Arun Sagar (born 23 October 1963) is an Indian actor, art director and comedian who mainly works in the Kannada film industry. He has been recognized as a leading art director throughout his career starting from his first movie, Bhoomi Geetha which won the national award for best environmental film. He has worked with veteran directors like Poori Jagannath, Meher Ramesh, Veerashankar and K Raghavendra Rao. He has received  Karnataka state award for best art direction for his contributions in the movie Sri Manjunatha. He ran a show on Kasturi TV called 'Tarrle' that resembled a popular show M.A.D. from Pogo TV that taught children about art, painting and crafting. He became popular during the telecast of Maja with Sruja that aired on Asianet Suvarna where he played various comical roles that parodied celebrities and politicians. The show was a huge hit for its satire-comedy structure. Arun Sagar was later hired as the first contestant of Bigg Boss Kannada Season 1, where he emerged as the runner-up for the season. He later reprised the comedy genre with a new show, Comedy Circle that was aired on ETV Kannada. The show was successful, however for unknown reasons, he opted out of the show after few episodes. He also hosted a one-man-show on the same genre known as Koyyam Kotra on TV9 (Kannada).

Awards and honours

 Karnataka State Award: Best Art Director (2002)
 3rd Suvarna Film Awards: Best Art Director (2010)
 Nominated – SIIMA Award for Best Actor IN a Supporting Role – Male – Kannada
 Nominated – Sandalwood Star Award for Best Comedian

Filmography

Films
 Marma (Kannada)
 Janumada Jodi (Kannada)
 Parva (Kannada)
 Chandu (Kannada)
 Just Maath Maathalli (Kannada)
 Raam (Kannada)
 No 73, Shanthi Nivasa (Kannada)
 Madesha (Kannada)
 Maathaad Maathaadu Mallige (Kannada)
 Veera Madakari (Kannada)
 Vishnuvardhana (Kannada)
 Sanju Weds Geetha  (Kannada)
 Chingari (Kannada)
 Bacchan (Kannada)
 Auto Raja (Kannada)
 Mynaa (Kannada)
 Benkipatna (Kannada)
 Ring Master (Kannada)
 Joker (Kannada)
 Pournami (Telugu)
 Sandamarutham (Tamil)
 Amar (Kannada)
 Kanneri (Kannada)

Television
 Tarrle
 Bigg Boss Kannada
 Maja with Sruja
 Koyyam Kotra
 Comedy Circle
 Simpallag Ondu Singing Show
 Bengaluru Benne Dose
 Connexion Connection
 Chandrakumari
 Sathya
Cookku with Kirikku
Mayamruga

Comedy shows history

Maja with Sruja (2010)
Maja with Sruja was a sketch comedy show that was aired on Asianet Suvarna during 2010. The show was directed by "Vijay Prasad", known for his famous directorial venture Silly Lalli. He is also the director of the film Sidlingu. The identity of Vijay Prasad was never revealed in the show. Arun Sagar joined the comedians like Mimicry Dayanand, Antony Kamal and Srujan Lokesh, who hosted the comedy focused talk show. Celebrities were being invited for casual talk as well as film promotions. The show ended in 2011 despite being highly appreciated by the viewers. Arun Sagar played the popular role of "Chidlupudi Chidananda" and also impersonated many celebrities. Srujan Lokesh hinted about a new season in the finale of Maja with Sruja, but this did not happen.

Koyyam Kotra (2011–12)
TV9 Kannada hired Arun Sagar for a one-man-show on their channel focused on satire comedy in 2011. The show Koyyam Kotra was inspired from the popular show, The Week That Wasn't. Arun Sagar hosted the show, parodied many celebrities from the political and entertainment fields. The show had around 25-episode run and had become quite famous. Later in 2013, Arun Sagar was hired as a contestant for Season 1 of Bigg Boss Kannada by ETV Kannada, where he stood out as the runner-up of the season.

Comedy Circle (2014)
Arun Sagar, after coming out of Bigg Boss house, started another sketch comedy show on ETV Kannada named as Comedy Circle. Though this show appeared to be reincarnation of Maja with Sruja with all the recurring characters, it missed Srujan Lokesh on the show. The show was directed by Vijay Prasad again, and hosted by Arun Sagar initially. The casting was expanded for the show, which included Arun Sagar, Shalini, Mimicry Dayanand, Antony Kamal, Mimicry Gopi, Mithra and Girija Lokesh in the main cast. Arun Sagar became popular for his impersonation of female characters in the show. For unknown reasons, Arun Sagar was present only for first few episodes. Later, Shalini took up the hosting for Comedy Circle and the show successfully completed around 40 episodes.

References

External links

Living people
Indian male film actors
Indian male television actors
Indian stand-up comedians
Male actors in Kannada cinema
21st-century Indian male actors
1965 births
People from Shimoga district
Male actors from Karnataka
Bigg Boss Kannada contestants

Arun Sagar


Hottentotta tamulus, the Indian red scorpion, also known as the eastern Indian scorpion, is a species of scorpion of the family Buthidae. It occurs in most of India, eastern Pakistan and the eastern lowlands of Nepal, and recently from Sri Lanka.

Taxonomy
This species was named Scorpio tamulus by J.C. Fabricius in 1798. The species name was apparently derived from the occurrence in the state/province of the Tamil people of southeastern India. It was later often referred to the genera Buthus or Mesobuthus, although it was already correctly placed in Hottentotta by A. A. Birula in 1914, a referral that was confirmed again by F. Kovařík in 2007. Nevertheless, the binomen Mesobuthus tamulus is traditionally widespread in the popular and scientific literature.
R.I. Pocock (1900) distinguished five subspecies according to coloration and distribution, but these are color-morphs (individuals with varying color) rather than subspecies.

Description

Total body length is about 50 to 90 mm. Males with flexed proximal margins of pedipalp fingers. Manus of pedipalps is also wider than female. There are 30 to 39 pectinal teeth in males, and 27 to 34 in females. Chelicerae are yellow and reticulated. Pedipalps are densely hirsute, whereas legs and metasoma are sparsely hirsute. Patella of pedipalps covered with short setae. Mesosoma is darker than rest of the body. Ventral carinae on metasomal segments are black. Chela without carinae. Dorsum densely and very finely granulated. Dorsum bears two short, inconspicuous marginal carinae. Telson is granulated.

The walking legs and the tip of the pedipalp pincers are bright orange-yellow to light reddish-brown in color. The mesosomal tergites always bear three distinct carinae. Their habitus is typical of buthid scorpions, with rather small pedipalp pincers, moderately thickened metasomal segments and a rather bulbous telson with large stinger. The base of the pedipalp pincers (manus) is slightly more inflated in males than in females.

Toxicity
This species is of great medical significance in densely populated areas of India and Nepal and occasionally causes human fatalities. Fatality rates of 8–40% have been reported in clinical studies; most victims are children.

Symptoms of envenomation by this species include:

 Severe local pain
 Vomiting
 Sweating
 Priapism
 Cyanosis
 Unconsciousness
 Muscular convulsions
 Breathlessness
 Pink frothy sputum
 Abnormal heart rhythms
 A fast or slow heart rate
 Low or high blood pressure
 Acute myocarditis
 Shock
 Death

The venom mainly affects the cardiovascular and pulmonary system, eventually leading to a pulmonary oedema, which may cause death. Scorpion antivenom has little effect in clinical treatment but application of prazosin reduces the mortality rate to less than 4%.
As in other scorpions, the venom of H. tamulus consists of a complex mixture of proteins. Some major components have been isolated, including the toxin tamapin. Scorpion envenomation with high morbidity and mortality is usually due to either excessive autonomic activity and cardiovascular toxic effects or neuromuscular toxic effects. Antivenin is the specific treatment for scorpion envenomation combined with supportive measures including vasodilators in patients with cardiovascular toxic effects and benzodiazepines when there is neuromuscular involvement. Although rare, severe hypersensitivity reactions including anaphylaxis to scorpion antivenin (SAV) are possible.

Habitat and ecology
Despite its medical importance, little is known about the ecology and habitat preferences of this species. It is widespread across vegetated lowlands with subtropical to tropical, humid climate and often lives close to or in human settlements, especially in rural areas. A study from Saswad-Jejuri, Pune (western India) has found H. tamulus in a wide range of microhabitats, including scrubland and veld with stones, red and black soil in cropland, loamy, grassy and stony hillslopes and -tops, black soil in mango orchards, Eucalyptus plantations, and under tree bark. With an abundance of 48.43% it was by far the most abundant of the six scorpion species recorded in this study. It occurs rather seldom under tree bark, a habitat dominated by its sister species Hottentotta pachyurus (8.9% versus 91.1% abundance).
As all other scorpions, H. tamulus is nocturnal, preying upon small invertebrates and even small vertebrates like lizards. Encounters with humans mainly occur during the night or early morning, when the scorpions accidentally crawl into beds or fall from ceilings.

