consequently known as the Senior Service. From the middle decades of the 17th century, and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century, it was the world's most powerful navy until the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing and defending the British Empire, and four Imperial fortress colonies and a string of imperial bases and coaling stations secured the Royal Navy's ability to assert naval superiority globally. Owing to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic, and educational thought. His '' Discourse on Inequality'' and '' The Social Contract'' are cornerstones in modern political and social thought. Rousseau's sentimental novel '' Julie, or the New Heloise'' (1761) was important to the development of preromanticism and romanticism in fiction. His '' Emile, or On Education'' (1762) is an educational treatise on the place of the individual in society. Rousseau's autobiographical writings—the posthumously published '' Confessions'' (composed in 1769), which initiated the modern autobiography, and the unfinished ''Reveries of the Solitary Walker'' (composed 1776–1778)—exemplified the late 18th-century " Age of Sensibility", and feature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—especially of the Roman Catholic Church—and of slavery. Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a versatile and prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, histories, and scientific expositions. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets. Voltaire was one of the first authors to become renowned and commercially successful internationally. He was an outspoken advocate of civil liberties and was at constant risk from the strict censorship laws of the Catholic French monarchy. His polemics witheringly satirized intolerance, religious dogma, and the French institutions of his day. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Paul Marat
Jean-Paul Marat (; born Mara; 24 May 1743 – 13 July 1793) was a French political theorist, physician, and scientist. A journalist and politician during the French Revolution, he was a vigorous defender of the '' sans-culottes'', a radical voice, and published his views in pamphlets, placards and newspapers. His periodical '' L'Ami du peuple'' (''Friend of the People'') made him an unofficial link with the radical Jacobin group that came to power after June 1793. His journalism was known for its fierce tone and uncompromising stance toward the new leaders and institutions of the revolution. Responsibility for the September massacres has been attributed to him, given his position of renown at the time, and an alleged paper trail of decisions leading up to the massacres. Others posit the collective mentality that made them possible resulted from circumstances and not from the will of any particular individual. Lefebvre, p. 236 Marat was assassinated by Charlotte Corday, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gauze
Gauze is a thin, translucent fabric with a loose open weave. In technical terms "gauze" is a weave structure in which the weft yarns are arranged in pairs and are crossed before and after each warp yarn keeping the weft firmly in place. This weave structure is used to add stability to fabric, which is important when using fine yarns loosely spaced. However, this weave structure can be used with any weight of yarn, and can be seen in some rustic textiles made from coarse hand-spun plant fiber yarns. Gauze is widely used for medical dressings. Gauze can also be made of non-woven fabric. Etymology and history Gauze was traditionally woven in the Gaza region. The English word is said to derive from the place name for Gaza Webster's, 1913 ( ar, غزة ), a center of weaving in the region. Despite a prohibition on trade with non-Christians from religious authorities in medieval Europe, a fine type of silk known as ''gazzatum'' was imported from Gaza as early as the 13th cen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rear Projection Effect
Rear projection (background projection, process photography, etc.) is one of many in-camera effects cinematic techniques in film production for combining foreground performances with pre-filmed backgrounds. It was widely used for many years in driving scenes, or to show other forms of "distant" background motion. Technique Actors stand in front of a screen while a projector positioned behind the screen casts a reversed image of the background. This requires a large space, as the projector needs to be placed some distance from the back of the screen. Frequently the background image may initially appear faint and washed out compared to the foreground. The image that is projected can be still or moving, but is always called the ''plate.'' One might hear the command "Roll plate" to instruct stage crew to begin projecting. These so-called ''process shots'' were widely used to film actors as if they were inside a moving vehicle, who in reality are in a vehicle mock-up on a sound ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ventriloquism
Ventriloquism, or ventriloquy, is a performance act of stagecraft in which a person (a ventriloquist) creates the illusion that their voice is coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered prop known as a "dummy". The act of ventriloquism is ventriloquizing, and the ability to do so is commonly called in English the ability to "throw" one's voice. History Origins Originally, ventriloquism was a religious practice. The name comes from the Latin for 'to speak from the stomach: (belly) and (speak). The Greeks called this gastromancy ( grc-gre, εγγαστριμυθία). The noises produced by the stomach were thought to be the voices of the unliving, who took up residence in the stomach of the ventriloquist. The ventriloquist would then interpret the sounds, as they were thought to be able to speak to the dead, as well as foretell the future. One of the earliest recorded group of prophets to use this technique was the Pythia, the priestess at the temple of Apollo in Delphi, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher (2 May 1602 – 27 November 1680) was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works, most notably in the fields of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Joseph Boscovich and to Leonardo da Vinci for his enormous range of interests, and has been honoured with the title "Master of a Hundred Arts".Woods, p. 108. He taught for more than 40 years at the Roman College, where he set up a wunderkammer. A resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the scholarly community in recent decades. Kircher claimed to have deciphered the hieroglyphic writing of the ancient Egyptian language, but most of his assumptions and translations in this field were later found to be incorrect. He did, however, correctly establish the link between the ancient Egyptian and the Coptic languages, and some commentators regard him as the founder of Egyptology. Kircher was also fascinated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Precursors Of Film
Precursors of film are concepts and devices that have much in common with the later art and techniques of cinema. Precursors of film are often referred to as precinema, or 'pre-cinema'. Terms like these are disliked by several historians, partly because they seem to devalue the individual qualities of these media by presenting them as a small step in the development of a later invention. For instance: the flip book, zoetrope and phenakistiscope are very tactile devices that allow study and play by manipulating the motion by hand, while the projected image in cinema is intangible. Such devices as the zoetrope were not replaced by cinema: they were still used after the breakthrough of film. Furthermore, many early media examples are also part of a tradition that not only shaped cinema, but also home video, video games, computer-generated imagery, virtual reality and much more. The study of early media devices is also part of a wider and less teleological approach called media archa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magic Lantern
The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that used pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light source. Because a single lens inverts an image projected through it (as in the phenomenon which inverts the image of a camera obscura), slides were inserted upside down in the magic lantern, rendering the projected image correctly oriented. It was mostly developed in the 17th century and commonly used for entertainment purposes. It was increasingly used for education during the 19th century. Since the late 19th century, smaller versions were also mass-produced as toys. The magic lantern was in wide use from the 18th century until the mid-20th century when it was superseded by a compact version that could hold many 35 mm photographic slides: the slide projector. Technology Apparatus The magic lantern used a concave mirror behind a light source to dire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Philidor
Phylidor (17??– 7 March 1829), also spelled "Phylidoor" or "Philidor", also known as "Paul Filidort" and probably the same as Paul de Philipsthal, was a magician and a pioneer of phantasmagoria shows. Biography Phylidor's origins are unclear, as is his exact identity; it is believed that he took his name from François-André Danican Philidor and he was even thought to be the nephew of this French composer and chess master of the famous Philidor family. Phylidor reportedly was from the Duchy of Brabant (now parts of Belgium and The Netherlands). He was also claimed to be from the neighboring County of Flanders. Phylidor reportedly spoke French when he was in Berlin. He was thought to be German when he came to Paris in 1792. From 1785 to 1800 Phylidor traveled through Europe as a showman (see below for details). He also (at least occasionally) traded in "physical instruments" and taught some of his tricks to paying customers. By the time Phylidor came to Berlin in 1789 he w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
