Distinct from, but related to, the style of literature, symbolism of art is related to the gothic component of Romanticism.
The symbolist poets have a more complex relationship with Parnassianism, a French literary style that immediately preceded it. While being influenced by hermeticism, allowing freer versification, and rejecting Parnassian clarity and objectivity, it retained Parnassianism's love of word play and concern for the musical qualities of verse. The symbolists continued to admire Théophile Gautier's motto of "art for art's sake", and retained — and modified — Parnassianism's mood of ironic detachment. Many symbolist poets, including Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine, published early works in ''Le Parnasse contemporain'', the poetry anthologies that gave Parnassianism its name. But Arthur Rimbaud publicly mocked prominent Parnassians, and published scatological parodies of some of their main authors, including François Coppée — misattributed to Coppée himself — in ''L'Album zutique''.
:''Ainsi, dans cet art, les tableaux de la nature, les actions des humains, tous les phénomènes concrets ne sauraient se manifester eux-mêmes ; ce sont là des apparences sensibles destinées à représenter leurs affinités ésotériques avec des Idées primordiales.''
::(In this art, scenes from nature, human activities, and all other real world phenomena will not be described for their own sake; here, they are perceptible surfaces created to represent their esoteric affinities with the primordial Ideals.)
:''Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,— Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,Ayant l'expansion des choses infinies,Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens,Qui chantent les transports de l'esprit et des sens.'' ::
(There are perfumes that are fresh like children's flesh, sweet like oboes, green like meadows — And others, corrupt, rich, and triumphant, having the expansiveness of infinite things, like amber, musc, benzoin, and incense, which sing of the raptures of the soul and senses.)
and Rimbaud's poem ''Voyelles'':
:''A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu : voyelles. . .'' ::(A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels. . .)
— both poets seek to identify one sense experience with another. The earlier Romanticism of poetry used symbols, but these symbols were unique and privileged objects. The symbolists were more extreme, investing all things, even vowels and perfumes, with potential symbolic value. "The physical universe, then, is a kind of language that invites a privileged spectator to decipher it, although this does not yield a single message so much as a superior network of associations." Symbolist symbols are not allegories, intended to represent; they are instead intended to evoke particular states of mind. The nominal subject of Mallarmé's "Le cygne" ("The Swan") is of a swan trapped in a frozen lake. Significantly, in French, ''cygne'' is a homophone of ''signe'', a sign. The overall effect is of overwhelming whiteness; and the presentation of the narrative elements of the description is quite indirect:
:''Le vierge, le vivace, et le bel aujourd’huiVa-t-il nous déchirer avec un coup d’aile ivreCe lac dur oublié que hante sous le givreLe transparent glacier des vols qui n’ont pas fui!Un cygne d’autrefois se souvient que c’est luiMagnifique mais qui sans espoir se délivre...'' ::("The virgin, lively, and beautiful today - will it tear for us this hard forgotten lake that lurks beneath the frost, the transparent glacier of flights not taken with a blow from a drunken wing? A swan of long ago remembers that it is he, magnificent but without hope, who breaks free...")
Verlaine argued that in their individual and very different ways, each of these hitherto neglected poets found genius a curse; it isolated them from their contemporaries, and as a result these poets were not at all concerned to avoid hermeticism and idiosyncratic writing styles. They were also portrayed as at odds with society, having tragic lives, and often given to self-destructive tendencies. These traits were not hindrances but consequences of their literary gifts. Verlaine's concept of the ''poète maudit'' in turn borrows from Baudelaire, who opened his collection ''Les fleurs du mal'' with the poem ''Bénédiction'', which describes a poet whose internal serenity remains undisturbed by the contempt of the people surrounding him.
In this conception of genius and the role of the poet, Verlaine referred indirectly to the aesthetics of Arthur Schopenhauer, the philosopher of pessimism, who indicated that the purpose of art was to provide a temporary refuge from the world of strife of the will.
::". . . the hard-souled man,Wallowing in happiness, where only his appetitesFeed, and who insists on seeking out this filthTo offer to the wife suckling his children,"
and in contrast, he "turns his back on life" (''tourne l’épaule à la vie'') and he exclaims:
:''Je me mire et me vois ange! Et je meurs, et j'aime— Que la vitre soit l'art, soit la mysticité —A renaître, portant mon rêve en diadème,Au ciel antérieur où fleurit la Beauté!''
::"I marvel at myself, I seem an angel! and I die, and I love --- Whether the glass might be art, or mysticism --- To be reborn, bearing my dream as a diadem,Under that former sky where Beauty once flourished!"
Jean Moréas' manifesto was largely a response to this polemic. By the late 1880s, the terms "symbolism" and "decadence" were understood to be almost synonymous. Though the aesthetics of the styles can be considered similar in some ways, the two remain distinct. The symbolists were those artists who emphasized dreams and ideals; the Decadents cultivated ''précieux'', ornamented, or hermetic styles, and morbid subject matters. The subject of the decadence of the Roman Empire was a frequent source of literary images and appears in the works of many poets of the period, regardless of which name they chose for their style, as in Verlaine's "''Langueur''":
:''Je suis l'Empire à la fin de la Décadence,Qui regarde passer les grands Barbares blancsEn composant des acrostiches indolentsD'un style d'or où la langueur du soleil danse.'' ::("I am the Empire at the end of the decadence, who watches the large, white barbarians passing, while composing lazy acrostic poems in a gilded style in which the languor of the sun dances.")
Rémy de Gourmont and Félix Fénéon were literary critics associated with symbolism. The symbolist and decadent literary styles were satirized by a book of poetry named ''Les Déliquescences d'Adoré Floupette'', published during 1885 by Henri Beauclair and Gabriel Vicaire.
The style was largely inaugurated by Nikolai Minsky's article ''The Ancient Debate'' (1884) and Dmitry Merezhkovsky's book ''On the Causes of the Decline and on the New Trends in Contemporary Russian Literature'' (1892). Both writers promoted extreme individualism and the act of creation. Merezhkovsky was known for his poetry as well as a series of novels on ''god-men,'' among whom he counted Christ, Joan of Arc, Dante, Leonardo da Vinci, Napoleon, and (later) Hitler. His wife, Zinaida Gippius, also a major poet of early symbolism, opened a salon in St Petersburg, which came to be known as the "headquarters of Russian decadence."
There were several rather dissimilar groups of Symbolist painters and visual artists, which included Gustave Moreau, Gustav Klimt, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, Odilon Redon, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Henri Fantin-Latour, Gaston Bussière (painter), Edvard Munch, Félicien Rops, and Jan Toorop. Symbolism in painting was even more widespread geographically than symbolism of poetry, affecting Mikhail Vrubel, Nicholas Roerich, Victor Borisov-Musatov, Martiros Saryan, Mikhail Nesterov, Leon Bakst, Elena Gorokhova in Russia, as well as Frida Kahlo in Mexico, Elihu Vedder, Remedios Varo, Morris Graves and David Chetlahe Paladin in the United States. Auguste Rodin is sometimes considered a symbolist sculptor.
The symbolist painters used mythological and dream imagery. The symbols used by symbolism are not the familiar emblems of mainstream iconography but intensely personal, private, obscure and ambiguous references. More a philosophy than an actual style of art, symbolism of painting influenced the contemporary Art Nouveau style and Les Nabis.
The symbolist aesthetic affected the works of Claude Debussy. His choices of ''libretti'', texts, and themes come almost exclusively from the symbolist canon. Compositions such as his settings of ''Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire'', various art songs on poems by Verlaine, the opera ''Pelléas et Mélisande'' with a libretto by Maurice Maeterlinck, and his unfinished sketches that illustrate two Poe stories, ''The Devil in the Belfry'' and ''The Fall of the House of Usher'', all indicate that Debussy was profoundly influenced by symbolist themes and tastes. His best known work, the ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'', was inspired by Mallarmé's poem, ''L'après-midi d'un faune''.
The symbolist aesthetic also influenced Aleksandr Scriabin's compositions. Arnold Schoenberg's ''Pierrot Lunaire'' takes its text from German translations of the symbolist poems by Albert Giraud, showing an association between German expressionism and symbolism. Richard Strauss's 1905 opera ''Salomé'', based on the play by Oscar Wilde, uses a subject frequently depicted by symbolist artists.