In Sri Lanka

Originally, H. tamulus was not found in Sri Lanka. But from 2010 to 2013, experiments and other medical reports suggest that the species is also present in Sri Lanka. Few deaths were recorded from Jaffna peninsula in recent times. After observing medical reports and patients, a research team found three dead scorpion specimens and five live specimens as well. After series of observations from research team and other international scientists, it was revealed that the scorpion specimens belong to the species H. tamulus.

Deaths from H. tamulus were recorded in 2006, 2007 and 2009 as one patient per year. No cases were recorded in 2010. In 2011, 12 children in Jaffna died due to H. tamulus stings. In 2012, 80 patients were recorded. Out of them, 52% were female, 48% were male. 30% from them were children between the age 3 and 12.

In 2013, many H. tamulus stings were recorded, as many as four each week, again mostly in women and children. Usually, the drug Prazosin is recommended for H. tamulus stings. The drug can reduce the increasing blood pressure.

See also
Tamapin
Tamulotoxin
Iberiotoxin

Notes

References

External links

 Images of various Hottentotta species, including H. tamulus: Hottentotta.com.
 Video: "World's Deadliest Scorpion?" Nationalgeographic.com
 http://scorpion-files.blogspot.com/2013/03/first-report-of-medical-important.html
 https://web.archive.org/web/20130529041204/http://www.newsfirst.lk/english/node/22258

Buthidae
Scorpions of Asia
Arthropods of India
Arthropods of Nepal
Arthropods of Pakistan
Arthropods of Sri Lanka
Animals described in 1798
Taxa named by Johan Christian Fabricius

Hottentotta tamulus


Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 March 6, 1986) was an American modernist painter and draftswoman whose career spanned seven decades and whose work remained largely independent of major art movements. Called the "Mother of American modernism", O'Keeffe gained international recognition for her meticulous paintings of natural forms, particularly flowers and desert-inspired landscapes, which were often drawn from and related to places and environments in which she lived.

From 1905, when O'Keeffe began her studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, until about 1920, she studied art or earned money as a commercial illustrator or a teacher to pay for further education. Influenced by Arthur Wesley Dow, O'Keeffe began to develop her unique style beginning with her watercolors from her studies at the University of Virginia and more dramatically in the charcoal drawings that she produced in 1915 that led to total abstraction. Alfred Stieglitz, an art dealer and photographer, held an exhibit of her works in 1917. Over the next couple of years, she taught and continued her studies at the Teachers College, Columbia University.

She moved to New York in 1918 at Stieglitz's request and began working seriously as an artist. They developed a professional and personal relationship that led to their marriage in 1924. O'Keeffe created many forms of abstract art, including close-ups of flowers, such as the Red Canna paintings, that many found to represent vulvas, though O'Keeffe consistently denied that intention. The imputation of the depiction of women's sexuality was also fueled by explicit and sensuous photographs of O'Keeffe that Stieglitz had taken and exhibited.

O'Keeffe and Stieglitz lived together in New York until 1929, when O'Keeffe began spending part of the year in the Southwest, which served as inspiration for her paintings of New Mexico landscapes and images of animal skulls, such as Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue (1931) and Summer Days (1936). After Stieglitz's death, she lived in New Mexico at the Georgia O'Keeffe Home and Studio in Abiquiú until the last years of her life, when she lived in Santa Fe. In 2014, O'Keeffe's 1932 painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 sold for $44,405,000. After her death, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum was established in Santa Fe.

Early life and education (1887–1916)

Georgia O'Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887, in a farmhouse in the town of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Her parents, Francis Calyxtus O'Keeffe and Ida (Totto) O'Keeffe, were dairy farmers. Her father was of Irish descent. Her mother's father, George Victor Totto, for whom O'Keeffe was named, was a Hungarian count who came to the United States in 1848.

O'Keeffe was the second of seven children. She attended Town Hall School in Sun Prairie. By age 10, she had decided to become an artist. With her sisters, Ida and Anita, she received art instruction from local watercolorist Sara Mann. O'Keeffe attended high school at Sacred Heart Academy in Madison, Wisconsin, as a boarder between 1901 and 1902. In late 1902, the O'Keeffes moved from Wisconsin to the close-knit neighborhood of Peacock Hill in Williamsburg, Virginia, where O'Keeffe's father started a business making rusticated cast concrete block in anticipation of a demand for the block in the Virginia Peninsula building trade, but the demand never materialized. O'Keeffe stayed in Wisconsin attending Madison Central High School until joining her family in Virginia in 1903. She completed high school as a boarder at Chatham Episcopal Institute in Virginia (now Chatham Hall), graduating in 1905. At Chatham, she was a member of Kappa Delta sorority.

O'Keeffe taught and headed the art department at West Texas State Normal College, watching over her youngest sibling, Claudia, at her mother's request. In 1917, she visited her brother, Alexis, at a military camp in Texas before he shipped out for Europe during World War I. While there, she created the painting The Flag, which expressed her anxiety and depression about the war.

Academic training

From 1905 to 1906, O'Keeffe was enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied with John Vanderpoel and ranked at the top of her class. As a result of contracting typhoid fever, she had to take a year off from her education. In 1907, she attended the Art Students League in New York City, where she studied under William Merritt Chase, Kenyon Cox, and F. Luis Mora. In 1908, she won the League's William Merritt Chase still-life prize for her oil painting Dead Rabbit with Copper Pot. Her prize was a scholarship to attend the League's outdoor summer school in Lake George, New York. While in the New York City, O'Keeffe visited galleries, such as 291, co-owned by her future husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz. The gallery promoted the work of avant-garde artists and photographers from the United States and Europe.

In 1908, O'Keeffe discovered that she would not be able to finance her studies. Her father had gone bankrupt and her mother was seriously ill with tuberculosis. She was not interested in a career as a painter based on the mimetic tradition that had formed the basis of her art training. She took a job in Chicago as a commercial artist and worked there until 1910, when she returned to Virginia to recuperate from the measles and later moved with her family to Charlottesville, Virginia. She did not paint for four years and said that the smell of turpentine made her ill. She began teaching art in 1911. One of her positions was at her former school, Chatham Episcopal Institute, in Virginia.

First abstractions
She took a summer art class in 1912 at the University of Virginia from Alon Bement, who was a Columbia University Teachers College faculty member. Under Bement, she learned of the innovative ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow, Bement's colleague. Dow's approach was influenced by principles of design and composition in Japanese art. She began to experiment with abstract compositions and develop a personal style that veered away from realism. From 1912 to 1914, she taught art in the public schools in Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle, and was a teaching assistant to Bement during the summers. She took classes at the University of Virginia for two more summers. She also took a class in the spring of 1914 at Teachers College of Columbia University with Dow, who further influenced her thinking about the process of making art. Her studies at the University of Virginia, based upon Dow's principles, were pivotal in O'Keeffe's development as an artist. Through her exploration and growth as an artist, she helped to establish the American modernism movement.

She taught at Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina in late 1915, where she completed a series of highly innovative charcoal abstractions based on her personal sensations. In early 1916, O'Keeffe was in New York at Teachers College, Columbia University. She mailed the charcoal drawings to a friend and former classmate at Teachers College, Anita Pollitzer, who took them to Alfred Stieglitz at his 291 gallery early in 1916. Stieglitz found them to be the "purest, finest, sincerest things that had entered 291 in a long while" and said that he would like to show them. In April that year, Stieglitz exhibited ten of her drawings at 291.

After further course work at Columbia in early 1916 and summer teaching for Bement, she became the chair of the art department at West Texas State Normal College, in Canyon, Texas, beginning in the fall of 1916. O'Keeffe, who enjoyed sunrises and sunsets, developed a fondness for intense and nocturnal colors. Building upon a practice she began in South Carolina, O'Keeffe painted to express her most private sensations and feelings. Rather than sketching out a design before painting, she freely created designs. O'Keeffe continued to experiment until she believed she truly captured her feelings in the watercolor, Light Coming on the Plains No. I (1917).

She began a series of watercolor paintings based upon the scenery and expansive views during her walks, including vibrant paintings of Palo Duro Canyon. She "captured a monumental landscape in this simple configuration, fusing blue and green pigments in almost indistinct tonal graduations that simulate the pulsating effect of light on the horizon of the Texas Panhandle," according to author Sharyn Rohlfsen Udall.

New York (1918–1930s)

Stieglitz circle
In 1918, O'Keeffe moved to New York as Stieglitz offered to provide financial support, a residence, and place for her to paint. They developed a close personal relationship, and later married, while he promoted her work. Stieglitz also discouraged her use of watercolor, which was associated with amateur women artists. According to art historian Charles Eldredge, "the couple enjoyed a prominent position in the ebullient art of New York throughout the 1920s".

O'Keeffe came to know the many early American modernists who were part of Stieglitz's circle of artists, including painters Charles Demuth, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and photographers Paul Strand and Edward Steichen. Strand's photography, as well as that of Stieglitz, inspired O'Keeffe's work. Stieglitz, whose 291 Gallery closed down in 1917, was now able to spend more time on his own photographic practice, producing a series of photographs of natural forms, cloud studies (a series known as Equivalents), and portraits of O'Keeffe. Prior to her marriage to Stieglitz, O'Keeffe's drawings and paintings were frequently abstract, although she began to expand her visual vocabulary from 1924 onward to include more representational imagery "usually taken from nature and often painted in series".

