Henri Rousseau was a french post-impressionist painter that began painting later on in his life. Rousseau studied law after high school, served in the army for 4 years and then spent much of his life working as a toll and tax collector for the Paris customs office.
Painting as a hobby, Rousseau eventually took early retirement to focus all of his time on painting. Having never received any formal artistic instruction, he was self-taught. Many critics took his self-taught, naive style as flat and childish, ridiculing him for it. His paintings were disproportionate and exaggerated, portraying images that made it impossible to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Despite the push back from critics, Rousseau was self-confident and had quite a sense of entitlement in his work.
Surprised!
Carnival Evening
Rousseau’s unique style was very primitive, serving as a driving force for surrealism and other avant-garde artists such as Picasso. Appreciative of Rousseau’s work, Picasso even held a banquet in his honour, showing many of his paintings. He also heavily influenced and got to exhibit with the Fauves. Additionally, Rousseau regularly exhibited at the ‘Salon Des Indépendants’. Despite all this, Rousseau didn’t become well until shortly after his death.
The Sleeping Gypsy
Henri Rousseau is known for his jungle scenes, despite the fact that he never left France and never saw a jungle in his life. His inspiration came from children’s book illustrations, botanical gardens he visited in Paris, as well as from stories he heard from soldiers who went on the French Exhibition to Mexico while serving in the army.
In the early 1900s, there was major competition in the transatlantic passenger trade between the two leading lines in the business: Cunard and White Star. In 1906 and 1907, Cunard completed the construction of the Mauretania & the Lusitania who both set speed records crossing the Atlantic Ocean. In response to this, White Star set out to build 3 large sister ships that would be known for their comfort over their speed: The Olympic, Titanic & Britannic.
The RMS Titanic
The most well known of these is of course the Titanic. After 2 years of construction, the Titanic was finally ready to embark on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York across the Atlantic Ocean. Containing 840 cabins, a swimming pool, turkish baths, a gymnasium and many other extravagant amenities for first class passengers, the Titanic was the most luxurious cruise ship in the world at the time. Second class cabins were comparable to first class on most other similar ships at the time. With 2224 passengers including many wealthy and important people, the Titanic departed from Southampton on April 10th 1912.
The Titanic’s iconic Grand Staircase
The Titanic never made it to New York. Despite at least 6 iceberg warnings throughout the day leading up to the ship’s tragic demise, an iceberg was spotted ahead of the Titanic, directly in its path. Spotted too late to avoid a collision, the engines of the ship were reversed and the boat was turned, but only 30 seconds after the iceberg was noticed, the side of the Titanic scraped alongside it. Having torn a massive gash into the side of the ship, ripping open 6 compartments, there was no way the “unsinkable” ship would survive. The Titanic could only survive 4 flooded compartments.
At 2:20 AM on April 15th, 1912, the Titanic sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, killing over 1500 passengers. Only 31% of people on board survived.
Lifeboats being lowered off the Titanic
A major reason so many people lost their lives when the Titanic sank can be traced back to issues surrounding lifeboats. Firstly, the Titanic was equipped to carry a total of 64 lifeboats, but the decision was made to only carry 20 onboard in order to not clutter the decks. This was above the legal requirements. Additionally, a lifeboat drill the day before had been cancelled, so the crew was not sure if the ship’s davits could handle filled lifeboats. They could. Because of this combined with confusion around the ‘women and children first’ rule, as well as an overall disorganized and haphazard evacuation, most lifeboats were launched with fewer than half their capacities.
Although the SS Californian was very close to the Titanic when it sank, they did not respond to distress flares and decided to ignore them. They had turned off their wireless for the night and could not be reached. Had they responded, many of the lives lost could have been saved. The RMS Carpathia came to the surviving passenger’s rescue. Nearly 2 hours after the Titanic sank, the ship arrived to save a little over 700 passengers that made it into lifeboats.
Essentially all motion picture depicts the illusion of motion by displaying multiple pictures that appear in rapid succession.
The foundation of motion picture technology can be brought back to Eadweard Muybridge’s zoetrope & zoogyroscope, which both showed the illusion of a horse in motion by spinning multiple pictures. These pictures were taken by setting up multiple cameras that would be triggered one after the other in rapid succession by a tripwire set off by the horse running by.