Paul Adam was the most prolific and most representative author of symbolist novels. ''Les Demoiselles Goubert'' (1886), co-written with Jean Moréas, is an important transitional work between naturalism and symbolism. Few symbolists used this form. One exception was Gustave Kahn, who published ''Le Roi fou'' during 1896. During 1892, Georges Rodenbach wrote the short novel ''Bruges-la-morte'', set in the Flemish town of Bruges, which Rodenbach described as a dying, mediæval city of mourning and quiet contemplation: in a typically symbolist juxtaposition, the dead city contrasts with the diabolical re-awakening of sexual desire. The cynical, misanthropic, misogynistic fiction of Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly is sometimes considered symbolist, as well. Gabriele d'Annunzio wrote his first novels in the symbolist manner.
Maurice Maeterlinck, also a symbolist playwright, wrote ''The Blind'' (1890), ''The Intruder'' (1890), ''Interior'' (1891), ''Pelléas and Mélisande'' (1892), and ''The Blue Bird'' (1908).
The later works of the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov have been identified as being much influenced by symbolist pessimism. Both Constantin Stanislavski and Vsevolod Meyerhold experimented with symbolist modes of staging in their theatrical endeavors.
Drama by symbolist authors formed an important part of the repertoire of the ''Théâtre de l'Œuvre'' and the ''Théâtre des Arts''.
Edmund Wilson's 1931 study ''Axel's Castle'' focuses on the continuity with symbolism and several important writers of the early twentieth century, with a particular emphasis on Yeats, Eliot, Paul Valéry, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein. Wilson concluded that the symbolists represented a dreaming retreat into
:''things that are dying—the whole belle-lettristic tradition of Renaissance culture perhaps, compelled to specialize more and more, more and more driven in on itself, as industrialism and democratic education have come to press it closer and closer.''
After the beginning of the 20th century, symbolism had a major effect on Russian poetry even as it became less popular in France. Russian symbolism, steeped in the Eastern Orthodoxy and the religious doctrines of Vladimir Solovyov, had little in common with the French style of the same name. It began the careers of several major poets such as Alexander Blok, Andrei Bely, and Marina Tsvetaeva. Bely's novel ''Petersburg'' (1912) is considered the greatest example of Russian symbolist prose.
In Romania, symbolists directly influenced by French poetry first gained influence during the 1880s, when Alexandru Macedonski reunited a group of young poets associated with his magazine ''Literatorul''. Polemicizing with the established ''Junimea'' and overshadowed by the influence of Mihai Eminescu, Romanian symbolism was recovered as an inspiration during and after the 1910s, when it was exampled by the works of Tudor Arghezi, Ion Minulescu, George Bacovia, Mateiu Caragiale, Tristan Tzara and Tudor Vianu, and praised by the modernist magazine ''Sburătorul''.
The symbolist painters were an important influence on expressionism and surrealism in painting, two movements which descend directly from symbolism proper. The harlequins, paupers, and clowns of Pablo Picasso's "Blue Period" show the influence of symbolism, and especially of Puvis de Chavannes. In Belgium, symbolism became so popular that it came to be thought of as a national style: the static strangeness of painters like René Magritte can be considered as a direct continuation of symbolism. The work of some symbolist visual artists, such as Jan Toorop, directly effected the curvilinear forms of art nouveau.
Many early motion pictures also employ symbolist visual imagery and themes in their staging, set designs, and imagery. The movies of German expressionism owe a great deal to symbolist imagery. The virginal "good girls" seen in the cinema of D. W. Griffith, and the silent movie "bad girls" portrayed by Theda Bara, both show the continuing influence of symbolism, as do the Babylonian scenes from Griffith's ''Intolerance''. Symbolist imagery lived on longest in horror film: as late as 1932, Carl Theodor Dreyer's ''Vampyr'' showed the obvious influence of symbolist imagery; parts of the movie resemble ''tableau vivant'' re-creations of the early paintings of Edvard Munch.
Category:Literary movements Category:Modern art Category:Modernism *Symbolism *Symbolism Category:Fantastic art Category:French poetry Category:Art movements Category:19th-century theatre
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bgcolour | #EEDD82 |
---|---|
name | Leonardo da Vinci |
birth name | Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci |
birth date | April 15, 1452 |
birth place | Vinci, Italy, near Florence |
death date | May 02, 1519 |
death place | Amboise, France |
nationality | Italian |
field | Many and diverse fields of arts and sciences |
movement | High Renaissance |
works | ''Mona Lisa'', ''The Last Supper'', ''The Vitruvian Man'' |
signature | Da Vinci Signature.svg }} |
Born out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, at Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice and spent his last years in France, at the home awarded him by Francis I.
Leonardo was and is renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the ''Mona Lisa'' is the most famous and most parodied portrait and ''The Last Supper'' the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo's ''Creation of Adam''. Leonardo's drawing of the ''Vitruvian Man'' is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination. Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.
Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull and outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. He made important discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science.
Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, "at the third hour of the night" in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley of the Arno River in the territory of the Medici-ruled Republic of Florence. He was the out-of-wedlock son of the wealthy Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine legal notary, and Caterina, a peasant. Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense, “da Vinci” simply meaning “of Vinci”: his full birth name was "Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci", meaning "Leonardo, (son) of (Mes)ser Piero from Vinci". The inclusion of the title "ser" indicated that Leonardo's father was a gentleman.
Little is known about Leonardo's early life. He spent his first five years in the hamlet of Anchiano in the home of his mother, then from 1457 lived in the household of his father, grandparents and uncle, Francesco, in the small town of Vinci. His father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera, who loved Leonardo but died young. When Leonardo was sixteen his father married again, to twenty-year-old Francesca Lanfredini. It was not until his third and fourth marriages that Ser Piero produced legitimate heirs.
Leonardo received an informal education in Latin, geometry and mathematics. In later life, Leonardo only recorded two childhood incidents. One, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face. The second occurred while exploring in the mountains. He discovered a cave and was both terrified that some great monster might lurk there, and driven by curiosity to find out what was inside.
Leonardo's early life has been the subject of historical conjecture. Vasari, the 16th-century biographer of Renaissance painters tells of how a local peasant made himself a round shield and requested that Ser Piero have it painted for him. Leonardo responded with a painting of a monster spitting fire which was so terrifying that Ser Piero sold it to a Florentine art dealer, who sold it to the Duke of Milan. Meanwhile, having made a profit, Ser Piero bought a shield decorated with a heart pierced by an arrow, which he gave to the peasant.
Much of the painted production of Verrocchio's workshop was done by his employees. According to Vasari, Leonardo collaborated with Verrocchio on his ''Baptism of Christ'', painting the young angel holding Jesus' robe in a manner that was so far superior to his master's that Verrocchio put down his brush and never painted again. On close examination, the painting reveals much that has been painted or touched up over the tempera using the new technique of oil paint, with the landscape, the rocks that can be seen through the brown mountain stream and much of the figure of Jesus bearing witness to the hand of Leonardo. Leonardo himself may have been the model for two existent works by Verrocchio: the bronze statue of ''David'' in the Bargello, and the Archangel Raphael in ''Tobias and the Angel''.
By 1472, at the age of twenty, Leonardo qualified as a master in the Guild of St Luke, the guild of artists and doctors of medicine, but even after his father set him up in his own workshop, his attachment to Verrocchio was such that he continued to collaborate with him. Leonardo's earliest known dated work is a drawing in pen and ink of the Arno valley, drawn on August 5, 1473.
Florentine court records of 1476 show that Leonardo and three other young men were charged with sodomy, and acquitted. From that date until 1478 there is no record of his work or even of his whereabouts. In 1478 he left Verroccio's studio and was no longer resident at his father's house. One writer, the "Anonimo" Gaddiano claims that in 1480 he was living with the Medici and working in the Garden of the Piazza San Marco in Florence, a Neo-Platonic academy of artists, poets and philosophers that the Medici had established. In January 1478 he received his first independent commission, to paint an altarpiece in 1478 for the Chapel of St Bernard in the Palazzo Vecchio and ''The Adoration of the Magi'' in March 1481 for the Monks of San Donato a Scopeto. Neither important commission was completed, the second being interrupted when Leonardo went to Milan.
In 1482 Leonardo, who according to Vasari was a most talented musician, created a silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head. Lorenzo de' Medici sent Leonardo, bearing the lyre as a gift, to Milan, to secure peace with Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan. At this time Leonardo wrote an often-quoted letter to Ludovico, describing the many marvellous and diverse things that he could achieve in the field of engineering and informing the Lord that he could also paint.
Leonardo worked in Milan from 1482 until 1499. He was commissioned to paint the ''Virgin of the Rocks'' for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, and ''The Last Supper'' for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Between 1493 and 1495 Leonardo listed a woman called Caterina among his dependents in his taxation documents. When she died in 1495, the list of funeral expenditures suggests that she was his mother.