Flower paintings

O'Keeffe began creating simplified images of natural things, such as leaves, flowers, and rocks. Inspired by Precisionism, The Green Apple, completed in 1922, depicts her notion of simple, meaningful life. O'Keeffe said that year, "it is only by selection, by elimination, and by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things." Blue and Green Music expresses O'Keeffe's feelings about music through visual art, using bold and subtle colors.

Also in 1922, journalist Paul Rosenfeld commented "[the] Essence of very womanhood permeates her pictures", citing her use of color and shapes as metaphors for the female body. This same article also describes her paintings in a sexual manner. O'Keeffe, most famous for her depiction of flowers, made about 200 flower paintings, which by the mid-1920s were large-scale depictions of flowers, as if seen through a magnifying lens, such as Oriental Poppies and several Red Canna paintings. She painted her first large-scale flower painting, Petunia, No. 2, in 1924 and it was first exhibited in 1925. Making magnified depictions of objects created a sense of awe and emotional intensity. In 1924, Stieglitz arranged a show displaying O'Keeffe's works of art alongside his photographs at Anderson Galleries and helped organized other exhibitions over the next several years.

New York Skyscraper paintings

After having moved into a 30th floor apartment in the Shelton Hotel in 1925, O'Keeffe began a series of paintings of the New York skyscrapers and skyline. One of her most notable works, which demonstrates her skill at depicting the buildings in the Precisionist style, is the Radiator Building–Night, New York. Other examples are New York Street with Moon (1925), The Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y. (1926), and City Night (1926). She made a cityscape, East River from the Thirtieth Story of the Shelton Hotel in 1928, a painting of her view of the East River and smoke-emitting factories in Queens. The next year she made her final New York City skyline and skyscraper paintings and traveled to New Mexico, which became a source of inspiration for her work.

The Brooklyn Museum held a retrospective of her work in 1927. In 1928, Stieglitz announced that six of her calla lily paintings sold to an anonymous buyer in France for US$25,000, but there is no evidence that this transaction occurred the way Stieglitz reported. As a result of the press attention, O'Keeffe's paintings sold at a higher price from that point onward.

New Mexico (1930s–1986)
By 1929, she traveled to Santa Fe for the first time, accompanied by her friend Rebecca (Beck) Strand and stayed in Taos with Mabel Dodge Luhan, who provided the women with studios. From her room she had a clear view of the Taos Mountains as well as the morada (meetinghouse) of the Hermanos de la Fraternidad Piadosa de Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno, also known as the Penitentes. She subsequently visited New Mexico on near annual basis from 1929 onward, often staying there several months at a time, returning to New York each winter to exhibit her work at Stieglitz's gallery. O'Keeffe went on many pack trips, exploring the rugged mountains and deserts of the region that summer and later visited the nearby D. H. Lawrence Ranch, where she completed her now famous oil painting, The Lawrence Tree, currently owned by the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, Connecticut. O'Keeffe visited and painted the nearby historical San Francisco de Asís Mission Church at Ranchos de Taos. She made several paintings of the church, as had many artists, and her painting of a fragment of it silhouetted against the sky captured it from a unique perspective.

In New Mexico, she collected rocks and bones from the desert floor and made them and the distinctive architectural and landscape forms of the area subjects in her work. Known as a loner, O'Keeffe often explored the land she loved in her Ford Model A, which she purchased and learned to drive in 1929. She often talked about her fondness for Ghost Ranch and Northern New Mexico, as in 1943, when she explained, "Such a beautiful, untouched lonely feeling place, such a fine part of what I call the 'Faraway'. It is a place I have painted before ... even now I must do it again." O'Keeffe did not work from late 1932 until about the mid-1930s due to nervous breakdowns.  She was a popular artist, receiving commissions while her works were being exhibited in New York and other places.

Skull and desert motifs
In 1933 and 1934, O'Keeffe recuperated in Bermuda and returned to New Mexico in 1934. In August 1934, she moved to Ghost Ranch, north of Abiquiú. In 1940, she moved into a house on the ranch property. The varicolored cliffs surrounding the ranch inspired some of her most famous landscapes.  Between 1934 and 1936, she completed a series of landscape paintings inspired by the New Mexico desert, often with prominent depictions of animal skulls, including Rams Head with Hollyhock (1935) and Deer's Head with Pedernal (1936) as well as Summer Days (1936). In 1936, she completed what would become one of her best-known paintings, Summer Days. It depicts a desert scene with a deer skull with vibrant wildflowers. Resembling Ram's Head with Hollyhock, it depicted the skull floating above the horizon.

In 1938, the advertising agency N. W. Ayer & Son approached O'Keeffe about creating two paintings for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (now Dole Food Company) to use in advertising.  Other artists who produced paintings of Hawaii for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company's advertising include Lloyd Sexton, Jr., Millard Sheets, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Isamu Noguchi, and Miguel Covarrubias. The offer came at a critical time in O'Keeffe's life: she was 51, and her career seemed to be stalling (critics were calling her focus on New Mexico limited, and branding her desert images "a kind of mass production").

She arrived in Honolulu February 8, 1939, aboard the SS Lurline and spent nine weeks in Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and the island of Hawaii. By far the most productive and vivid period was on Maui, where she was given complete freedom to explore and paint. She painted flowers, landscapes, and traditional Hawaiian fishhooks. Back in New York, O'Keeffe completed a series of 20 sensual, verdant paintings. However, she did not paint the requested pineapple until the Hawaiian Pineapple Company sent a plant to her New York studio.

During the 1940s, O'Keeffe had two one-woman retrospectives, the first at the Art Institute of Chicago (1943). Her second was in 1946, when she was the first woman artist to have a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in Manhattan.  Whitney Museum began an effort to create the first catalogue of her work in the mid-1940s.

Abiquiú and landscapes
In 1945, O'Keeffe bought a second house, an abandoned hacienda in Abiquiú, which she renovated into a home and studio. She moved permanently to New Mexico in 1949, spending time at both Ghost Ranch and the Abiquiú house that she made into her studio.

Todd Webb, a photographer she met in the 1940s, moved to New Mexico in 1961. He often made photographs of her, as did numerous other important American photographers, who consistently presented O'Keeffe as a "loner, a severe figure and self-made person." While O'Keeffe was known to have a "prickly personality," Webb's photographs portray her with a kind of "quietness and calm" suggesting a relaxed friendship, and revealing new contours of O'Keeffe's character.

In the 1940s, O'Keeffe made an extensive series of paintings of what is called the "Black Place", about  west of her Ghost Ranch house. O'Keeffe said that the Black Place resembled "a mile of elephants with gray hills and white sand at their feet." She made paintings of the "White Place", a white rock formation located near her Abiquiú house. In 1946, she began making the architectural forms of her Abiquiú house—the patio wall and door—subjects in her work. Another distinctive painting was Ladder to the Moon, 1958. In the mid-1960s, O'Keeffe produced Sky Above Clouds, a series of cloudscapes inspired by her views from airplane windows. Worcester Art Museum held a retrospective of her work in 1960 and ten years later, the Whitney Museum of American Art mounted the Georgia O'Keeffe Retrospective Exhibition.

Late career and death

In 1972, O'Keeffe lost much of her eyesight due to macular degeneration, leaving her with only peripheral vision. She stopped oil painting without assistance in 1972. In 1973, O'Keeffe hired John Bruce "Juan" Hamilton as a live-in assistant and then a caretaker. Hamilton was a potter. Hamilton taught O'Keeffe to work with clay, encouraged her to resume painting despite her deteriorating eyesight, and helped her write her autobiography. He worked for her for 13 years. The artist's autobiography, Georgia O'Keeffe, published in 1976 by Viking Press, featured Summer Days (1936) on the cover. It became a bestseller. During the 1970s, she made a series of works in watercolor. She continued working in pencil and charcoal until 1984.

O'Keeffe became increasingly frail in her late 90s. She moved to Santa Fe in 1984, where she died on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98. Her body was cremated and her ashes were scattered, as she wished, on the land around Ghost Ranch. Following O'Keeffe's death, her family contested her will because codicils added to it in the 1980s had left most of her $65 million estate to Hamilton. The case was ultimately settled out of court in July 1987. The case became a famous precedent in estate planning.

Reception

Awards and honors

In 1938, O'Keeffe received an honorary degree of "Doctor of Fine Arts" from the College of William & Mary.  Later, O'Keeffe was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1966 was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among her awards and honors, O'Keeffe received the M. Carey Thomas Award at Bryn Mawr College in 1971 and two years later received an honorary degree from Harvard University.

In 1977, President Gerald Ford presented O'Keeffe with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor awarded to American civilians. In 1985, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Ronald Reagan. In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Art criticism and scholarship
O'Keeffe's lotus paintings may have deeper ties to vulvar imagery and symbolism. In Egyptian mythology, lotus flowers are a symbol of the womb, and in Indian mythology, they are direct symbols for vulvas. Feminist art historian Linda Nochlin and the author of the influential 1971 essay titled "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?", also interpreted Black Iris III (1926) as a morphological metaphor for a vulva.

