|
John Thompson (engraver)
John Thompson (25 May 1785 – 20 February 1866) was a British wood-engraver. He is best known for his contribution to William Yarrell's 1843 ''History of British Birds''. He was described as the most distinguished wood-engraver of his time. Thompson also engraved the design for the 1839 penny postage envelope, on a brass plate; and the design for the iconic figure of Britannia which appeared on British banknotes. Life and work Thompson was born in Manchester to a London merchant, Richard Thompson. He trained under the wood-engraver Allen Robert Branston, and then collaborated with the artist John Thurston. He engraved around 900 of Thurston's designs from 1814 onwards including illustrations for Butler's ''Hudibras'' in 1918. He is described as Branston's "most celebrated pupil". He illustrated many books, becoming in the words of Freeman Marius O'Donoghue in the Dictionary of National Biography "the most distinguished wood-engraver of his time", and "perhaps the ablest e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Redstart From Yarrell History Of British Birds 1843
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have often been used to describe opposites such as good and evil, the Dark Ages versus Age of Enlightenment, and night versus day. Since the Middle Ages, black has been the symbolic color of solemnity and authority, and for this reason it is still commonly worn by judges and magistrates. Black was one of the first colors used by artists in Neolithic cave paintings. It was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as the color of the underworld. In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, Witchcraft, witches, and Magic (supernatural), magic. In the 14th century, it was worn by royalty, clergy, judges, and government officials in much of Europe. It became the color worn by Engl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Fussell
Alexander Fussell or Fussel (b. circa 1814, Warwickshire; d. 1881) was an English artist and illustrator. He drew the bird illustrations for William Yarrell's 1843 ''History of British Birds''. Life and career Fussell painted in various media, including watercolour, gouache, and oil on canvas. His subjects included ''The prize calf'', ''The park sweeper'', ''Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman'', and ''The letter, after Thomas Faed''. Fussell undertook the large task of illustrating William Yarrell's 1843 ''History of British Birds''. Yarrell states that Fussell drew "nearly five hundred" of the 520 wood-engravings mentioned on the book's title-page. The work began in 1837 and continued for six years, Yarrell publishing at the rate of one instalment, containing three sheets, every two months. Many of the drawings were from skins or stuffed specimens, though every bird species is illustrated with a lifelike drawing of the bird standing (or rarely, flying or swimming) in a natura ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1785 Births
Events January–March * January 1 – The first issue of the '' Daily Universal Register'', later known as ''The Times'', is published in London. * January 7 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a hydrogen gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air. * January 11 – Richard Henry Lee is elected as President of the U.S. Congress of the Confederation.''Harper's Encyclopaedia of United States History from 458 A. D. to 1909'', ed. by Benson John Lossing and, Woodrow Wilson (Harper & Brothers, 1910) p167 * January 20 – Battle of Rạch Gầm-Xoài Mút: Invading Siamese forces, attempting to exploit the political chaos in Vietnam, are ambushed and annihilated at the Mekong River, by the Tây Sơn. * January 27 – The University of Georgia in the United States is chartered by the Georgia General Assembly meeting in Savannah. The first students are a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Kensington Museum
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz'' ("south"), possibly related to the same Proto-Indo-European root that the word ''sun'' derived from. Some languages describe south in the same way, from the fact that it is the direction of the sun at noon (in the Northern Hemisphere), like Latin meridies 'noon, south' (from medius 'middle' + dies 'day', cf English meridional), while others describe south as the right-hand side of the rising sun, like Biblical Hebrew תֵּימָן teiman 'south' from יָמִין yamin 'right', Aramaic תַּימנַא taymna from יָמִין yamin 'right' and Syriac ܬܰܝܡܢܳܐ taymna from ܝܰܡܝܺܢܳܐ yamina (hence the name of Yemen, the land to the south/right of the Levant). Navigation By convention, the ''bottom or down-facing side'' of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isabel Cowper
Isabel Agnes Cowper (née Thompson; 7 July 182617 February 1911), a British wood-engraver and photographer, was the first female Official Museum Photographer at the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) and possibly the first female Official Museum Photographer ever. From 1868, when Cowper assumed the role at the museum, to her retirement in 1891, Cowper made thousands of photographs documenting the museum and loan objects and the construction of the museum buildings. In her lifetime, Cowper's photographs were widely circulated as illustrations in South Kensington Museum publications and examples of her work are continually being discovered in libraries and archives around the world. Early life and education Cowper was born in the borough of Kensington, London in 1826 to Harriott and John Thompson, an eminent wood-engraver and director of the wood-engraving class for 'ladies' at the Central School of Design. They resided at 1 Campden Hill Terrace (now Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria And Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The V&A is located in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in an area known as " Albertopolis" because of its association with Prince Albert, the Albert Memorial and the major cultural institutions with which he was associated. These include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Royal Albert Hall and Imperial College London. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. As with other national British museums, entrance is free. The V&A covers and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition which took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October, 1851. It was the first in a series of World's Fairs, exhibitions of culture and industry that became popular in the 19th century. The event was organised by Henry Cole and Prince Albert, husband of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom. Famous people of the time attended the Great Exhibition, including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Michael Faraday (who assisted with the planning and judging of exhibits), Samuel Colt, members of the Orléanist Royal Family and the writers Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot, Alfred Tennyson and William Makepeace Thackeray. The opening music, under the superintendence of William Sterndale Bennett, was directed by Sir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of British Birds
''A History of British Birds'' is a natural history book by Thomas Bewick, published in two volumes. Volume 1, ''Land Birds'', appeared in 1797. Volume 2, ''Water Birds'', appeared in 1804. A supplement was published in 1821. The text in ''Land Birds'' was written by Ralph Beilby, while Bewick took over the text for the second volume. The book is admired mainly for the beauty and clarity of Bewick's wood-engravings, which are widely considered his finest work, and among the finest in that medium. ''British Birds'' has been compared to works of poetry and literature. It plays a recurring role in Charlotte Brontë's novel ''Jane Eyre''. William Wordsworth praised Bewick in the first lines of his poem "The Two Thieves": "Oh now that the genius of Bewick were mine, And the skill which he learned on the banks of the Tyne." The book was effectively the first "field guide" for non-specialists. Bewick provides an accurate illustration of each species, from life if possible, or from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Bewick
Thomas Bewick (c. 11 August 17538 November 1828) was an English wood-engraver and natural history author. Early in his career he took on all kinds of work such as engraving cutlery, making the wood blocks for advertisements, and illustrating children's books. He gradually turned to illustrating, writing and publishing his own books, gaining an adult audience for the fine illustrations in ''A History of Quadrupeds''. His career began when he was apprenticed to engraver Ralph Beilby in Newcastle upon Tyne. He became a partner in the business and eventually took it over. Apprentices whom Bewick trained include John Anderson, Luke Clennell, and William Harvey, who in their turn became well known as painters and engravers. Bewick is best known for his '' A History of British Birds'', which is admired today mainly for its wood engravings, especially the small, sharply observed, and often humorous vignettes known as tail-pieces. The book was the forerunner of all modern field guides ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Thompson (engraver)
Charles Thompson (1791–1843) was a British wood-engraver, who made a career in France. Life A younger brother of John Thompson, he was born in London. He was a pupil of John Bewick and Allen Robert Branston, and became a wood-engraver In 1816 Thompson found work in Paris, where he executed illustrations to many publications. His work was admired, and in 1824 he was awarded a gold medal. He introduced into France the English method of carving the end of the wood, instead of in the direction of the grain, and using the graver instead of the knife. The ''atelier'' he opened in 1817 instructed numerous French students. Thompson died at Bourg-la-Reine, near Paris, on 19 May 1843, and his widow was granted a pension by the French government. Works Thompson produced illustration's for Samuel Weller Singer's 1817 edition of Torquato Tasso, in Edward Fairfax's translation; and for Singer's ''Shakespeare'' (1826). In the 1820s he shared a place in Peckham with his brother John, but b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exposition Universelle (1855)
The Exposition Universelle of 1855 was an International Exhibition held on the Champs-Élysées in Paris from 15 May to 15 November 1855. Its full official title was the Exposition Universelle des produits de l'Agriculture, de l'Industrie et des Beaux-Arts de Paris 1855. Today the exposition's sole physical remnant is the Théâtre du Rond-Point des Champs-Élysées designed by architect Gabriel Davioud, which originally housed the Panorama National. History The exposition was a major event in France, then newly under the reign of Emperor Napoleon III. It followed London's Great Exhibition of 1851 and attempted to surpass that fair's Crystal Palace with its own Palais de l'Industrie. The arts displayed were shown in a separate pavilion on Avenue Montaigne. There were works from artists from 29 countries, including French artists François Rude, Ingres, Delacroix and Henri Lehmann, and British artists William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. However, Gustave Courbet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wood Engraving
Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image or ''matrix'' of images into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and prints using relatively low pressure. By contrast, ordinary engraving, like etching, uses a metal plate for the matrix, and is printed by the intaglio method, where the ink fills the ''valleys'', the removed areas. As a result, wood engravings deteriorate less quickly than copper-plate engravings, and have a distinctive white-on-black character. Thomas Bewick developed the wood engraving technique in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century. His work differed from earlier woodcuts in two key ways. First, rather than using woodcarving tools such as knives, Bewick used an engraver's burin (graver). With this, he could create thin delicate lines, often creating large dark areas in the composition. Second, wood engraving traditionally uses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