Leonardo was employed on many different projects for Ludovico, including the preparation of floats and pageants for special occasions, designs for a dome for Milan Cathedral and a model for a huge equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, Ludovico's predecessor. Seventy tons of bronze were set aside for casting it. The monument remained unfinished for several years, which was not unusual for Leonardo. In 1492 the clay model of the horse was completed. It surpassed in size the only two large equestrian statues of the Renaissance, Donatello's statue of Gattemelata in Padua and Verrocchio's Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice, and became known as the "Gran Cavallo". Leonardo began making detailed plans for its casting, however, Michelangelo rudely implied that Leonardo was unable to cast it. In November 1494 Ludovico gave the bronze to be used for cannons to defend the city from invasion by Charles VIII.
At the start of the Second Italian War in 1499, the invading French troops used the life-size clay model for the "Gran Cavallo" for target practice. With Ludovico Sforza overthrown, Leonardo, with his assistant Salai and friend, the mathematician Luca Pacioli, fled Milan for Venice, where he was employed as a military architect and engineer, devising methods to defend the city from naval attack. On his return to Florence in 1500, he and his household were guests of the Servite monks at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata and were provided with a workshop where, according to Vasari, Leonardo created the cartoon of ''The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist'', a work that won such admiration that "men and women, young and old" flocked to see it "as if they were attending a great festival".|group="nb"}}
In Cesena, in 1502 Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer and travelling throughout Italy with his patron. Leonardo created a map of Cesare Borgia's stronghold, a town plan of Imola in order to win his patronage. Maps were extremely rare at the time and it would have seemed like a new concept; upon seeing it, Cesare hired Leonardo as his chief military engineer and architect. Later in the year, Leonardo produced another map for his patron, one of Chiana Valley, Tuscany so as to give his patron a better overlay of the land and greater strategic position. He created this map in conjunction with his other project of constructing a dam from the sea to Florence in order to allow a supply of water to sustain the canal during all seasons.
Leonardo returned to Florence where he rejoined the Guild of St Luke on October 18, 1503, and spent two years designing and painting a great mural of ''The Battle of Anghiari'' for the Signoria, with Michelangelo designing its companion piece, ''The Battle of Cascina''. Leonardo's painting is only known from preparatory sketches and several copies of the centre section, of which the best known, and probably least accurate is by Peter Paul Rubens.|group="nb"}} In Florence in 1504, he was part of a committee formed to relocate, against the artist's will, Michelangelo's statue of David.
In 1506 Leonardo returned to Milan. Many of his most prominent pupils or followers in painting either knew or worked with him in Milan, including Bernardino Luini, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio and Marco D'Oggione. However, he did not stay in Milan for long because his father had died in 1504, and in 1507 he was back in Florence trying to sort out problems with his brothers over his father's estate. By 1508 Leonardo was back in Milan, living in his own house in Porta Orientale in the parish of Santa Babila.
Leonardo died at Clos Lucé, on May 2, 1519. Francis I had become a close friend. Vasari records that the King held Leonardo's head in his arms as he died, although this story, beloved by the French and portrayed in romantic paintings by Ingres, Ménageot and other French artists, as well as by Angelica Kauffmann, may be legend rather than fact. Vasari also tells us that in his last days, Leonardo sent for a priest to make his confession and to receive the Holy Sacrament. In accordance to his will, sixty beggars followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in Château d'Amboise. Melzi was the principal heir and executor, receiving as well as money, Leonardo's paintings, tools, library and personal effects. Leonardo also remembered his other long-time pupil and companion, Salai and his servant Battista di Vilussis, who each received half of Leonardo's vineyards, his brothers who received land, and his serving woman who received a black cloak "of good stuff" with a fur edge.
Some twenty years after Leonardo's death, Francis was reported by the goldsmith and sculptor Benevenuto Cellini as saying: "There had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture and architecture, as that he was a very great philosopher."
Leonardo's youth was spent in a Florence that was ornamented by the works of these artists and by Donatello's contemporaries, Masaccio whose figurative frescoes were imbued with realism and emotion and Ghiberti whose ''Gates of Paradise'', gleaming with gold leaf, displayed the art of combining complex figure compositions with detailed architectural backgrounds. Piero della Francesca had made a detailed study of perspective, and was the first painter to make a scientific study of light. These studies and Alberti's Treatise were to have a profound effect on younger artists and in particular on Leonardo's own observations and artworks.
Massaccio's depiction of the naked and distraught Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden created a powerfully expressive image of the human form, cast into three dimensions by the use of light and shade which was to be developed in the works of Leonardo in a way that was to be influential in the course of painting. The Humanist influence of Donatello's David can be seen in Leonardo's late paintings, particularly ''John the Baptist''.
A prevalent tradition in Florence was the small altarpiece of the Virgin and Child. Many of these were created in tempera or glazed terracotta by the workshops of Filippo Lippi, Verrocchio and the prolific della Robbia family. Leonardo's early Madonnas such as ''The Madonna with a carnation'' and ''The Benois Madonna'' followed this tradition while showing idiosyncratic departures, particularly in the case of the Benois Madonna in which the Virgin is set at an oblique angle to the picture space with the Christ Child at the opposite angle. This compositional theme was to emerge in Leonardo's later paintings such as ''The Virgin and Child with St. Anne''.
Leonardo was a contemporary of Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Perugino, who were all slightly older than he was. He would have met them at the workshop of Verrocchio, with whom they had associations, and at the Academy of the Medici. Botticelli was a particular favourite of the Medici family and thus his success as a painter was assured. Ghirlandaio and Perugino were both prolific and ran large workshops. They competently delivered commissions to well-satisfied patrons who appreciated Ghirlandaio's ability to portray the wealthy citizens of Florence within large religious frescoes, and Perugino's ability to deliver a multitude of saints and angels of unfailing sweetness and innocence. thumb|left|''The Portinari Altarpiece'', by Hugo van der Goes for a Florentine family These three were among those commissioned to paint the walls of the Sistine Chapel, the work commencing with Perugino's employment in 1479. Leonardo was not part of this prestigious commission. His first significant commission, The ''Adoration of the Magi'' for the Monks of Scopeto, was never completed.
In 1476, during the time of Leonardo's association with Verrocchio's workshop, the Portinari Altarpiece by Hugo van der Goes arrived in Florence, bringing new painterly techniques from Northern Europe which were to profoundly effect Leonardo, Ghirlandaio, Perugino and others. In 1479, the Sicilian painter Antonello da Messina, who worked exclusively in oils, traveled north on his way to Venice, where the leading painter, Giovanni Bellini adopted the technique of oil painting, quickly making it the preferred method in Venice. Leonardo was also later to visit Venice.
Like the two contemporary architects, Bramante and Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, Leonardo experimented with designs for centrally planned churches, a number of which appear in his journals, as both plans and views, although none was ever realised.
thumb|upright|Lorenzo de' Medici between Antonio Pucci and Francesco Sassetti, with Giulio de' Medici, fresco by Ghirlandaio Leonardo's political contemporaries were Lorenzo Medici (il Magnifico), who was three years older, and his popular younger brother Giuliano who was slain in the Pazzi Conspiracy in 1478. Ludovico il Moro who ruled Milan between 1479–1499 and to whom Leonardo was sent as ambassador from the Medici court, was also of Leonardo's age.
With Alberti, Leonardo visited the home of the Medici and through them came to know the older Humanist philosophers of whom Marsiglio Ficino, proponent of Neo Platonism, Cristoforo Landino, writer of commentaries on Classical writings, and John Argyropoulos, teacher of Greek and translator of Aristotle were foremost. Also associated with the Academy of the Medici was Leonardo's contemporary, the brilliant young poet and philosopher Pico della Mirandola. Leonardo later wrote in the margin of a journal "The Medici made me and the Medici destroyed me." While it was through the action of Lorenzo that Leonardo was to receive his important Milanese commissions, it is not known exactly what Leonardo meant by this cryptic comment.
Although usually named together as the three giants of the High Renaissance, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael were not of the same generation. Leonardo was twenty-three when Michelangelo was born and thirty-one when Raphael was born. Raphael only lived until the age of 37 and died in 1520, the year after Leonardo, but Michelangelo went on creating for another 45 years.
Within Leonardo's lifetime, his extraordinary powers of invention, his "outstanding physical beauty", "infinite grace", "great strength and generosity", "regal spirit and tremendous breadth of mind" as described by Vasari, as well as all other aspects of his life, attracted the curiosity of others. One such aspect is his respect for life evidenced by his vegetarianism and his habit, described by Vasari, of purchasing caged birds and releasing them.