Art dealer Samuel Kootz was one of O'Keeffe's critics who, although considering her to be "the only prominent woman artist" (in the words of Marilyn Hall Mitchell), considered sexual expression in her work (and other artists' work) artistically problematic. Kootz stated that "assertion of sex can only impede the talents of an artist, for it is an act of defiance, of grievance, in which the consciousness of these qualities retards the natural assertions of the painter".

O'Keeffe stood her ground against sexual interpretations of her work, and for fifty years maintained that there was no connection between vulvas and her artwork. Firing back against some of the criticism, O'Keeffe stated, "When people read erotic symbols into my paintings, they're really talking about their own affairs." She attributed other artists' attacks on her work to psychological projection. O'Keeffe was also seen as a revolutionary feminist; however, the artist rejected these notions, stating that "femaleness is irrelevant" and that "it has nothing to do with art making or accomplishment."

Personal life

In June 1918, O'Keeffe accepted Stieglitz's invitation to move to New York from Texas after he promised he would provide her with a quiet studio where she could paint. Within a month he took the first of many nude photographs of her at his family's apartment while his wife was away. His wife returned home once while their session was still in progress. She had suspected for a while that something was going on between the two, and told him to stop seeing O'Keeffe or get out. Stieglitz left home immediately and found a place in the city where he and O'Keeffe could live together. They slept separately for more than two weeks. By the end of the month they were in the same bed together, and by mid-August when they visited Oaklawn, the Stieglitz family summer estate in Lake George in upstate New York, "they were like two teenagers in love. Several times a day they would run up the stairs to their bedroom, so eager to make love that they would start taking their clothes off as they ran." Also around this time, O'Keeffe became sick during the 1918 flu pandemic.

In February 1921, Stieglitz's photographs of O'Keeffe were included in a retrospective exhibition at the Anderson Galleries. Stieglitz started photographing O'Keeffe when she visited him in New York City to see her 1917 exhibition, and continued taking photographs, many of which were in the nude. It created a public sensation. When he retired from photography in 1937, he had made more than 350 portraits and more than 200 nude photos of her. In 1978, she wrote about how distant from them she had become, "When I look over the photographs Stieglitz took of me—some of them more than sixty years ago—I wonder who that person is. It is as if in my one life I have lived many lives."

Owing to the legal delays caused by Stieglitz's first wife and her family, it would take six years before he obtained a divorce. In 1924, O'Keeffe and Stieglitz got married. For the rest of their lives together, their relationship was, "a collusion....a system of deals and trade-offs, tacitly agreed to and carried out, for the most part, without the exchange of a word. Preferring avoidance to confrontation on most issues, O'Keeffe was the principal agent of collusion in their union," according to biographer Benita Eisler. They lived primarily in New York City, but spent their summers at his father's family estate, Oaklawn, in Lake George in upstate New York.

O'Keeffe and Stieglitz had an open relationship, which could be painful for O'Keeffe when Stieglitz had affairs with women. In 1928, Stieglitz began a long-term affair with Dorothy Norman, who was also married, and O'Keeffe lost a project to create a mural for Radio City Music Hall. She was hospitalized for depression. At the suggestion of Maria Chabot and Mabel Dodge Luhan, O'Keeffe began to spend the summers painting in New Mexico in 1929. She traveled by train with her friend the painter Rebecca Strand, Paul Strand's wife, to Taos, where they lived with their patron who provided them with studios. In 1933, O'Keeffe was hospitalized for two months after suffering a nervous breakdown, largely due to Stieglitz's affair with Dorothy Norman. She did not paint again until January 1934.

O'Keeffe continued to visit New Mexico, without her husband, and created a new body of works based upon the desert.{{efn|In the 1920s and 1930s, Santa Fe and Taos were havens for men and women who wanted to live unburdened by societal norms about sexuality. During that time, "artists flocked to New Mexico inspired by its vast natural beauty and the indigenous cultures that were so different from their own." Lesbian women in the fields of photography, archaeology, and anthropology were drawn to the area professionally and personally. O'Keeffe knew lesbian and bisexual women<ref name="Garber">{{cite book |first1=Marjorie |last1=Garber |title=Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life |date=May 13, 2013 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gl4MtvWKnUcC&pg=PA113 |pages=113–115, 288 |isbn=9781136612831 |access-date=July 9, 2023 |archive-date=August 31, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831050606/https://books.google.com/books?id=gl4MtvWKnUcC&pg=PA113 |url-status=live }}</ref> According to El Palacio, she tended to avoid Santa Fe's lesbian women. She was friends with bisexual and gay men, like Cady Wells, who was a lifelong friend.}} O'Keeffe broke free of "strict gender roles" and adopted "gender neutral" clothing, as did other professional women in Santa Fe and Taos who experienced "psychological space and sexual freedom" there.

Shortly after O'Keeffe arrived for the summer in New Mexico in 1946, Stieglitz suffered a cerebral thrombosis (stroke). She immediately flew to New York to be with him. He died on July 13, 1946. She buried his ashes at Lake George. She spent the next three years mostly in New York settling his estate,

She had a close relationship with Beck Strand. They enjoyed spending time together, traveling, and living with "glee". Beck said that she was most herself when with O'Keeffe. According to Foursome—a book about O'Keeffe, Stieglitz, and Beck and Paul Strand—the women had a heterosexual relationship. Further, the book states that letters that some conclude meant that they were sexual partners are incongruent with the way that the two women lived their lives.

Frida Kahlo met O'Keeffe in December 1931 in New York City at the opening of Diego Rivera's solo exhibition at the MOMA, after which a friendship developed. They remained friends, staying in touch when O'Keeffe recuperated from a nervous breakdown in a hospital and then in Bermuda. Both women visited each other's homes on a couple of occasions in the 1950s.

Among guests to visit her at the ranch over the years were Charles and Anne Lindbergh, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, poet Allen Ginsberg, and photographer Ansel Adams. She traveled and camped at "Black Place" often with her friend, Maria Chabot, and later with Eliot Porter.Porter's photograph, Eroded Clay and Rock Flakes, Black Place, New Mexico, July 20, 1953, on cartermuseum.org, in the Amon Carter Museum Eliot Porter Collection  Retrieved June 16, 2010

 Legacy

 Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

O'Keeffe was a legend beginning in the 1920s, known as much for her independent spirit and female role model as for her dramatic and innovative works of art. Nancy and Jules Heller said, "The most remarkable thing about O'Keeffe was the audacity and uniqueness of her early work." At that time, even in Europe, there were few artists exploring abstraction. Even though her works may show elements of different modernist movements, such as Surrealism and Precisionism, her work is uniquely her own style.

A substantial part of her estate's assets were transferred to the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, a nonprofit. The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum opened in Santa Fe in 1997. The assets included a large body of her work, photographs, archival materials, and her Abiquiú house, library, and property. The Georgia O'Keeffe Home and Studio in Abiquiú was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998, and is now owned by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. A fossilized species of archosaur was named Effigia okeeffeae ("O'Keeffe's Ghost") in January 2006, "in honor of Georgia O'Keeffe for her numerous paintings of the badlands at Ghost Ranch and her interest in the Coelophysis Quarry when it was discovered". In November 2016, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum recognized the importance of her time in Charlottesville by dedicating an exhibition, using watercolors that she had created over three summers. It was entitled, O'Keeffe at the University of Virginia, 1912–1914.

 Popular culture
In 1991, PBS aired the American Playhouse production A Marriage: Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, starring Jane Alexander as O'Keeffe and Christopher Plummer as Alfred Stieglitz. In 1996, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 32-cent stamp honoring O'Keeffe. In 2013, on the 100th anniversary of the Armory Show, the USPS issued a stamp featuring O'Keeffe's Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico/Out Back of Marie's II, 1930 as part of their Modern Art in America series.  Lifetime Television produced a biopic of Georgia O'Keeffe starring Joan Allen as O'Keeffe, Jeremy Irons as Alfred Stieglitz, Henry Simmons as Jean Toomer, Ed Begley Jr. as Stieglitz's brother Lee, and Tyne Daly as Mabel Dodge Luhan. It premiered on September 19, 2009.

On November 20, 2014, O'Keeffe's Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1 (1932) sold for $44,405,000 in 2014 at auction to Walmart heiress Alice Walton, more than three times the previous world auction record for any female artist.

 Women's suffrage and feminism
In Equal Under the Sky: Georgia O'Keeffe and Twentieth Century Feminism, Linda M. Grasso documents O'Keeffe's life-long involvement in feminism and women's issues. O'Keeffe came of age as a woman and an artist in the 1910s, at the height of the women's suffrage movement and the intense artistic ferment of modernism. Grasso notes that "Modernists championed rupture, innovation, and daring in art forms, styles, and perspectives," and that O'Keeffe "first created herself as an artist when feminism and modernism were interlinked". As early as 1915, O'Keeffe was reading books and articles on women's suffrage and cultural politics with enthusiasm, such as Floyd Dell's Women as World Builders: Studies in Modern Feminism. There was much talk in this era about the "New Woman," liberated from Victorian strictures and mores and pursuing her own life and education and self-expression freely. O'Keeffe was in active dialogue with her suffragist friend Anita Pollitzer, with whom she exchanged letters on the subject. Pollitzer, in fact, was the first person to introduce Alfred Stieglitz to O'Keeffe's art work. She was also reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Olive Schreiner, among others, alongside the radical magazine The Masses, and lecturing on modernist dancer Isadora Duncan. In a debate with Michael Gold in 1930, O'Keeffe said she was "interested in the oppression of women of all classes". Gross writes: "She sustained an affiliation with the National Woman's Party and made public statements about gender discrimination and women's rights in interviews, speeches, letters, and articles into the 1970s."