Kinetograph & Kinetoscope
Working in Thomas Edison’s lab, William K. L. Dickson developed a tool that would allow multiple pictures to be taken in rapid succession without needing multiple cameras; the kinetograph. The kinetograph used rapid intermittent (stop & go) film movement to take motion pictures.
To show the movies shot on the kinetograph, they also developed the kinetoscope. The kinetoscope was an early motion picture exhibition device that allowed one viewer at a time to watch the movie through a peephole at the top of the device.
Kinetoscopes were quite successful and many ‘kinetoscope parlours’ opened all over America. Kinetoscope parlours were a place people could go to view the short films. These could almost be considered the very first precursor to movie theatres.
Left: a man watching a film through the peephole of a kinetoscope Right: the inner workings of the kinetoscope
As much as the kinetograph/kinetoscope was revolutionary in the history of film, it had quite a few drawbacks. Firstly, it was too big and heavy to move, so everything had to be shot inside a studio. Second, it required a huge amount of light, which limited the time of day to shoot. Editing was not possible, so every movie was one take. Finally, only one person was able to view the films at a time, which meant people often had to wait in line a while to view the film.
The Lumière Brothers & The Cinématographe
The next development in motion pictures was developed by Auguste and Louis Lumière. The cinématographe, meaning “writing with movement,” was able to make and project motion picture. The cinématographe was better than the kinetograph in multiple ways: it was compact and light enough to carry, required no electricity, and most importantly, projected film.
On December 28th, 1895, The Lumière Brothers had a screening of 10 short films in Paris. This event was a hit and popularized cinema. The genre of movies the brothers produced was named “actualités” which means ‘commonplace occurrences’. Films of people leaving a factory or off-boarding a train, a baby having lunch, etc.
“Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat” showed on December 28th, 1895 at the Lumière Brother film screening in Paris.
Although nowadays we would get bored quite quickly with this genre, these films of everyday occurrences were very successful at the time. The novelty eventually wore off and people wanted to see more. This is when storylines had to come into motion pictures.
George Méliès
George Méliès was a magician by trade who made paramount developments in film editing and effects. His movies are considered to be the first to contain stories as well as science fiction. He came up with multiple editing techniques known as ‘in-camera effects’ including double exposure, split-screen, and matting. His most successful and well known to this day film was “A Trip To The Moon” which ran a whopping 14 minutes long (a long movie for the time).
The Confederation in 1867 marked the formation of Canada as a country. Consisting only of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec until 1870 when Manitoba joined. In 1871, British Columbia also joined the country, but with the condition that a transcontinental railway be built within 10 years.
Despite some controversy surrounding the government at the beginning leading to major delays in construction, in 1880 a group of Scottish Canadian businessmen formed a viable syndicate to get the construction started, and the CPR railway company was officially founded in 1881.
That same year, construction began in various locations that would eventually meet up along the railway. Since there was such a delay in beginning construction, they had to show BC that the railway was coming so that they would not leave the country, so they started construction in Port Moody heading east along the Fraser Canyon towards the Rockies. The Fraser Canyon was treacherous and incredibly dangerous for the railway workers. Many workers lost their lives along the way. Meanwhile, construction in the prairies went smoothly and seamlessly because of the easy flat terrain, regularly beating records for number of miles built in one day.
Donald A. Smith driving the last spike and completing the CP railway.
Finally, on November 7th, 1885, the last spike was driven, combining the eastern and western parts of the railway in Craigellachie, BC. This marked the official completion of the CP railway. In July of 1886, the first passenger train arrived in Port Moody from Montreal. The railway was incredibly important in the settlement and population of western Canada. CP sold many plots of cheap land and went to great measures to get people from eastern Canada and Europe to move.
Injustices
It is simply a question of alternatives: Either you must have this (Chinese) labour or you can’t have the railway.
Prime Minister John A. MacDonald
Chinese Railway Labourers
There were unfortunately many injustices surrounding the construction of the railway that have only much more recently come into the light and been acknowledged. Much of the railway that goes through British Columbia was built by illegally imported Chinese labourers. Approximately 15,000 men were brought to work on the construction of the railway, over 600 of which died from various causes including the dangerous working conditions they were subjected to, drowning, disease, and much more. Chinese workers were paid on average $1/day (not including food or gear), while caucasian workers were paid on average $2-2.50/day including food and accommodations. Additionally, Chinese workers were assigned the most difficult and most dangerous work. It is also important to note that most of the railway was built on stolen indigenous land.
