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Xanadu (Citizen Kane)
Xanadu is the fictional estate of Charles Foster Kane, the title character of the film ''Citizen Kane'' (1941). The estate derives its name from the ancient city of Xanadu, known for its splendor. Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, has been considered to be the main inspiration for Xanadu, due to the William Randolph Hearst/Kane comparison that was a large source of controversy after the film's release. Appearance in the film Built on an immense "private mountain" located on the "deserts of the Gulf Coast" in Florida, Xanadu is described as being the world's largest private estate; "Cost: no man can say," according to the newsreel at the beginning of the film. The newsreel directly quotes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem ''Kubla Khan'', which tells of the title character's erection of a "stately pleasure-dome" in the city of Xanadu. The newsreel also states that Kane specifically conceived the estate for Susan Alexander, his second wife. However, Susan grew to hate Xanad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Citizen Kane
''Citizen Kane'' is a 1941 American Drama (film and television), drama film directed by, produced by and starring Orson Welles and co-written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz. It was Welles's List of directorial debuts, first feature film. The film à clef, quasi-biographical film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a composite character based on American Media proprietor, media barons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold Fowler McCormick, Harold McCormick, as well as aspects of the screenwriters' own lives. After the Broadway theatre, Broadway success of Welles's Mercury Theatre and the controversial 1938 radio broadcast "The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama), The War of the Worlds" on ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'', Welles was courted by Hollywood. He signed a contract with RKO Pictures in 1939. Although it was unusual for an untried director, he was given freedom to develop his own ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noah
Noah (; , also Noach) appears as the last of the Antediluvian Patriarchs (Bible), patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5–9), the Quran and Baháʼí literature, Baha'i writings, and extra-canonical, extracanonically. The Genesis flood narrative is among the best-known stories of the Bible. In this account, God "regrets" making mankind because they filled the world with evil. Noah then labors faithfully to build the Noah's Ark, Ark at God's command, ultimately saving not only his own family, but mankind itself and all land animals, from extinction during the Great Flood, Flood. Afterwards, God makes a Covenant (biblical), covenant with Noah and promises never again to destroy the earth with a flood. Noah is also portrayed as a "tiller of the soil" who is the first to cultivate the vine. After the flood, God commands Noah and his sons to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." The sto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oheka Castle
Oheka Castle, also known as the Otto Kahn Estate, is a hotel located on the North Shore (or "Gold Coast") of Long Island, in West Hills, New York, a hamlet in the town of Huntington. It was the country home of investment financier and philanthropist Otto Hermann Kahn and his family. The name "Oheka" is an acronym using the first several letters of each part of its creator's name, Otto Hermann Kahn, which Kahn also used to name his yacht ''Oheka II'' and his oceanfront Villa Oheka in Palm Beach, Florida. The mansion, built by Kahn between 1914 and 1919, is the largest private home in New York, and the second largest in the United States, comprising 127 rooms and over , as originally configured. It is said to be built on the highest point on Long Island. The castle is now a hotel with 32 guest rooms and suites. It is a popular wedding venue for socialites, celebrities and dignitaries, as well as the backdrop to many photo shoots, television series and films. It also offers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Work Of Art
A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature and music, these terms apply principally to tangible, physical forms of visual art: *An example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture. *Objects in the decorative arts or applied arts that have been designed for aesthetic appeal, as well as any functional purpose, such as a piece of jewellery, many ceramics and much folk art. *An object created for principally or entirely functional, religious or other non-aesthetic reasons which has come to be appreciated as art (often later, or by cultural outsiders). *A non-ephemeral photograph or film. *A work of installation art or conceptual art. Used more broadly, the term is less commonly applied to: *A fine work of architecture or landscape design *A production of live performance, such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antiquities
Antiquities are objects from antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean such as the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt, and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures such as Ancient Persia (Iran). Artifacts from earlier periods such as the Mesolithic, and other civilizations from Asia and elsewhere may also be covered by the term. The phenomenon of giving a high value to ancient artifacts is found in other cultures, notably China, where Chinese ritual bronzes, three to two thousand years old, have been avidly collected and imitated for centuries, and the Pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica, where in particular the artifacts of the earliest Olmec civilization are found reburied in significant sites of later cultures up to the Spanish Conquest. A person who studies antiquities, as opposed to just collecting them, is often called an antiquarian. Definition The definition of the term is not always precise, and institutional definitions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mansion