She received unprecedented acceptance as a woman artist from the fine art world due to her powerful graphic images and within a decade of moving to New York City, she was the highest-paid American woman artist. She was known for a distinctive style in all aspects of her life.

Mary Beth Edelson's Some Living American Women Artists / Last Supper (1972) appropriated Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, with the heads of notable women artists collaged over the heads of Christ and his apostles. John the Apostle's head was replaced with Nancy Graves, and Christ's with Georgia O'Keeffe. This image, addressing the role of religious and art historical iconography in the subordination of women, became "one of the most iconic images of the feminist art movement." Judy Chicago gave O'Keeffe a prominent place in her The Dinner Party (1979) in recognition of what many prominent feminist artists considered groundbreaking introduction of sensual and feminist imagery in her works of art. Although feminists celebrated O'Keeffe as the originator of "female iconography", she did not consider herself a feminist. She disliked being called a "woman artist" and wanted to be considered an "artist."

Publications

From her correspondence

Notes

Citations

References

Further reading

External links

Works
 Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online
 Smithsonian Institution Information System: paintings, still lifes, photographs, and sculpture.

 MoMA 2023 installation: "Georgia O'Keeffe: To See Takes Time"
 Patricia Marroquin Norby and Samantha Friedman, curators, comment on Georgia O'Keeffe, Untitled (Patio Door), 1946, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
 Patricia Marroquin Norby, Native American curator, comments on Georgia O'Keeffe, Eagle Claw and Bean Necklace, 1934, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

Other
 Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O'Keeffe Archive at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University
 O'Keeffe!, a solo actor play by Lucinda McDermott, Playscripts, Inc.

1887 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American painters
Abstract painters
American people of Hungarian descent
American people of Irish descent
American watercolorists
Art Students League of New York alumni
Artists from Santa Fe, New Mexico
Cowgirl Hall of Fame inductees
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Flower artists
Hawaii artists
Modern painters
Painters from New York City
Painters from Wisconsin
People from Abiquiú, New Mexico
People from Amarillo, Texas
People from Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
People with mood disorders
Precisionism
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni
Students of William Merritt Chase
Teachers College, Columbia University alumni
United States National Medal of Arts recipients
University of Virginia alumni
West Texas A&M University faculty
Women watercolorists
20th-century American women painters

Georgia O'Keeffe


Medieval architecture was the art of designing and constructing buildings in the Middle Ages. Major styles of the period include pre-Romanesque, Romanesque, and Gothic. The Renaissance marked the end of the medieval period, when architects began to favour classical forms. While most surviving medieval constructions are churches and military fortifications, examples of civic and domestic architecture can be found throughout Europe, including in manor houses, town halls, almshouses, bridges, and residential houses.

Guilds were formed by craftsmen during this period to organize their trades. Architects were usually master masons (Magister lathomorum), and were typically responsible for the structural engineering of their buildings, for ensuring that they were stable, unlike in later periods.

Styles

Pre-Romanesque

European architecture in the Early Middle Ages may be divided into Early Christian, Romanesque architecture, Russian church architecture, Norse architecture, Pre-Romanesque, including Merovingian, Carolingian, Ottonian, and Asturian. While these terms are problematic, they nonetheless serve adequately as entries into the era.  Considerations that enter into histories of each period include Trachtenberg's "historicising" and "modernising" elements, Italian versus northern, Spanish, and Byzantine elements, and especially the religious and political maneuverings between kings, popes, and various ecclesiastic officials.

Romanesque

Romanesque, prevalent in medieval Europe during the 11th and 12th centuries, was the first pan-European style since Roman Imperial architecture and examples are found in every part of the continent. The term was not contemporary with the art it describes, but rather, is an invention of modern scholarship based on its similarity to Roman Architecture in forms and materials. Romanesque is characterized by a use of round or slightly pointed arches, barrel vaults, and cruciform piers supporting vaults. Romanesque buildings are widely known throughout Europe.

The spread of Romanesque architecture through Europe has been described as "revolutionary". This style is sometimes called Anglo-Norman, though it continues under the Angevin and Plantagenet rulers. Motifs of Roman origin were common to Norman and Anglo-Saxon architectural styles. Though usually classed broadly as "Romanesque", the period of architecture can now be divided into two stages. The first stage from 1070 A.D. to 1100 A.D. saw the style emerge during the rebuilding of many great churches, cathedrals, and monasteries (surviving examples include the Durham Cathedral, Norwich Cathedral and the Peterborough Cathedral). The second stage lasted from 1100 A.D. to 1170 A.D. when many smaller churches were built and renovated. During this time, the style became more detailed and ornamental. Identifying these latter churches is made difficult due to something called the Saxo-Norman overlap, where many Anglo-Saxon aspects are present in the masonry. The Church at Kilpeck is identified as 12th century based on its shallow and flat buttresses, emphatic corbel table and apse.

Gothic

The various elements of Gothic architecture emerged in a number of 11th and 12th century building projects, particularly in the Île de France area, but were first combined to form what we would now recognise as a distinctively Gothic style at the 12th century abbey church of Saint-Denis in Saint-Denis, near Paris.  Verticality is emphasized in Gothic architecture, which features almost skeletal stone structures with great expanses of glass, pared-down wall surfaces supported by external flying buttresses, pointed arches using the ogive shape, ribbed stone vaults, clustered columns, pinnacles and sharply pointed spires. Windows contain stained glass, showing stories from the Bible and from lives of saints. Such advances in design allowed cathedrals to rise taller than ever.

Functions

Religious architecture

The Latin cross plan, common in medieval ecclesiastical architecture, takes the Roman basilica as its primary model with subsequent developments. It consists of a nave, transepts, and the altar stands at the east end (see Cathedral diagram). Also, cathedrals influenced or commissioned by Justinian employed the Byzantine style of domes and a Greek cross (resembling a plus sign), with the altar located in the sanctuary on the east side of the church.

Military architecture

Surviving examples of medieval secular architecture mainly served for defense. Castles and fortified walls provide the most notable remaining non-religious examples of medieval architecture. Windows gained a cross-shape for more than decorative purposes, they provided a perfect fit for a crossbowman to safely shoot invaders from inside. Crenellated walls (battlements) provided shelters for archers on the roofs to hide behind when not shooting invaders.

Civic architecture

While much of the surviving medieval architecture is either religious or military, examples of civic and even domestic architecture can be found throughout Europe. Examples include manor houses, town halls, almshouses and bridges, but also residential houses.

Regions

Central Europe

Byzantine Empire

Bulgarian Empire

Scandinavia

Kievan Rus

See also
 Medieval Serbian architecture
 List of medieval stone bridges in Germany
 List of medieval bridges in France

References

Further reading
 Braun, Hugh, An Introduction to English Mediaeval Architecture, London: Faber and Faber, 1951.
 "Building the House of God: Architectural Metaphor and The Mystic Ark," Codex Aquilarensis: Revista de arte medieval (2016)
 Fletcher, Banister; Cruickshank, Dan, Sir Banister Fletcher's a History of Architecture, Architectural Press, 20th edition, 1996 (first published 1896). . Cf. Part Two, Chapter 13.
Hillson, J., Buchanan, A., Webb, N , Digital Analysis of Vaults in English Medieval Architecture, London: Taylor & Francis (2021).
 Rudolph, Conrad, "Building-Miracles as Artistic Justification in the Early and Mid-Twelfth Century," Radical Art History: Internationale Anthologie, ed. Wolfgang Kersten (1997) 398-410.
 Rudolph, Conrad, "The Architectural Metaphor in Western Medieval Artistic Culture: From the Cornerstone to The Mystic Ark," The Cambridge History of Religious Architecture, ed. Stephen Murray (2016).
 Rudolph, Conrad, "Medieval Architectural Theory, the Sacred Economy, and the Public Presentation of Monastic Architecture: The Classic Cistercian Plan," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 78 (2019) 259-275.

External links
The stave churches in Norway
Photographs and Plans of Crusader, Armenian and Byzantine Architecture in Turkey

Medieval architecture


Bonaventura van Overbeek (1660–1705) was a Dutch Golden Age draughtsman and engraver.

Biography

Overbeek was born and died in Amsterdam.  According to Houbraken, he drew the Roman ruins from life and, while in Rome, he joined the Bentvueghels with the nickname Romulus. He published several etchings of his drawings, but also published a book with descriptions of the major sites of Rome in 1708, that he had dedicated to the English princess Anna – he died before publication and the book was published by his nephew Michiel van Overbeke. Bonaventura was born a year too late for Houbraken's third volume on artists, and perhaps it was Houbraken's notes that Jan van Gool used for his 7-page biographical sketch of him.