When we first decided on the topic of braille for survey 4, I was excited to research and make a zine for it. As I started researching and brainstorming what I was going to do, I found it was quite difficult. The only thing I was sure of was that I wanted to incorporate braille into the zine in some way, but I obviously couldn’t make the whole zine in braille. I ended up only incorporating braille into the front and back covers of the zine. It was challenging to think of ways to incorporate images into the pages as to not have a zine that was exclusively filled with text.
Grade
In the end, I would give myself an 8/10 on this project. Throughout the project, I really wasn’t liking where it was going and really struggled to get the pages to a point I was satisfied with. Now looking at the whole thing together, I am actually quite happy with how it came together. There are just a few parts I would have liked to touch up and clean up a little bit.
John William Waterhouse, nicknamed “Nino,” was born in Rome to two parents who were also painters. Growing up, Waterhouse was encouraged to draw, without a doubt having an influence on his eventual career.
Waterhouse attended the Royal Academy of Art in London, where he later held regular exhibitions of his art. Initially studying sculpture, he soon completely abandoned that direction and moved to paint.
The Lady of Shalott
Tristan and Isolde
Although he came a little bit too late to be considered a part of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, his style is very close to it. He is often associated with them because of their shared interest and inspiration from literary subjects such as Homer, Ovid, Shakespeare, Tennyson & Keats.
As well as being inspired by literary subjects, he also depicted many women from greek mythology and Arthurian legend. Waterhouse painted a lot of women, many of them about to die in or near water. The dramatic beautiful women he painted often included damsels in distress, enchantresses and the “femme fatale.”
Miranda
I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Said The Lady of Shalott
John William Waterhouse had a good reputation among fellow artists, art critics, and the general public during his lifetime, although he fell out of popularity around the beginning of the 20th century along with other artists of similar style.
I really like Waterhouse’s work. His paintings are absolutely beautiful and the richness and vibrancy of the colours he chose are really enjoyable to look at.
A book written in Valentin Haüy’s writing system for the blind.
Blind literacy has always been a problem, but it used to be a much bigger issue than it is today. At the beginning of the 19th century, the only reading option for the blind was a system invented by Valentin Haüy, founder of the Royal Institute for Blind Youth (Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles) in Paris. Haüy’s system consisted of embossed versions of normal letters. Although the idea of embossing letters was an important development in blind literacy at the time, it was difficult to read and made it practically impossible for the blind to write. It was said to be “talking to the fingers with the language of the eyes.”
Night Writing
A part of Napoleon’s army, Charles Barbier witnessed many soldiers killed when trying to read maps and letters at night, being exposed by the lights they were using to see. In an attempt to create a way for soldiers to read at night without light, he invented night writing. Night writing was a 12 dot system of raised dots that could be read by the fingers.
When presented with Barbier’s night writing system, the government was not interested in using it for the military. Convinced that it was a good idea and could be used elsewhere, he brought his system to the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, where Louis Braille happened to be a student.
Royal Institute for Blind Youth (Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles) Paris, France
Louis Braille
Louis Braille
Louis Braille tragically lost his sight in an accident when he was 3 years old. Playing in his father’s leather workshop, an awl slipped from his grip and landed in his eye. Despite the best medical care available at the time, the infection eventually spread to his other eye and left him completely blind.
A very good student and intelligent boy, Braille was offered a scholarship to study at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris. While he was a student there, Charles Barbier visited and shared his night writing system with the school. Braille saw potential in what Barbier presented and decided to work to improve it. He identified a few issues with the night writing system; the absence of punctuation or numbers, the 12 dot cells were too large to be read with a single touch, and the phonetic nature of the system left little room for orthography.
Louis Braille finished refining Barbier’s night writing system at the age of 15, later publishing books on how to use his system as well as a few revisions of the system. Braille’s system contained 6 dots instead of 12, making it small enough to be read with the single touch of a finger. Braille and his peers used the Braille writing system during his time at the institute. He continued to teach it at the school when he got older, but the system was not officially adopted by the school until 2 years after his death.
Caspar David Friedrich was a german romantic painter. He first studied at the University of Greifswald in Germany, where the art department is now named the Caspar David Friedrich Institut, in his honour. He went on to study at the Academy of Copenhagen, before settling in Dresden for the remainder of his lifetime.