A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word ''mansio'' "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb ''manere'' "to dwell". The English word ''manse'' originally defined a property large enough for the parish priest to maintain himself, but a mansion is usually no longer self-sustaining in this way (compare a Roman or medieval villa). ''Manor house, Manor'' comes from the same root—territorial holdings granted to a lord who would "remain" there. Following the fall of Rome, the practice of building unfortified villas ceased. Today, the oldest inhabited mansions around the world usually began their existence as fortified houses in the Middle Ages. As social conditions slowly changed and stabilized fortifications were able to be reduced, and over the centuries gave way to comfort. It became fashionable and possible for homes to be beautiful rather than grim and forbidding allowing for the development of the modern mansi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castle
A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private fortified house, fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a mansion, palace, and villa, whose main purpose was exclusively for ''pleasance'' and are not primarily fortresses but may be fortified. Use of the term has varied over time and, sometimes, has also been applied to structures such as hill forts and 19th- and 20th-century homes built to resemble castles. Over the Middle Ages, when genuine castles were built, they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain wall (fortification), curtain walls, arrowslits, and portcullises, were commonplace. European-style castles originated in the 9th and 10th centuries after the fall of the Carolingian Empire, which resulted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Menagerie
A menagerie is a collection of captive animals, frequently exotic, kept for display; or the place where such a collection is kept, a precursor to the modern zoo or zoological garden. The term was first used in 17th-century France, referring to the management of household or domestic stock. Later, it came to be used primarily in reference to aristocratic or royal animal collections. The French-language ''Methodical Encyclopaedia'' of 1782 defines a menagerie as an "establishment of luxury and curiosity". Later on, the term referred also to travelling animal collections that exhibited wild animals at fairs across Europe and the Americas. Aristocratic menageries A menagerie was mostly connected with an aristocratic or royal court and was situated within a garden or park of a palace. These aristocrats wanted to illustrate their power and wealth by displaying exotic animals which were uncommon, difficult to acquire, and expensive to maintain in a living and active state. The aris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aquarium
An aquarium (: aquariums or aquaria) is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. fishkeeping, Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aquatic reptiles, such as turtles, and aquatic plants. The term ''aquarium'', coined by English naturalist Philip Henry Gosse, combines the Latin root , meaning 'water', with the suffix , meaning 'a place for relating to'. The aquarium principle was fully developed in 1850 by the chemist Robert Warington, who explained that plants added to water in a container would give off enough oxygen to support animals, so long as the numbers of animals did not grow too large. The aquarium craze was launched in early Victorian era, Victorian England by Gosse, who created and stocked the first public aquarium at the London Zoo in 1853, and published the first manual, ''The Aquarium: An Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep Sea'' in 1854. Small aquariums are k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gondolas
The gondola (, ; , ) is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian lagoon. It is typically propelled by a gondolier, who uses a rowing oar, which is not fastened to the hull, in a sculling manner, and also acts as the rudder. The uniqueness of the gondola includes its being asymmetrical along the length, making the single-oar propulsion more efficient. For centuries, the gondola was a major means of transportation and the most common watercraft within Venice. In modern times, the boats still do have a role in public transport in the city, serving as ''traghetti'' (small ferries) over the Grand Canal operated by two oarsmen. Various types of gondola boats are also used in special regattas (rowing races) held amongst gondoliers. Their primary role today, however, is to carry tourists on rides at fixed rates. There are approximately 400 licensed gondoliers in Venice and a similar number of boats, down from the thousands th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canal
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow under atmospheric pressure, and can be thought of as artificial rivers. In most cases, a canal has a series of dams and locks that create reservoirs of low speed current flow. These reservoirs are referred to as ''slack water levels'', often just called ''levels''. A canal can be called a navigation canal when it parallels a natural river and shares part of the latter's discharges and drainage basin, and leverages its resources by building dams and locks to increase and lengthen its stretches of slack water levels while staying in its valley. A canal can cut across a drainage divide atop a ridge, generally requiring an external water source above the highest elevation. The best-known example of such a canal is the Panama Can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are linked by 438 bridges. The islands are in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay lying between the mouths of the Po River, Po and the Piave River, Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta (river), Brenta and the Sile (river), Sile). As of 2025, 249,466 people resided in greater Venice or the Comune of Venice, of whom about 51,000 live in the historical island city of Venice (''centro storico'') and the rest on the mainland (''terraferma''). Together with the cities of Padua, Italy, Padua and Treviso, Italy, Treviso, Venice is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million. The name is derived from the ancient Adr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