According to the RKD his cousin Michiel van Overbeke published his prints after his death (, Amsterdam 1708). He is known for italianate landscapes and was a pupil of Gerard de Lairesse. He travelled to Rome and drew the antiquities, and after he returned was welcomed back by De Lairesse, who took him in. He started to collect plaster casts and drawings, with a view to writing a book on art history. In all he travelled to Rome three times, and his great Latin work on Roman ruins published in 1708 was translated from Latin into French as  in 1709.

References

Bonaventura van Overbeek on Artnet
Overbeek's Les restes de l'ancienne Rome on Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix (university of Wallonie-Bruxelles) website

1660 births
1705 deaths
Dutch Golden Age printmakers
Artists from Amsterdam
Members of the Bentvueghels

Bonaventura van Overbeek


The Greensand Ridge Walk is a long-distance walk of  that traverses the county of Bedfordshire in England, with brief sections in the neighbouring counties of Cambridgeshire and Buckinghamshire. Its southern endpoint is at Leighton Buzzard and the route runs north-east to finish at Gamlingay. As can be inferred from the name, the walk follows the Bedfordshire Greensand Ridge (not to be confused with the Greensand Way, the greensand ridge that can be found in Surrey, Sussex and Kent).

The waymarker for the route employs a silhouette of the muntjac, a common sight in the vicinity of the village of Woburn, through which the walk passes.

References

External links

Footpaths in Bedfordshire
Long-distance footpaths in England

Greensand Ridge Walk


Emil Fischbacher (, 9 August 1903 – 27 May 1933) was a Scottish Protestant Christian missionary to Xinjiang. He served with the China Inland Mission.

Fischbacher was born in Glasgow, Scotland, 9 August 1903.

It was on the last Saturday in May 1931 that Emil Fischbacher picked up China's Millions and read the Appeal for the Two Hundred. It was on the last Saturday of May 1933, exactly two years later, that Dr. Fischbacher died in Ürümqi.

Fischbacher left London for China on 31 December 1931, he was on the last boatload of missionaries who came because of China Inland Mission's specific prayer for 200 new volunteers. His ship arrived in front of Shanghai when that city was under siege by the Japanese.

After language school in Anking, he, along with five other young men, Raymond H. Joyce, William J. Drew, George Fox-Holmes, Aubrey Parsons, and Otto Schoerner was appointed to serve God in Xinjiang. George Hunter happened to be in Shanghai at that time (a very rare occurrence). He accompanied the new recruits back to Xinjiang. Emil, a gifted mechanic, drove the truck across Inner Mongolia to Urumqi. The journey took 57 days.

Fischbacher died on 27 May 1933 of typhus, which he contracted during the siege of Ürümqi, when caring for people wounded during the Muslim Rebellion led by Ma Chung-ying. He is buried in Ürümqi.

Bibliography
 Broomhall, Marshall B.; To What Purpose? (London: CIM 1933)
 Schoerner, Otto F.; Serving Christ (Pine: Focalpoint 1997)

See also
Historical Bibliography of the China Inland Mission
Percy C. Mather

External links
Short Biography (in Chinese)
Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity

Scottish Protestant missionaries
Protestant missionaries in China
20th-century Scottish medical doctors
Christian medical missionaries
Clergy from Glasgow
1903 births
1933 deaths
British expatriates in China
Christianity in Xinjiang

Emil Fischbacher


Charles James Blasius Williams (3 February 1805 – 24 March 1889) was an English physician. He was an early adopter of new techniques of physical examination, and became known as a specialist in diseases of the chest.

Life
He was the eighth child of the Rev. David Williams (1751–1836), born in the Hungerford almshouse in Wiltshire; his father, an uncle of John Williams (1792–1858) the archdeacon of Cardigan, was warden of the almshouse and curate of Heytesbury. His mother, whose maiden name was also Williams, was daughter of a surgeon in Chepstow, Monmouthshire. His father was a successful private tutor, and educated him at home; he entered the University of Edinburgh in 1820. He was there a resident pupil of Dr. John Thomson (1765–1846), and was influenced in his reading by Dr. Robert Herbert Brabant of Devizes, then living in Edinburgh. His inaugural dissertation for the degree of M.D., which he took in 1824, was On the Blood and its Changes by Respiration and Secretion.

Williams went to London, but in 1825 travelled to Paris, where he worked at drawing as well as at medicine. He attended René Laennec's clinic at the Hôpital de la Charité, and acquired the new methods of physical examination of the chest. While he was not the first British physician to use the stethoscope, which was used earlier by Thomas Davies, Williams became an important pioneer in auscultation, and was led to research heart and lung sounds, going further than Laennec. In 1827 he came back to London; he travelled with Gilbert Elliot, 2nd Earl of Minto, to Switzerland, and on his return married, in 1830, Harriet Williams Jenkins, daughter of James Jenkins of Chepstow.

Having received the license of the College of Physicians of London, Williams began practice in Half Moon Street. and in 1835 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He lectured in 1836 at the anatomical school in Kinnerton Street, on diseases of the chest. In 1839 he succeeded John Elliotson as professor of medicine and physician to University College London, and moved to Holles Street, Cavendish Square.

In 1840 Williams was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians. A reformer in the medical world, soon after his admission he tried to alter the constitution of the College, but received little support. He became a censor in 1846 and 1847, and delivered the Lumleian lectures on Successes and Failures in Medicine in 1862.

Williams took part in 1841 in founding the Consumption Hospital at Brompton, and continued to support it.  When the Pathological Society was formed in 1846 he was elected its first president. He moved to 24 Upper Brook Street, where he was in practice for many years, a specialist in diseases of the chest. From 1873 to 1875 he was president of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, and in 1874 was appointed physician extraordinary to the queen.

In 1875 Williams gave up practice and retired to Cannes. Before leaving London he made an attempt to alter the constitution of the Royal Society. A committee was appointed to consider his views, but reported against them. He died on 24 March 1889 at Cannes.

Works
While a student Williams published in the Annals of Philosophy for July 1823 a paper on the low combustion of a candle. He published in 1828 Rational Exposition of the Physical Signs of the Diseases of the Lungs and Pleura, dedicated to Sir Henry Halford, of which a third edition appeared in 1835. He wrote in 1833 ten articles for the Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine; and in 1840 the part on diseases of the chest in Alexander Tweedie's Library of Medicine. Williams collaborated during the early 1830s with James Hope the cardiologist in research on heart sounds. They worked on donkeys; both published, but the relationship soured.

In 1843 Williams published a concise Principles of Medicine, of which a second edition appeared in 1848, and a third in 1856.  When in 1869 the Duchess of Somerset, disturbed by the death of her son Ferdinand Seymour, Earl St. Maur from aneurysm of the aorta, printed for private circulation an account of the illness, suggesting malpractice by Williams, he brought an action for libel. The suggestions were withdrawn. Williams was widely supported by professionals, and he himself published an Authentic Narrative of the circumstances, which reached a second edition. In 1871 with his son, Dr. Charles Theodore Williams, he published a general treatise on pulmonary consumption.

He published his autobiography, entitled Memoirs of Life and Work, in 1884. A complete list of his works was in the Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-general's Office, United States Army, vol. xvi.

References

External links

WorldCat page

Attribution

1805 births
1889 deaths
19th-century English medical doctors
Fellows of the Royal Society
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh

Charles James Blasius Williams


Julius Albert Fraenkel (3 June 1864 – 22 December 1938) was a German physician who helped establish Streptococcus pneumoniae as a cause of bacterial pneumonia and championed intravenous ouabain for use in heart failure. The Albert-Fraenkel-Plakette (Albert Fraenkel award) is given to German-speaking cardiologists who have excelled in the field.

Born in 1864 in Mußbach an der Weinstraße, Albert was the son of a Jewish merchant. He studied medicine in Munich and Strasbourg (then the German city of Straßburg) in the 1880s. He initially practiced internal medicine and obstetrics, but turned to studying diseases of the lungs after suffering from tuberculosis. He established a tuberculosis sanatorium at Badenweiler in the Black Forest. Fraenkel also first used g-Strophanthin (ouabain) in heart failure, a practice which continues to be advocated by some practitioners in Germany.

Fraenkel's later life was marred by Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany. He was stripped of his position as professor at Heidelberg in 1933 and his license to practice medicine was revoked in 1938, three months before his death.

References
 Peter Drings, Jörg Thierfelder, Bernd Weidemann, Friedrich Willig (Hrsg.), Michael Ehmann (Mitarbeit), Albert Fraenkel - Ein Arztleben in Licht und Schatten 1864-1938, ecomed Verlagsgesellschaft, Landsberg, 2004

German pulmonologists
19th-century German Jews
1864 births
1938 deaths
People from Neustadt an der Weinstraße
People from the Palatinate (region)

Albert Fraenkel


The All India Catholic Union (AICU) represents almost 16 million Catholics in India: followers of the Latin Church, the Syro-Malabar Catholics and the Syro-Malankara Catholics. It has 120 diocese and district units.
The AICU was established in 1930.