Leonardo had many friends who are now renowned either in their fields or for their historical significance. They included the mathematician Luca Pacioli, with whom he collaborated on a book in the 1490s, as well as Franchinus Gaffurius and Isabella d'Este. Leonardo appears to have had no close relationships with women except for his friendship with the two Este sisters, Beatrice and Isabella. He drew a portrait of her while on a journey which took him through Mantua, and which appears to have been used to create a painted portrait now lost.
Beyond friendship, Leonardo kept his private life secret. His sexuality has been the subject of satire, analysis, and speculation. This trend began in the mid-16th century and was revived in the 19th and 20th centuries, most notably by Sigmund Freud. Leonardo's most intimate relationships were perhaps with his pupils Salai and Melzi. Melzi, writing to inform Leonardo's brothers of his death, described Leonardo's feelings for his pupils as both loving and passionate.
It has been claimed since the 16th century that these relationships were of a sexual or erotic nature. Court records of 1476, when he was aged twenty-four, show that Leonardo and three other young men were charged with sodomy in an incident involving a well-known male prostitute. The charges were dismissed for lack of evidence, and there is speculation that since one of the accused, Lionardo de Tornabuoni, was related to Lorenzo de' Medici, the family exerted its influence to secure the dismissal. Since that date much has been written about his presumed homosexuality and its role in his art, particularly in the androgyny and eroticism manifested in ''John the Baptist'' and ''Bacchus'' and more explicitly in a number of erotic drawings.
In 1506, Leonardo took on another pupil, Count Francesco Melzi, the son of a Lombard aristocrat, who is considered to have been his favourite student. He travelled to France with Leonardo, and remained with him until the latter's death. Upon Leonardo's death, Melzi inherited the artistic and scientific works, manuscripts, and collections of Leonardo, and faithfully administered the estate.
These paintings are famous for a variety of qualities which have been much imitated by students and discussed at great length by connoisseurs and critics. Among the qualities that make Leonardo's work unique are the innovative techniques that he used in laying on the paint, his detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, botany and geology, his interest in physiognomy and the way in which humans register emotion in expression and gesture, his innovative use of the human form in figurative composition and his use of the subtle gradation of tone. All these qualities come together in his most famous painted works, the ''Mona Lisa'', the ''Last Supper'' and the ''Virgin of the Rocks''.
In the smaller picture Mary averts her eyes and folds her hands in a gesture that symbolised submission to God's will. In the larger picture, however, Mary is not in the least submissive. The beautiful girl, interrupted in her reading by this unexpected messenger, puts a finger in her bible to mark the place and raises her hand in a formal gesture of greeting or surprise. This calm young woman appears to accept her role as the Mother of God not with resignation but with confidence. In this painting the young Leonardo presents the Humanist face of the Virgin Mary, recognising humanity's role in God's incarnation.|group="nb"}}
Although the painting is barely begun the composition can be seen and it is very unusual. Jerome, as a penitent, occupies the middle of the picture, set on a slight diagonal and viewed somewhat from above. His kneeling form takes on a trapezoid shape, with one arm stretched to the outer edge of the painting and his gaze looking in the opposite direction. J. Wasserman points out the link between this painting and Leonardo's anatomical studies. Across the foreground sprawls his symbol, a great lion whose body and tail make a double spiral across the base of the picture space. The other remarkable feature is the sketchy landscape of craggy rocks against which the figure is silhouetted.
The daring display of figure composition, the landscape elements and personal drama also appear in the great unfinished masterpiece, the ''Adoration of the Magi'', a commission from the Monks of San Donato a Scopeto. It is a very complex composition, of about 250 x 250 centimetres. Leonardo did numerous drawings and preparatory studies, including a detailed one in linear perspective of the ruined classical architecture which makes part of the backdrop to the scene. But in 1482 Leonardo went off to Milan at the behest of Lorenzo de' Medici in order to win favour with Ludovico il Moro and the painting was abandoned.
The third important work of this period is the ''Virgin of the Rocks'' which was commissioned in Milan for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. The painting, to be done with the assistance of the de Predis brothers, was to fill a large complex altarpiece, already constructed. Leonardo chose to paint an apocryphal moment of the infancy of Christ when the Infant John the Baptist, in protection of an angel, met the Holy Family on the road to Egypt. In this scene, as painted by Leonardo, John recognizes and worships Jesus as the Christ. The painting demonstrates an eerie beauty as the graceful figures kneel in adoration around the infant Christ in a wild landscape of tumbling rock and whirling water. While the painting is quite large, about , it is not nearly as complex as the painting ordered by the monks of St Donato, having only four figures rather than about fifty and a rocky landscape rather than architectural details. The painting was eventually finished; in fact, two versions of the painting were finished, one which remained at the chapel of the Confraternity and the other which Leonardo carried away to France. But the Brothers did not get their painting, or the de Predis their payment, until the next century.
The novelist Matteo Bandello observed Leonardo at work and wrote that some days he would paint from dawn till dusk without stopping to eat, and then not paint for three or four days at a time. This, according to Vasari, was beyond the comprehension of the prior, who hounded him until Leonardo asked Ludovico to intervene. Vasari describes how Leonardo, troubled over his ability to adequately depict the faces of Christ and the traitor Judas, told the Duke that he might be obliged to use the prior as his model.
When finished, the painting was acclaimed as a masterpiece of design and characterisation, but it deteriorated rapidly, so that within a hundred years it was described by one viewer as "completely ruined". Leonardo, instead of using the reliable technique of fresco, had used tempera over a ground that was mainly gesso, resulting in a surface which was subject to mold and to flaking. Despite this, the painting has remained one of the most reproduced works of art, countless copies being made in every medium from carpets to cameos.
Other characteristics found in this work are the unadorned dress, in which the eyes and hands have no competition from other details, the dramatic landscape background in which the world seems to be in a state of flux, the subdued colouring and the extremely smooth nature of the painterly technique, employing oils, but laid on much like tempera and blended on the surface so that the brushstrokes are indistinguishable. Vasari expressed the opinion that the manner of painting would make even "the most confident master ... despair and lose heart." The perfect state of preservation and the fact that there is no sign of repair or overpainting is extremely rare in a panel painting of this date.
In the ''Virgin and Child with St. Anne'' (see below ) the composition again picks up the theme of figures in a landscape which Wasserman describes as "breathtakingly beautiful" and harks back to the St Jerome picture with the figure set at an oblique angle. What makes this painting unusual is that there are two obliquely set figures superimposed. Mary is seated on the knee of her mother, St Anne. She leans forward to restrain the Christ Child as he plays roughly with a lamb, the sign of his own impending sacrifice. This painting, which was copied many times, was to influence Michelangelo, Raphael, and Andrea del Sarto, and through them Pontormo and Correggio. The trends in composition were adopted in particular by the Venetian painters Tintoretto and Veronese.
Leonardo was not a prolific painter, but he was a most prolific draftsman, keeping journals full of small sketches and detailed drawings recording all manner of things that took his attention. As well as the journals there exist many studies for paintings, some of which can be identified as preparatory to particular works such as ''The Adoration of the Magi'', ''The Virgin of the Rocks'' and ''The Last Supper''. His earliest dated drawing is a ''Landscape of the Arno Valley'', 1473, which shows the river, the mountains, Montelupo Castle and the farmlands beyond it in great detail.
Among his famous drawings are the ''Vitruvian Man'', a study of the proportions of the human body, the ''Head of an Angel'', for ''The Virgin of the Rocks'' in the Louvre, a botanical study of ''Star of Bethlehem'' and a large drawing (160×100 cm) in black chalk on coloured paper of ''The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist'' in the National Gallery, London. This drawing employs the subtle ''sfumato'' technique of shading, in the manner of the ''Mona Lisa''. It is thought that Leonardo never made a painting from it, the closest similarity being to ''The Virgin and Child with St. Anne'' in the Louvre.
Other drawings of interest include numerous studies generally referred to as "caricatures" because, although exaggerated, they appear to be based upon observation of live models. Vasari relates that if Leonardo saw a person with an interesting face he would follow them around all day observing them. There are numerous studies of beautiful young men, often associated with Salai, with the rare and much admired facial feature, the so-called "Grecian profile". These faces are often contrasted with that of a warrior. Salai is often depicted in fancy-dress costume. Leonardo is known to have designed sets for pageants with which these may be associated. Other, often meticulous, drawings show studies of drapery. A marked development in Leonardo's ability to draw drapery occurred in his early works. Another often-reproduced drawing is a macabre sketch that was done by Leonardo in Florence in 1479 showing the body of Bernardo Baroncelli, hanged in connection with the murder of Giuliano, brother of Lorenzo de'Medici, in the Pazzi Conspiracy. With dispassionate integrity Leonardo has registered in neat mirror writing the colours of the robes that Baroncelli was wearing when he died.
