Pigments were created by different things in the old days. Stones, bugs, chemicals were all made to make their various colours for vibrant paintings. Red pigments were created from cinnabar which was highly toxic and used to the make the first of the bright and permanent hues used, and stayed very expensive until the 1300s, when a synthetic version was created. Purple was created with pigmented purple calcium fluorite called antonzonite and lead white to a brighter purple colour. Finally in 12th century, Ultramarine was made from lapis lazuli, bright pigmented that the lazuline blue.
I chose to do pigments from the Gothic and Early Renaissance period because the paints were all so bright and colourful. I would grade myself a 5/10 as I couldn’t do anything on time, and probably didn’t even do this part properly.
Steam engines, steam engines. If you google steam powered or steam machines, you get two things, Steam, the platform and application where you can download games from, and steam engines. But there was more to steam powered machines than just the steam engines that powered them during the industrial revolution of 1750 to 1850.
Early 1800s depiction of a steam engine
At first steam engines were created to pump water and coal out of deeper mines, then steam engines were rapidly improved on, causing them to be used more and more. They were used to power boats, textile mills, and other types of heavy industries. Steam engines were also utilized later to power boats, trains and even vehicles.
Steam boats were used as a mode of transportation, for people as well as goods. They were made out of timber usually and had a paddlewheel at the rear or sides, powered by a steam engine to move. The steam to run the engine was created from steam from boilers which had roaring fires to fuel them, first with wood and later on coal to stoke the fires high enough to create steam.
Steam engines weren’t always used only as part of the mundane transportation system, they were also used to power steam warships. The British navy had utilized them, and would ponder on and on if they should stop using the steam boats, as they were underpowered and couldn’t really be overloaded with guns and ammunition. But they could be used as control ships or block ships, where the ship is sank on purpose to block the enemy from passing.
Steam powered locomotives are the most iconic form of use of the steam engine, along with the creation of rails, it had easily become a used by many and affected the industry and social life. The rails were originally implemented as a new way to transport coal, but the way they were used was nothing more than a horse drawn cart on rails before steam powered locomotives were created by George Stephenson, who ditched the idea of horse powered energy and steam to knock down the monopoly the canal workers had. The trains had large impacts on farmers, who could now transport easily perishable foods long distance, and new employment was created in construction and running the trains, including the drivers and coal workers.
Works cited Leggett, Don. Shaping the Royal Navy : Engineering, Authority and the Ship in the Long Nineteenth Century. Manchester University Press, 2015. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1504606&site=eds-live&scope=site. Wilde, Robert. “How the Railways Burst Into Life During the Industrial Revolution.” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 28 May 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/railways-in-the-industrial-revolution-1221650. “The Industrial Revolution.” The British Library, The British Library, 27 Apr. 2015, https://www.bl.uk/georgian-britain/articles/the-industrial-revolution.
Giovanni Bellini was known for his different approach in colours. He was noticed when he had painted over the altar in “the little church of San Zaccaria in Venice” in 1505 on his old age. It wasn’t that his colours were bright and vibrant, but had a mellowness and richness that impressed the viewer before even looking at what it the picture represented. Such as with the San Zaccaria alterpiece, where as the colours aren’t bright, but they still feel like they are full of a sort of glory. Bellini was able to breathe life into his paintings with simple symmetry and keep their original grace and dignity. Giovanni Bellini was able to make use of colour schemes to unify his pictures. Such as in the piece, called “St. Jerome in the Desert”. He used an earthy colour for most of the piece, including the background in which he used a darker, mellow green for the rolling hills, the sky is simple and a light and pale blue and doesn’t interfere with the foreground and enhances everything else in the painting. He used a clean white for St. Jerome’s white clothes to make him pop from the rest of the painting, using the same pure white for the pages of the bible to make him look even more saintly. Giovanni Bellini was able to make use of colour schemes to unify his pictures. In “Madona del Prato” he was able to use a triangle to create symmetry between the sections of the painting. The way he positioned the virgin Mary into a triangle puts her in a stable shape. Her colours are not too bright but brighter than the background, causing the eye to shift towards her, as well as how Jesus in her lap is the same colour as the building in the background yet has a brighter look to him combined with Mary’s deep blues and cooler tones.