History
Plans for an organised union of Catholic laity were discussed at the All India Catholic Conference in 1919.

The All India Catholic League was formed in 1930 (with C. J. Varkey, Chunkath as Secretary) and sponsored the All India Catholic Congress at Pune in 1934.
The body was named the Catholic Union of India in 1944, with Professor M. Ratnaswamy of Anna Malai University as the first National President.
The Catholic Union of India was registered at Chennai in 1966, and later changed its name to the All India Catholic Union.

On 30 October 1945, the All India Conference of Indian Christians (AICIC), which had both Protestant and Catholic members, formed a joint committee with the Catholic Union of India to form a joint committee that passed a resolution in which, "in the future constitution of India, the profession, practice and propagation of religion should be guaranteed and that a change of religion should not involve any civil or political disability." This joint committee enabled the Christians in India to stand united, and in front of the British Parliamentary Delegation "the committee members unanimously supported the move for independence and expressed complete confidence in the future of the community in India." The office for this joint committee was opened in Delhi, in which the Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University M. Rahnasamy served as President and B.L. Rallia Ram of Lahore served as General Secretary. Six members of the joint committee were elected to the Minorities Committee of the Constituent Assembly of India. In its meeting on 16 April 1947 and 17 April 1947, the joint committee of the All India Conference of Indian Christians and All India Catholic Union prepared a 13 point memorandum that was sent to the Constituent Assembly, which asked for religious freedom for both organisations and individuals; this came to be reflected in the Constitution of India.

Following the partition of India, the Catholic Union of India granted independence to its branches in Sind and Baluchistan in its Second Annual General Meeting in Bangalore in October 1947, which was presided by Ruthnasamy.

Presidents of the All India Catholic Union
Presidents of the Union have included Prof. M. Ratnaswamy, Madras,
Chev. A. Soares, Bombay,
Chev. J. C. Rayon, Bangalore,
Chev. D. V. D. Monte, Madras,
Chev. G. S. Reddy, Hyderabad,
Mr. George Menezes, Bombay (1986–90),
Mr. Chhotebhai, Kanpur (1990–94),
Mr. Peter Marbaniang, Shillong (1994–96),
Mr. Norbert D'Souza, Pune (1996–2000),
Dr. Maria Emilia Menezes (2000–2004)

Dayal presidency

John Dayal was elected president of the Union on 20 September 2004, succeeding Dr Maria Emilia Menezes.
In 2005 Dayal expressed concern that Ekal Vidyalaya ("single teacher") schools run by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Hindu nationalist organisation were spreading hatred towards members of the Christian minority.
In May 2006 the union called on State and Central governments to take urgent action to protect the Christian community following escalating violence in states controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and allied parties, including armed demonstrations by the RSS.

In December 2007 the AICU petitioned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's to intervene and stop the attacks that were being made against Christians in the Phulbani area of Orissa.
According to their memo: "The official apathy, the police indifference and the freedom allowed to marauding bands of Hindutva fanatics and armed thugs in Gujarat has been repeated in Orissa in what is a planned conspiracy against the church and our faith".  The AICU said that recent attacks could not have occurred "without the complicity of the official machinery and the backing of powerful political groups".

Denis presidency

Dr. Remy Denis became president in 2008.
Denis has taken a somewhat radical position in saying that the clergy should confine itself to ministering to the spiritual needs of the people. Administration of the material goods of the church should be left entirely to the laity.
At a seminar in Goa in August 2009, former Union minister Eduardo Faleiro said that church property should be brought under the ambit of state laws, as was the case with other religions.  This was endorsed by Remy Denis and other liberals.  However John Dayal, representing the conservatives in the AICU, opposed any change. He said that the "Christian situation" was radically and materially different from that of the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh religions, and existing laws were sufficient.

In February 2012 the AICU announced that it had started planning for a Laity Synod, to be held later in the year.  This would be the first time such an event had been arranged in India. It would give the lay members an opportunity to think about their role in the church and the future of the church.
According to Remy Denis "The Second Vatican Council called for the empowerment of the laity. But after 50 years, there is not much to show".
It was hoped that the synod would help find ways for the laity to become more involved in management of the financial and temporal affairs of the church.

References

External links
All India Catholic Union

Catholic lay organisations
Catholicism in India
Christian organisations based in India
Christian organizations established in 1930
1930 establishments in India

All India Catholic Union


Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American business magnate, politician and philanthropist. He was the 108th Mayor of New York City for three terms from 2002 to 2013, as both a Republican and an independent who purveyed socially liberal and fiscally moderate policies. He has a net worth of $53 billion. He is the ninth-richest person in the United States. He is the thirteenth-richest person in the world. He is the founder and 88% owner of Bloomberg L.P.. In November 2019, Bloomberg announced his presidential campaign for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2020. He ended his campaign in March 2020 after losing many states on Super Tuesday.

Early life
Michael Bloomberg was born at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston, on February 14, 1942. He is Jewish. His father, William Henry Bloomberg (1906–1963), was a real estate agent and the son of Alexander "Elick" Bloomberg, an immigrant from Russia. His mother, Charlotte Rubens Bloomberg (January 2, 1909 – June 19, 2011), was a native of Jersey City, New Jersey. His maternal grandfather, Max Rubens, was an immigrant from present-day Belarus, then also part of Russia.

Education
Bloomberg received a Bachelor's degree in engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1964. He received a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard University in 1966.

Business career
Bloomberg began his career at Salomon Brothers before forming his company in 1981 and became its Chairman and CEO. He also served as chairman of the board of trustees at his alma mater Johns Hopkins University from 1996 to 2002.

Mayor of New York City (2002–2013)
He was a Democrat before running for office. He switched his party registration in 2001 to run for mayor as a Republican. He defeated opponent Mark Green in a close election held just weeks after the September 11 attacks. Bloomberg won a second term in 2005 and left the Republican Party two years later. He campaigned to change the city's term limits law and was elected to his third term in 2009 as an independent candidate on the Republican ballot line. He was criticized by many for his "Stop And Frisk" policy, which has been criticized for disproportionately affecting Black and Hispanic men in New York City, as most of those stopped (~90%) were not found to be guilty of any crime or wrongdoing.

Post mayoral career
He was often mentioned as a possible candidate for the U.S. presidential elections in 2008 and 2012, and for New York Governor in 2010. He declined to seek either office, instead wanting to continue serving as Mayor of New York. On January 1, 2014, Bill de Blasio succeeded him as Mayor of New York City.

Bloomberg is co-chair with Tom Steyer and Henry Paulson for a  report called Risky Business  by a coalition of top U.S. political and economic leaders from the political left, right, and center on the dire economic consequences from climate change (global warming), from lost property to ruined crops.

In 2015, there was speculation of Bloomberg possibly running for president in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. On January 10, 2016, Bloomberg showed interest in running as an Independent in the upcoming election. On March 7, 2016, Bloomberg said that he will not run for president lest it bring victory to Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.

2020 presidential campaign

Following the 2016 election, Bloomberg was seen as a possible candidate for the 2020 election. In October 2018, Bloomberg announced that he had changed his political party affiliation to Democratic. In March 2019, Bloomberg said that he would not run for president.

However, later that year on November 7, 2019, Bloomberg announced that he was taking steps to enter the 2020 presidential race, and said that he would make a formal announcement of his campaign soon. On November 21, he filed paperwork to enter the Democratic primaries. Three days later, Bloomberg launched his campaign and his official website.

Bloomberg's total spending in the primary has passed $500 million, making it the most money spent on a presidential primary campaign in American history.

On Super Tuesday, Bloomberg won the American Samoa caucus which brought his first and only victory in his campaign. He ended his campaign the next day on March 4, 2020 and announced his support of Joe Biden.

Personal life
Bloomberg was married to Susan Brown from 1975 until they divorced in 1993. He is now in a domestic partnership with Diana Taylor since 2000. Bloomberg has two daughters with Brown.

Articles
Why Municipalities Are the Key to Fighting Climate Change September/October 2015 Foreign Affairs

References

Other websites

mikebloomberg.com, Bloomberg's official website
nyc.gov/mayor, official mayoral website
Michael Bloomberg, City Mayors' Mayor of the Month for August 2012
Profile at Bloomberg Businessweek
#23 Michael Bloomberg at Forbes list of 2010 world's billionaires

Issue positions and quotes at On The Issues

Michael Bloomberg collected news and commentary  at the New York Daily News
Michael Bloomberg collected news and commentary at Newsday
Biography at the Encyclopaedia Britannica
https://twitter.com/MikeBloomberg/

|-

1942 births
Living people
Philanthropists from New York (state)
Businesspeople from Boston
2020 United States presidential candidates
Businesspeople from New York City
Harvard University alumni
Independent politicians in the United States
Jewish billionaires
Jewish businesspeople
Jewish philanthropists
Johns Hopkins University alumni
Mayors of New York City
Politicians from Boston
American Jews
American billionaires
American company founders
Jewish politicians

Michael Bloomberg


The 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (4 RAR) was an infantry battalion (later a special forces unit) of the Australian Army, forming part of the Royal Australian Regiment and eventually Special Operations Command. The battalion was formed on 1 February 1964, converted to a special forces unit on 01 February 1997, and was renamed the 2nd Commando Regiment on 19 June 2009.