Leonardo's writings are mostly in mirror-image cursive. The reason may have been more a practical expediency than for reasons of secrecy as is often suggested. Since Leonardo wrote with his left hand, it is probable that it was easier for him to write from right to left. His notes and drawings display an enormous range of interests and preoccupations, some as mundane as lists of groceries and people who owed him money and some as intriguing as designs for wings and shoes for walking on water. There are compositions for paintings, studies of details and drapery, studies of faces and emotions, of animals, babies, dissections, plant studies, rock formations, whirl pools, war machines, helicopters and architecture.
These notebooks—originally loose papers of different types and sizes, distributed by friends after his death—have found their way into major collections such as the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, the Louvre, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan which holds the twelve-volume Codex Atlanticus, and British Library in London which has put a selection from its notebook ''BL Arundel MS 263'' online. The ''Codex Leicester'' is the only major scientific work of Leonardo's in private hands. It is owned by Bill Gates, and is displayed once a year in different cities around the world.
Leonardo's notes appear to have been intended for publication because many of the sheets have a form and order that would facilitate this. In many cases a single topic, for example, the heart or the human foetus, is covered in detail in both words and pictures, on a single sheet. Why they were not published within Leonardo's lifetime is unknown.
Leonardo's approach to science was an observational one: he tried to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost detail, and did not emphasize experiments or theoretical explanation. Since he lacked formal education in Latin and mathematics, contemporary scholars mostly ignored Leonardo the scientist, although he did teach himself Latin. In the 1490s he studied mathematics under Luca Pacioli and prepared a series of drawings of regular solids in a skeletal form to be engraved as plates for Pacioli's book ''De Divina Proportione'', published in 1509.
It appears that from the content of his journals he was planning a series of treatises to be published on a variety of subjects. A coherent treatise on anatomy was said to have been observed during a visit by Cardinal Louis 'D' Aragon's secretary in 1517. Aspects of his work on the studies of anatomy, light and the landscape were assembled for publication by his pupil Francesco Melzi and eventually published as ''Treatise on Painting by Leonardo da Vinci'' in France and Italy in 1651, and Germany in 1724, with engravings based upon drawings by the Classical painter Nicholas Poussin. According to Arasse, the treatise, which in France went into sixty two editions in fifty years, caused Leonardo to be seen as "the precursor of French academic thought on art".
A recent and exhaustive analysis of Leonardo as Scientist by Frtijof Capra argues that Leonardo was a fundamentally different kind of scientist from Galileo, Newton and other scientists who followed him. Leonardo's experimentation followed clear scientific method approaches, and his theorising and hypothesising integrated the arts and particularly painting; these, and Leonardo's unique integrated, holistic views of science make him a forerunner of modern systems theory and complexity schools of thought.
As a successful artist, he was given permission to dissect human corpses at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and later at hospitals in Milan and Rome. From 1510 to 1511 he collaborated in his studies with the doctor Marcantonio della Torre. Leonardo made over 200 pages of drawings and many pages of notes towards a treatise on anatomy. These papers were left to his heir, Francesco Melzi, for publication, a task of overwhelming difficulty because of its scope, and Leonardo's highly idiosyncratic writing. It was left incomplete at the time of Melzi's death more than fifty years later, with only a small amount of the material on anatomy included in Leonardo's ''Treatise on painting'', published in France in 1632. During the time that Melzi was ordering the material into chapters for publication, they were examined by a number of anatomists and artists, including Vasari, Cellini and Albrecht Durer who made a number of drawings from them.
Leonardo drew many studies of the human skeleton and its parts, as well as muscles and sinews. He studied the mechanical functions of the skeleton and the muscular forces that are applied to it in a manner that prefigured the modern science of biomechanics. He drew the heart and vascular system, the sex organs and other internal organs, making one of the first scientific drawings of a fetus ''in utero''. As an artist, Leonardo closely observed and recorded the effects of age and of human emotion on the physiology, studying in particular the effects of rage. He also drew many figures who had significant facial deformities or signs of illness.
Leonardo also studied and drew the anatomy of many other animals as well, dissecting cows, birds, monkeys, bears, and frogs, and comparing in his drawings their anatomical structure with that of humans. He also made a number of studies of horses.
In 1502, Leonardo produced a drawing of a single span bridge as part of a civil engineering project for Ottoman Sultan Beyazid II of Constantinople. The bridge was intended to span an inlet at the mouth of the Bosporus known as the Golden Horn. Beyazid did not pursue the project, because he believed that such a construction was impossible. Leonardo's vision was resurrected in 2001 when a smaller bridge based on his design was constructed in Norway. On May 17, 2006, the Turkish government decided to construct Leonardo's bridge to span the Golden Horn.
For much of his life, Leonardo was fascinated by the phenomenon of flight, producing many studies of the flight of birds, including his c. 1505 Codex on the Flight of Birds, as well as plans for several flying machines, including a light hang glider and a machine resembling a helicopter. The British television station Channel Four commissioned a documentary ''Leonardo's Dream Machines'', for broadcast in 2003. Leonardo's machines were built and tested according to his original designs. Some of those designs proved a success, whilst others fared less well when practically tested.
Giorgio Vasari, in the enlarged edition of ''Lives of the Artists'', 1568, introduced his chapter on Leonardo da Vinci with the following words: The continued admiration that Leonardo commanded from painters, critics and historians is reflected in many other written tributes. Baldassare Castiglione, author of ''Il Cortegiano'' ("The Courtier"), wrote in 1528: "... Another of the greatest painters in this world looks down on this art in which he is unequalled ..." while the biographer known as "Anonimo Gaddiano" wrote, c. 1540: "His genius was so rare and universal that it can be said that nature worked a miracle on his behalf ...".
The 19th century brought a particular admiration for Leonardo's genius, causing Henry Fuseli to write in 1801: "Such was the dawn of modern art, when Leonardo da Vinci broke forth with a splendour that distanced former excellence: made up of all the elements that constitute the essence of genius ..." This is echoed by A. E. Rio who wrote in 1861: "He towered above all other artists through the strength and the nobility of his talents." By the 19th century, the scope of Leonardo's notebooks was known, as well as his paintings. Hippolyte Taine wrote in 1866: "There may not be in the world an example of another genius so universal, so incapable of fulfilment, so full of yearning for the infinite, so naturally refined, so far ahead of his own century and the following centuries." The famous art historian Bernard Berenson wrote in 1896: "Leonardo is the one artist of whom it may be said with perfect literalness: Nothing that he touched but turned into a thing of eternal beauty. Whether it be the cross section of a skull, the structure of a weed, or a study of muscles, he, with his feeling for line and for light and shade, forever transmuted it into life-communicating values."
The interest in Leonardo's genius has continued unabated; experts study and translate his writings, analyse his paintings using scientific techniques, argue over attributions and search for works which have been recorded but never found. Liana Bortolon, writing in 1967, said: "Because of the multiplicity of interests that spurred him to pursue every field of knowledge ... Leonardo can be considered, quite rightly, to have been the universal genius par excellence, and with all the disquieting overtones inherent in that term. Man is as uncomfortable today, faced with a genius, as he was in the 16th century. Five centuries have passed, yet we still view Leonardo with awe."
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name | Bruce Willis |
---|---|
birth name | Walter Bruce Willis |
birth date | March 19, 1955 |
birth place | Idar-Oberstein, West Germany |
occupation | Actor, Comedian, Producer, Musician |
genres | Jazz, Rock |
years active | 1980–present |
other names | W.B. WillisBruno |
spouse | Demi Moore (1987–2000)Emma Heming (2009–present) |
children | Rumer, Scout, Tallulah |
partner | Brooke Burns (2004) }} |
Motion pictures featuring Willis have grossed US$2.64 billion to 3.05 billion at North American box offices, making him the ninth highest-grossing actor in a leading role and twelfth highest including supporting roles. He is a two-time Emmy Award-winning, Golden Globe Award-winning and four-time Saturn Award-nominated actor. Willis was married to actress Demi Moore and they had three daughters before their divorce in 2000, following thirteen years of marriage.
After high school, Willis took a job as a security guard at the Salem Nuclear Power Plant and also transported work crews at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deepwater, New Jersey.
After working as a private investigator (a role he would play in the television series ''Moonlighting'' as well as in the 1991 film, ''The Last Boy Scout''), Willis returned to acting. He enrolled in the drama program at Montclair State University, where he was cast in the class production of ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof''. Willis left school in his junior year and moved to New York City.