Friedrich was elected a member of the Berlin Academy after two pieces of his were purchased by the Prussian Crown Prince, helping him more known. His altarpiece “Cross In the Mountains” also helped his name spread, but not for the best reasons. It was the first landscape in Christian art and was heavily critiqued because of that. In 1805, Friedrich won a prize, helping establish his reputation.
Fog
The Cemetery Entrance
He was decently popular in his early career, but his reputation, unfortunately, declined over the last 15 years of his life, leaving him to die in obscurity. Romanticism went out of style, and Friedrich’s work was too original and personal to be understood by the public. Living in poverty and relative isolation near the end of his life, symbols of death began to appear in his paintings. Around this time, he was described by friends as “the most solitary of the solitary.”
He came back into the light at the beginning of the 20th century, over half a century after his death, when 32 of his pieces were featured in an exhibition in Berlin. This modern revival died out and he lost popularity once again post-war after the nazi party used his work to promote their ideologies. Friedrich later came back into acknowledgement around the 1970s.
Twilight at The Seaside
Landscapes were Caspar David Friedrich’s specialty. Contemplative, emotional silhouettes, night skies, morning mists, barren trees and gothic ruins were all commonly found in his paintings. The gloominess can easily be attributed to Friedrich’s state of mind. Being familiar with death from an early age, losing his mother at the age of 7 as well as two sisters soon after. This most impactful loss in life though was surely his brothers, whom he witnessed fall through the ice of a frozen lake and drown. He was once described to be “surrounded by a thick, gloomy cloud of spiritual uncertainty.”
Wanderer Above The Sea of Fog
I personally really like Friedrich. His pieces evoke a lot of emotion, which I really appreciate, but I also really like and relate to him as a person. One of the reasons he fell out of popularity in his lifetime is said to have been because he was “too eccentric, melancholic and out of touch with the times,” which describes how I often feel myself.
Baroque architecture is directly linked to the counter-reformation; the movement of the Catholic Church to fight against the reformation. The architecture of the time was meant to serve as a visible statement of the wealth and power of the Church. Unique for its exploration of form, light and dark, and dramatic intensity, baroque architecture incredibly detailed and grandiose, often including massive gardens, plazas and courtyards.
Italy
Santa Susanna
Baroque architecture began in Rome before making its way throughout Europe. Many Italian architects of the time are known for their work in baroque architecture.
The first example of Italian baroque architecture is Carlo Maderno’s Santa Susanna. Like most early baroque architecture, Santa Susanna is a catholic church located in Rome. Carlo Maderno was hired to remodel the facade of the building, as the church already existed long before the baroque period.
Santi Luca e Martina
Another great example of baroque architecture in Italy is Santi Luca e Martina. Originally a simple rectangular structure, it was renovated in the baroque period by Pietro Da Cortona.
The grandiosity of Baroque architecture didn’t stop at the outside facades. The interiors were even grander. On the inside, massive open spaces with walls and ceilings adorned in intricate paintings and filled with incredible sculptures.
Inside of San Marcello al Corso
France
French Baroque architecture is marked by large curved forms, twisted columns, high domes, and complicated shapes. It was often considered to be more restrained than the architecture found throughout the rest of Europe at the time.
The greatest and most well-known example of Baroque architecture in France is the palace of Versailles. The palace is also the greatest example of secular Baroque architecture. It was designed for Louis XIV by Louis Le Vau and was meant to glorify France as well as show the power and greatness of the King. The palace of Versailles is massive: 700 rooms and 2,000 acres of gardens, all filled with lavish decorations.
When I was initially assigned an artifact for survey 1, I was quite intimidated by having to find something I could make based on science in prehistory. There is very little we know about that time period due to the lack of ability to record anything before writing was fully developed.
We chose pottery as our research topic because I knew that that way I would have a concrete object I could make and could envision that being doable. I’ve made pottery on a wheel before, but I wanted to try my hand at the technique they would have used in the beginnings of pottery: coiling. Making the pot ended up being a lot harder and taking much longer than I had anticipated. but I’m happy with how it turned out.
As for the text accompanying my artifact, I had a lot of clay leftover, so I thought I could write the text in clay to keep the spread consistent. I didn’t really want to just type out the text on a white background like some of the spreads I found in the previous year’s history books.
I took both the pictures in the same place to keep the setting and lighting consistent.
Grade
I would give myself a 9/10 on this assignment. I’m really happy with how it all came together overall. I do think it would have looked even better to have a little bit of detail on the pot to go along with the decoration I put around the text, but by the time I thought of that the pot was long dry.