After multiple auditions, Willis made his theater debut in the off-Broadway production of ''Heaven and Earth''. He gained more experience and exposure in ''Fool for Love'', and in a Levi's commercial.
Willis left New York City and headed to California to audition for several television shows. In 1984, he appeared in an episode of the TV series Miami Vice, titled "No Exit." He auditioned for the role of David Addison Jr. of the television series ''Moonlighting'' (1985–89), competing against 3,000 other actors for the position. The starring role, opposite Cybill Shepherd, helped to establish him as a comedic actor, with the show lasting five seasons. During the height of the show's success, beverage maker Seagram hired Willis as the pitchman for their Golden Wine Cooler products. The advertising campaign paid the rising star between $5–7 million over two years. In spite of that, Willis chose not to renew his contract with the company when he decided to stop drinking alcohol in 1988.
One of his first major film roles was in the 1987 Blake Edwards film ''Blind Date'', with Kim Basinger and John Larroquette. Edwards would cast him again to play the real-life cowboy actor Tom Mix in ''Sunset'' (1988). However, it was his then-unexpected turn in the film ''Die Hard'' that catapulted him to movie star status. He performed most of his own stunts in the film, and the film grossed $138,708,852 worldwide. Following his success with ''Die Hard'', he had a supporting role in the drama ''In Country'' as Vietnam veteran Emmett Smith and also provided the voice for a talking baby in ''Look Who's Talking'', as well as its sequel ''Look Who's Talking Too''.
In the late 1980s, Willis enjoyed moderate success as a recording artist, recording an album of pop-blues titled ''The Return of Bruno'', which included the hit single "Respect Yourself", promoted by a Spinal Tap-like rockumentary parody featuring scenes of him performing at famous events including Woodstock. Follow-up recordings were not as successful, though Willis has returned to the recording studio several times. See Discography below.
In the early 1990s, Willis's career suffered a moderate slump starring in flops such as ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'', ''Striking Distance'', and a film he co-wrote titled ''Hudson Hawk'', among others. He starred in a leading role in the highly sexualized thriller ''Color of Night'' (1994), which was very poorly received by critics, but did well in the home video market and became one of the Top 20 most-rented films in the United States in 1995. However, in 1994, he had a supporting role in Quentin Tarantino's acclaimed ''Pulp Fiction'', which gave a new boost to his career. In 1996, he was the executive producer of the cartoon ''Bruno the Kid'' which featured a CGI representation of himself.
He went on to play the lead roles in ''Twelve Monkeys'' (1995) and ''The Fifth Element'' (1997). However, by the end of the 1990s, his career had fallen into another slump with critically panned films like ''The Jackal'', ''Mercury Rising'', and ''Breakfast of Champions'', saved only by the success of the Michael Bay-directed ''Armageddon'' which was the highest grossing film of 1998 worldwide. The same year his voice and likeness were featured in the PlayStation video game ''Apocalypse''. In 1999, Willis then went on to the starring role in M. Night Shyamalan's film, ''The Sixth Sense''. The film was both a commercial and critical success and helped to increase interest in his acting career.
In 2000, Willis won an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his work on ''Friends'' (in which he played the father of Ross Geller's much-younger girlfriend). He was also nominated for a 2001 American Comedy Award (in the Funniest Male Guest Appearance in a TV Series category) for his work on ''Friends''. Also in 2000, Willis played Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski in ''The Whole Nine Yards'' alongside Matthew Perry. Willis was originally cast as Terry Benedict in ''Ocean's Eleven'' (2001) but dropped out to work on recording an album. In ''Ocean's Twelve'' (2004), he makes a cameo appearance as himself. In 2007, he appeared in the ''Planet Terror'' half of the double feature ''Grindhouse'' as the villain, a mutant soldier. This marks Willis's second collaboration with director Robert Rodriguez, following ''Sin City''.
Willis has appeared on ''The Late Show with David Letterman'' several times throughout his career. He filled in for an ill David Letterman on his show February 26, 2003, when he was supposed to be a guest. On many of his appearances on the show, Willis stages elaborate jokes, such as wearing a day-glo orange suit in honor of the Central Park gates, having one side of his face made up with simulated buckshot wounds after the Harry Whittington shooting, or trying to break a record (parody of David Blaine) of staying underwater for only twenty seconds.
On April 12, 2007, he appeared again, this time wearing a Sanjaya Malakar wig. His most recent appearance was on June 25, 2007 when he appeared wearing a mini-turbine strapped to his head to accompany a joke about his own fictional documentary titled ''An Unappealing Hunch'' (a wordplay of ''An Inconvenient Truth''). Willis also appeared on Japanese Subaru Legacy television commercials. Tying in with this, Subaru did a limited run of Legacys, badged "Subaru Legacy Touring Bruce", in honor of Willis.
Willis has appeared in four films with Samuel L. Jackson (National Lampoon's ''Loaded Weapon 1'', ''Pulp Fiction'', ''Die Hard with a Vengeance'', and ''Unbreakable'') and both actors were slated to work together in ''Black Water Transit'', before dropping out. Willis also worked with his eldest daughter, Rumer, in the 2005 film ''Hostage''. In 2007, he appeared in the thriller ''Perfect Stranger'', opposite Halle Berry, the crime/drama film ''Alpha Dog'', opposite Sharon Stone, and marked his return to the role of John McClane in ''Live Free or Die Hard''. Recently he appeared in the films ''What Just Happened'' and ''Surrogates'', based on the comic book of the same name.
Willis was slated to play U.S. Army general William R. Peers in director Oliver Stone's ''Pinkville'', a drama about the investigation of the 1968 My Lai Massacre. However, due to the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, the film was cancelled. Willis appeared on the 2008 Blues Traveler album ''North Hollywood Shootout'', giving a spoken word performance over an instrumental blues-rock jam on the track "Free Willis (Ruminations from Behind Uncle Bob's Machine Shop)". In early 2009, he appeared in an advertising campaign to publicize the insurance company Norwich Union's change of name to Aviva. He also appeared in the music video for the song "I Will Not Bow" by Breaking Benjamin. The song is from his 2009 science fiction film ''Surrogates''.
Willis starred with Tracy Morgan in the comedy ''Cop Out'', directed by Kevin Smith and about two police detectives investigating the theft of a baseball card. The film was released in February 2010. Willis appeared in the music video for the song "Stylo" by Gorillaz. Also in 2010, he appeared in a cameo with former Planet Hollywood co-owners and '80s action stars Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the film ''The Expendables''. Bruce Willis played the role of "Mr. Church". This was the first time these three legendary action stars appeared on screen together. Although the scene featuring the three was short, it was one of the most highly anticipated scenes in the film. The trio filmed their scene in an empty church on October 24, 2009. His most recent project was ''Red'', an adaptation of the comic book mini-series of the same name, in which he portrayed Frank Moses. The film was released on October 15, 2010.
On May 5, 2010, it was announced that ''Die Hard 5'' would be made and that Willis was on board to play his most famous role of John McClane for a fifth time.
Sylvester Stallone revealed that he is talking to Willis about returning for ''The Expendables'' sequel. Stallone has said that he wants to expand Willis' role and that he wants Willis to play the villain in the next Expendables. They have talked about Willis' schedule and possible actors that could join the sequel.
Filming for a new movie, ''Moonrise Kingdom'', starring Bruce Willis alongside Bill Murray, Edward Norton and Frances McDormand, is expected to begin in the first half of 2011. Filming will take place in Rhode Island under the direction of Wes Anderson.
Willis will team up with 50 Cent in a new film directed by David Barrett called ''Fire with Fire'', about a fireman who must save the love of his life. Willis will also join Vince Vaughn and Catherine Zeta-Jones in ''Lay the Favorite'', directed by Stephen Frears, about a Las Vegas cocktail waitress who becomes an elite professional gambler. The two films will be distributed by Lionsgate Entertainment.
Willis started his own motion picture production company called Cheyenne Enterprises, which he started with his business partner Arnold Rifkin in 2000. He left the company to be run solely by Rifkin in 2007 after Live Free or Die Hard. He also owns several small businesses in Hailey, Idaho, including The Mint Bar and The Liberty Theater and is a co-founder of Planet Hollywood, with actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. In 2009 Willis signed a contract to become the international face of Belvedere SA's Sobieski Vodka in exchange for 3.3% ownership in the company.
Willis was engaged to Brooke Burns until they broke up in 2004 after ten months together. He married Emma Heming in Turks and Caicos on March 21, 2009; guests included his three daughters, Moore, and Kutcher. The ceremony was not legally binding, so the couple wed again in a civil ceremony in Beverly Hills six days later. Willis has expressed interest in having more children.
In 2006, he proposed that the United States should invade Colombia, in order to end the drug trafficking. In several interviews Willis has said that he supports large salaries for teachers and police officers, and says that he is disappointed in the United States' foster care and treatment of Native Americans. Willis also stated that he is a big supporter of gun rights:
}}
In February 2006, Willis appeared in Manhattan to talk about ''16 Blocks'' with reporters. One reporter attempted to ask Willis about his opinion on current events, but was interrupted by Willis in mid-sentence: "I'm sick of answering this fucking question. I'm a Republican only as far as I want a smaller government, I want less government intrusion. I want them to stop shitting on my money and your money and tax dollars that we give 50 percent of... every year. I want them to be fiscally responsible and I want these goddamn lobbyists out of Washington. Do that and I'll say I'm a Republican... I hate the government, OK? I'm apolitical. Write that down. I'm not a Republican."
Willis's name was in an advertisement in the ''Los Angeles Times'' on August 17, 2006, that condemned Hamas and Hezbollah and supported Israel in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.
Throughout his film career, Willis has depicted several military characters in films such as ''The Siege'', ''Hart's War'', ''Tears of the Sun'', and ''Grindhouse''. Growing up in a military family, Willis has publicly sold Girl Scout cookies for the United States armed forces. In 2002, Willis's youngest daughter, Tallulah, suggested that he purchase Girl Scout cookies to send to troops. Willis purchased 12,000 boxes of cookies, and they were distributed to sailors aboard USS ''John F. Kennedy'' and other troops stationed throughout the Middle East at the time. In 2003, Willis visited Iraq as part of the USO tour, singing to the troops with his band, The Accelerators. Willis considered joining the military to help fight the second Iraq war, but was deterred by his age. It was believed he offered US$1 million to any non combatant who turns in terrorist leaders Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; in the June 2007 issue of ''Vanity Fair'', however, he clarified that the statement was made hypothetically and not meant to be taken literally. Willis has also criticized the media for its coverage of the war, complaining that the press were more likely to focus on the negative aspects of the war:
}}
Willis stated in 2005 that he wanted to "make a pro-war film in which American soldiers will be depicted as brave fighters for freedom and democracy." The film would follow members of Deuce Four, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, who spent considerable time in Mosul and were decorated heavily for it. The film is to be based on the writings of blogger Michael Yon, a former United States Army Special Forces soldier who was embedded with Deuce Four and sent regular dispatches about their activities. Willis described the plot of the film as "these guys who do what they are asked for very little money to defend and fight for what they consider to be freedom."
In 1998, Willis participated in ''Apocalypse'', a PlayStation video game. The game was originally announced to feature Willis as a sidekick, not as the main character. The company reworked the game using Willis's likeness and voice and changed the game to use him as the main character.
In an early episode of ''Code Lyoko'' season one episode "Holiday in the Fog" aired in 2003, Jim Morales assures Sissi that Jeremie will come to their aide when the two are trapped in an air-tight closet with toxic smoke outside. Sissi sarcastically remarks how nice it is that "the closest thing to Bruce Willis is coming to rescue" them.
+ Film | |||
! Year | ! Title | ! Role | Notes |
1980 | '''' | Man Entering Diner | (uncredited) |
1982 | '''' | Courtroom Observer | (uncredited) |
1985 | '''' | Extra | (uncredited) |
1987 | Walter Davis | ||
1988 | '''' | Bruno Radolini | |
1988 | Tom Mix | ||
1988 | ''Die Hard'' | John McClane | |
1989 | ''That's Adequate'' | Himself | |
1989 | ''In Country'' | Emmett Smith | Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture |
1989 | ''Look Who's Talking'' | Mikey | Voice Only |
1990 | ''Die Hard 2'' | John McClane | |
1990 | ''Look Who's Talking Too'' | Mikey | Voice Only |
1990 | '''' | Peter Fallow | |
1991 | ''Mortal Thoughts'' | James Urbanski | |
1991 | ''Hudson Hawk'' | Eddie 'Hudson Hawk' Hawkins | Writer |
1991 | Bo Weinberg | ||
1991 | '''' | Joseph Cornelius 'Joe' Hallenbeck | |
1992 | '''' | Himself | |
1992 | ''Death Becomes Her'' | Dr. Ernest Menville | Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Actor |
1993 | ''Loaded Weapon 1'' | John McClane | Uncredited |
1993 | ''Striking Distance'' | Tom 'Tommy' Hardy | |
1994 | Narrator | ||
1994 | ''Color of Night'' | Dr. Bill Capa | |
1994 | Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actor | ||
1994 | Carl Roebuck | Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actor | |
1995 | ''Die Hard with a Vengeance'' | John McClane | |
1995 | ''Four Rooms'' | Leo | Uncredited |
1995 | ''Twelve Monkeys'' | James Cole | Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actor |
1996 | John Smith | ||
1996 | ''Beavis and Butt-Head Do America'' | Muddy Grimes | Voice Only |
1997 | '''' | Korben Dallas | |
1997 | '''' | The Jackal | |
1998 | ''Mercury Rising'' | Art Jeffries | |
1998 | Harry S. Stamper | Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actor | |
1998 | '''' | Major General William Devereaux | |
1999 | "" | Himself | Short subject |
1999 | Dwayne Hoover | ||
1999 | '''' | Dr. Malcolm Crowe | Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Actor |
1999 | '''' | Ben Jordan | |
2000 | '''' | Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski | |
2000 | ''Disney's The Kid'' | Russell 'Russ' Duritz | |
2000 | David Dunn | ||
2001 | ''Bandits'' | Joe Blake | |
2002 | ''Hart's War'' | Col. William A. McNamara | |
2002 | ''Grand Champion'' | Mr. Blandford | |
2003 | ''Tears of the Sun'' | Lieutenant A.K. Waters | |
2003 | ''Rugrats Go Wild'' | Spike | Voice Only |
2003 | ''Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle'' | William Rose Bailey | Uncredited |
2004 | '''' | Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski | |
2004 | ''Ocean's Twelve'' | Himself | |
2005 | Jeff Talley | Also Producer | |
2005 | John Hartigan | ||
2006 | ''Alpha Dog'' | Sonny Truelove | |
2006 | ''16 Blocks'' | Jack Mosley | Also Producer |
2006 | Harry Rydell | ||
2006 | ''Lucky Number Slevin'' | Mr. Goodkat | |
2006 | RJ | Voice Only | |
2007 | '''' | Colonel Doug Masterson | Uncredited |
2007 | Harrison Hill | ||
2007 | Lt. Muldoon | ||
2007 | Himself | Uncredited | |
2007 | ''Live Free or Die Hard'' | John McClane | Also Producer. Named 'Die Hard 4.0' outside North America |
2008 | ''What Just Happened'' | Himself | |
2008 | ''Assassination of a High School President'' | Principal Kirkpatrick | |
2009 | Agent Tom Greer | ||
2010 | Jimmy Monroe | ||
2010 | '''' | Mr. Church | Cameo |
2010 | Frank Moses | ||
2011 | ''Catch .44'' | Mel | ''post-production'' |
2011 | Biggs | ''in production'' | |
2012 | '''' | Martin | ''filming'' |
2012 | ''Lay the Favorite'' | Dink Heimowitz | ''filming'' |
2012 | ''G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation'' | General Joseph Colton | ''in production'' |
2012 | Older Joe | ''in production'' | |
2012 | Kane | ''in production'' |
+ Television | |||
Year | ! Title | ! Role | Notes |
1984 | ''Miami Vice'' | Tony Amato | |
1985 | '''' | Peter Jay Novins | Episode: "Shatterday" |
1985–89 | David Addison Jr. | 67 episodes | |
1996–97 | ''Bruno the Kid'' | Bruno the Kid | Voice |
1997 | ''Mad About You'' | Amnesia patient | Episode: "The Birth Part 2" |
1999 | ''Ally McBeal'' | Dr. Nickle | Episode: "Love Unlimited" |
2000 | ''Friends'' | Paul Stevens | Three episodes |
2002 | Lee | Television film | |
2005 | ''That '70s Show'' | Vic | Episode: "Misfire" |
+ Late Show with David Letterman Appearances | |
! Date | ! Costume, Product, or Skit |
Feb 2006 | Coffee (Starbruce) |
Sept 2006 | Robotic Mop (Robo Bruce) |
Sept 2007 | Wind-powered Turbine Helmet, Illegal Fireworks (Ka-Bruce), "Roof Jump" skit |
Nov 2008 | Sarah Palin wig, Turkey Deep Fryer (Fry Hard with a Vengeance) |
May 2009 | Rubber Band Helmet (Bruce Willis' Concussion-Buster), "'Obsessed' Movie Cameo" skit |
Sept 2009 | Blanket w/Hairpiece (Bruce Willis' Skanket) |
Dec 2009 | "Bruce the Late Show Intern" skit |
Feb 2010 | Jets Fan outfit, "Olympic Skier" skit, Underwear (Bruce Willis' Amazing Exploding Underpants) |
Oct 2010 | Meat Hairpiece |
+ Producer | ||
! Year | ! Title | Notes |
1988 | Co-executive producer | |
2002 | '''' | Producer |
2007 | '''' | Executive producer |
Compilations / Guest appearances
Singles Chart
In 1987, Bruce Willis released sang a number of tracks on the soundtrack of the film "The Return of Bruno" including:
In the UK the following singles also charted:
Willis has won a variety of awards and has received various honors throughout his career in television and film.
For his work on the television show ''Moonlighting'' he won an Emmy ("Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series") and a Golden Globe ("Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series — Comedy/Musical") plus received additional nominations for the show.
Category:1955 births Category:Actors from Idaho Category:Actors from New Jersey Category:American bloggers Category:American film actors Category:American people of German descent Category:American television actors Category:American video game actors Category:American voice actors Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (television) winners Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Living people Category:Military brats Category:Montclair State University alumni Category:People from Salem County, New Jersey Category:People from the District of Birkenfeld
ar:بروس ويليس an:Bruce Willis az:Brüs Uillis bs:Bruce Willis br:Bruce Willis bg:Брус Уилис ca:Bruce Willis cs:Bruce Willis cy:Bruce Willis da:Bruce Willis de:Bruce Willis et:Bruce Willis el:Μπρους Γουίλις es:Bruce Willis eo:Bruce Willis eu:Bruce Willis fa:بروس ویلیس fr:Bruce Willis ga:Bruce Willis gd:Bruce Willis gl:Bruce Willis ko:브루스 윌리스 hi:ब्रूस विलिस hr:Bruce Willis io:Bruce Willis id:Bruce Willis is:Bruce Willis it:Bruce Willis he:ברוס ויליס jv:Bruce Willis kn:ಬ್ರೂಸ್ ವಿಲ್ಲೀಸ್ ka:ბრიუს უილისი sw:Bruce Willis la:Bruce Willis lv:Brūss Viliss lt:Bruce Willis hu:Bruce Willis ml:ബ്രൂസ് വില്ലിസ് mr:ब्रुस विलिस nah:Bruce Willis nl:Bruce Willis ja:ブルース・ウィリス no:Bruce Willis nn:Bruce Willis uz:Bruce Willis nds:Bruce Willis pl:Bruce Willis pt:Bruce Willis ro:Bruce Willis ru:Уиллис, Брюс sq:Bruce Willis simple:Bruce Willis sk:Bruce Willis sl:Bruce Willis sr:Брус Вилис sh:Bruce Willis fi:Bruce Willis sv:Bruce Willis tl:Bruce Willis te:బ్రూస్ విల్లీస్ th:บรูซ วิลลิส tg:Брюс Уиллис tr:Bruce Willis uk:Брюс Вілліс yi:ברוס וויליס zh:布鲁斯·威利斯
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Group | Indigenous peoples of Mexico |
---|---|
Population | 10,103,517 |
Regions | Mexico |
Languages | Nahuatl, Yucatec, Tzotzil, Mixtec, Zapotec, Otomi, Huichol, Totonac and other living 54 languages along the Mexican territory, as well as Spanish. |
Religions | Christianity (Predominantly Roman Catholic, with an Amerindian religious elements, including Aztec and Mayan religion.) |
Related | Other Indigenous peoples of the Americas }} |
The indigenous peoples in Mexico have the right of free determination under the second article of the constitution. According to this article the indigenous peoples are granted:
amongst other rights. Also, the Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Languages recognizes 62 indigenous languages as "national languages" which have the same validity as Spanish in all territories in which they are spoken. According to the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Data Processing (INEGI), approximately 5.4% of the population speaks an indigenous language that is, approximately half of those identified as indigenous. The recognition of indigenous languages and the protection of indigenous cultures is granted not only to the ethnic groups indigenous to modern-day Mexican territory, but also to other North American indigenous groups that migrated to Mexico from the United States in the nineteenth century and those who immigrated from Guatemala in the 1980s.
The pre-Columbian civilizations of what now is known as Mexico are usually divided in two regions: Mesoamerica, in reference to the cultural area in which several complex civilizations developed before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century, and Aridoamerica (or simply "The North") in reference to the arid region north of the Tropic of Cancer in which few civilizations developed and was mostly inhabited by nomadic or semi-nomadic groups. Mesoamerica was densely populated by diverse indigenous ethnic groups which, although sharing common cultural characteristics, spoke different languages and developed unique civilizations.
One of the most influential civilizations that developed in Mesoamerica was the Olmec civilization, sometimes referred to as the "Mother Culture of Mesoamerica". The later civilization in Teotihuacán reached its peak around 600 AD, when the city became the sixth largest city in the world, whose cultural and theological systems influenced the Toltec and Aztec civilizations in later centuries. Evidence has been found on the existence of multiracial communities or neighborhoods in Teotihuacan (and other large urban areas like Tenochtitlan). The Maya civilization, though also influenced by other Mesoamerican civilizations, developed a vast cultural region in south-east Mexico and northern Central America, while the Zapotec and Mixtec culture dominated the valley of Oaxaca, and the Purepecha in western Mexico.
At first, the colonial system imposed a system of castes, in which the indigenous peoples were marginalized. Nevertheless, a cultural symbiosis took place: the indigenous peoples adopted and syncretized Roman Catholicism, and a new ethnic group was born: the mestizo, of mixed European and indigenous ancestry.
As the New Spain got independence from Spain, its citizens decided to name the new country after its capital city, Mexico City. Mexico declared the abolition of slavery and the equality of all citizens under the law. Some indigenous individuals integrated into the Mexican society, like Benito Juárez of Zapotec ethnicity, the first indigenous president of a country in the New World.
The greatest change, however, came about as a result of the Mexican Revolution, a violent social and cultural movement that defined 20th century Mexico. The Revolution produced a national sentiment that the indigenous peoples were the foundation of Mexican society. Several prominent artists promoted the "Indigenous Sentiment" (''sentimiento indigenista'') of the country, including Frida Kahlo, and Diego Rivera. Throughout the twentieth century, the government established bilingual education in certain indigenous communities and published free bilingual textbooks. Some states of the federation appropriated an indigenous inheritance in order to reinforce their identity.
In spite of the official recognition of the indigenous peoples, the economic underdevelopment of the communities, accentuated by the crises of the 1980s and 1990s, has not allowed for the social and cultural development of most indigenous communities. Thousands of indigenous Mexicans have emigrated to urban centers in Mexico as well as in the United States. In Los Angeles, for example, the Mexican government has established electronic access to some of the consular services provided in Spanish as well as Zapotec and Mixe. Some of the Maya peoples of Chiapas have revolted, demanding better social and economic opportunities, requests voiced by the EZLN.
The government has made certain legislative changes to promote the development of the rural and indigenous communities and the preservation and promotion of their languages. The second article of the Constitution was modified to grant them the right of self-determination and requires state governments to promote and ensure the economic development of the indigenous communities as well as the preservation of their languages and traditions.
The Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Languages recognizes 62 indigenous languages as "national languages" which have the same validity as Spanish in all territories in which they are spoken. According to the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Data Processing (INEGI), approximately 5.4% of the population speaks an indigenous language that is, approximately half of those identified as indigenous. The recognition of indigenous languages and the protection of indigenous cultures is granted not only to the ethnic groups indigenous to modern-day Mexican territory, but also to other North American indigenous groups that migrated to Mexico from the United States in the nineteenth century and those who immigrated from Guatemala in the 1980s.
According to the National Commission for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples (CDI) there are 9,854,301 indigenous people reported in Mexico in 2000, which constitute 9.54% of the population in the country. The CDI identifies 62 indigenous language groups in Mexico although certain languages have multiple dialects each of which is unique and may be mutually unintelligible. The majority of the indigenous population is concentrated in the central and southern states. According to the CDI, the states with the greatest percentage of indigenous population are:
¹Number of indigenous peoples that still speak their Indigenous language
1Number of indigenous peoples that still speak their Indigenous language
1Number of indigenous peoples that still speak their Indigenous language
ca:Pobles indígenes de Mèxic es:Pueblos indígenas de México fa:بومیهای مکزیک no:Urfolk i Mexico pt:Povos indígenas do México
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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