History

Formation

On 18 January 1952, a Royal Australian Regiment Depot was established as a training unit for a special establishment on the Order of Battle. The depot was later renamed 4 RAR on 10 March 1952. This renaming was necessary because government approval had been given to raise a battalion and not a depot. The primary function of 4 RAR at the time was to train and hold infantrymen for service in Korea. On 24 March 1960, the unit was incorporated into the School of Infantry as "Depot Company, Royal Australian Regiment". This resulted in the formation of the Infantry Centre.

The political decision to raise the fourth battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment was made in 1963. Consequently, instructions for the raising of the battalion were issued on 13 January 1964. The official raising of 4 RAR on 1 February 1964 was the first time a regular infantry battalion had been raised on Australian soil. Additionally, it was stated that this battalion was a new battalion and not a resurrection of the old 4 RAR. The battalion subsequently served in Malaysia as part of the Far East Strategic Reserve from August 1965 – September 1967, and saw active service in Borneo against the Indonesian army during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation.

After a period of training the battalion deployed to Sarawak in April 1966 where it was to operate from four company bases in the Bau area. By this time the war was winding down as peace negotiations had begun between Malaysia and Indonesia. Like 3 RAR, 4 RAR conducted cross-border operations and clashed with Indonesian forces on a number of occasions. Its tour was less eventful, however, and the battalion primarily operated in Malaysian territory where it ambushed tracks leading from the border with Indonesia. Malaysia and Indonesia agreed to a peace treaty on 11 August and 4 RAR and the other Commonwealth units in Borneo ceased operations the next day. The battalion returned to Camp Terendak on 30 August having suffered five fatalities in Borneo, though only one man had been killed in action.

Upon its return to Australia in 1967 the battalion began training for service during the Vietnam War.

Vietnam War

The battalion began its first tour of South Vietnam on 1 June 1968, relieving 2 RAR. Based at Nui Dat, in Phuoc Tuy Province it was joined by Victor and Whisky companies from the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment (RNZIR) on 2 June, and was formally renamed 4 RAR/NZ (ANZAC) Battalion with an Australian Commander and New Zealander second in command. From 23 June the battalion took part in Operation Toan Thang II on the Biên Hòa-Long Bình border, before conducting patrols through Phuoc Tuy. It was subsequently conducting patrols, ambushes, and searches along the Long Khánh-Biên Hòa border from 15 September in an attempt to disrupt Vietcong (VC) activity and deny them access to supplies as part of Operation Hawkesbury. 4 RAR/NZ returned to Nui Dat on 24 September. 4 RAR/NZ returned to the Long Khánh-Biên Hòa border as part of Operation Goodwood on 27 December, in response to increased in VC activity that suggested an offensive was being planned. The battalion was given a brief respite at Nui Dat from 13 January to 7 February, before taking part in Operation Federal in Biên Hòa province. Operation Overlander commenced in Biên Hòa province on 8 April, before the battalion again returned to Phuoc Tuy on 17 April. It was subsequently replaced by 6RAR on 1 May and departed for Australia on 19 May. Total casualties during the deployment included 15 Australians killed and 97 wounded, with five New Zealanders killed and 37 wounded.

4 RAR subsequently underwent a period of further training in Australia, and subsequently returned to South Vietnam for its second tour in May 1971, again relieving 2 RAR. The New Zealanders from Victor Company RNZIR were again integrated into the battalion with the battalion being redesignated 4 RAR/NZ (ANZAC). Continuing the pacification program that 1st Australian Task Force had adopted in Phuoc Tuy in April 1969, 4 RAR/NZ engaged in operations designed at seeking out and destroying the VC in their base areas, preventing their access to the civilian population, and in helping to create a security for the South Vietnamese. However, with the Australian commitment to Vietnam reducing, intelligence reports had indicated the presence of North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam troops in northern Phuoc Tuy, and the final battles fought by Australians in Vietnam began following the launch of Operation Ivanhoe (18 September – 2 October 1971). The battalion became involved in intense fighting and although it sustained heavy casualties during these engagements, it successfully hindered VC attempts to move south. Its final involvement came during the Battle of Nui Le on 21 September 1971. The battalion's tour was cut short by the Australian withdrawal, however, and it ultimately completed only eight months of its designated twelve-month tour. The last Australian battalion to leave South Vietnam, the majority of 4 RAR/NZ withdrew from Nui Dat to the 1st Australian Support Compound at Vũng Tàu on 7 November 1971, before departing for Australia on 8 December. Victor Company, RNZIR departed on 9 December. Casualties included eight Australians killed and 41 wounded, with one New Zealander killed and five wounded. 'D' Company, 4 RAR, remained behind until 12 March 1972 in order to provide security to rear details.

Post-Vietnam
With the reorganisation of the Army during 1973 due to the cessation of National Service, 2 RAR and 4 RAR were linked on 15 August 1973, to form 2nd/4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (2/4 RAR). Between 1977 and 1979 2/4 RAR concentrated on conventional warfare including night and mounted operations. On 1 July 1980, the unit was re-organised on light scales and trained as part of the Operational Deployment Force (ODF) in close country and conventional warfare operations. On 1 February 1982, with the official replacement of the title 'Task Force' with 'Brigade', 2/4 RAR became a unit of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Division. The battalion was placed on operational readiness in 1987 and 1990. On each occasion the battalion was prepared to evacuate Australian citizens from Pacific region countries experiencing civil disturbance.

From 1990 to 1993 many individual soldiers from the battalion served with the United Nations in Cambodia. In 1993, 52 soldiers from the battalion were detached to 1RAR for operational service in Somalia as part of Operation Solace. In May 1993, 2/4 RAR was tasked to provide a Rifle Platoon for Operation Gemini in Cambodia. 12 Platoon Delta Company, deployed to Cambodia tasked with providing local security for Australian Army helicopters that were also deployed as part of the relief mission.

It was during the battalion's deployment to Rwanda on Operation Tamar in 1994, that the government made the decision to unlink the 2nd/4th Battalion. This was a result of the 1994 Defence White Paper that identified the need for an additional infantry battalion to enhance the Army's capability to meet strategic guidance requirements. The 2nd/4th Battalion was unlinked by the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General John Grey, on a parade at Samichon Lines, Lavarack Barracks, Townsville at 1500 hrs on 1 February 1995. Upon re-establishment, 4 RAR was based at Holsworthy, in New South Wales.

Conversion and disbandment
In 1996, a decision was made to convert 4 RAR to a special forces unit. On 1 February 1997 the unit was renamed to 4 RAR (Commando). Initially, both Regular and Reserve serving members were given the opportunity to undertake special forces training provided, mainly by 1st Commando Regiment, or elect a posting to a conventional forces unit. Around the beginning of 1998, General Reserve positions ceased to exist in the new structure and reserve members discharged or posted to GRes units. The initial years were busy creating a structure and recruiting members suitable for commando training. Bravo Company was raised first followed by Charlie Company in 1999, both taking 24 months to reach full maturity. The pace of battalion life during these development years was hectic with capability development, equipment acquisition and training, focussing every member's attention. The unit conducted operations in East Timor and Iraq, and later lost members in Afghanistan. It has also been awarded citations for bravery and the meritorious unit citation.

On 19 June 2009 the battalion was renamed the 2nd Commando Regiment. At that time, 4 RAR remained on the order of battle, with its colours and traditions maintained and protected, ready to be re-raised as a regular infantry battalion in the future if required.

Alliances
 United Kingdom – Irish Guards

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

 4 RAR Associations of Australia
 Australian Army Commando Employment information
 Australian SF Community
 Commando operations in Afghanistan – September 2006

Special forces of Australia
Infantry units and formations of Australia
Military units and formations established in 1964
Airborne units and formations of Australia
Military units and formations of Australia in the Vietnam War
Military units and formations disestablished in 2009
Recipients of the Unit Citation for Gallantry


Bai Qi (;  – 257 BC), also known as Gongsun Qi (), was a Chinese military general of the Qin state during the Warring States period. Born in Mei (present-day Mei County, Shaanxi), Bai Qi served as the commander of the Qin army for more than 30 years, being responsible for the deaths of over one million, earning him the nickname  (; ). According to the Shiji, he seized more than 73 cities from the other six hostile states, and to date no record has been found to show that he suffered a single defeat throughout his military career. He is regarded by Chinese folklore as one of the four Greatest Generals of the Late Warring States period, along with Li Mu, Wang Jian, and Lian Po; he is also remembered as the most fearsome amongst the four.

Life

In 293 BC, Bai Qi led the Qin army to victory against Wei () and Han () forces at the Battle of Yique (in present-day Longmen (), southeast of Luoyang, Henan), reportedly slaughtering around 240,000 enemy soldiers in total while capturing some cities.

In 292 BC, he was promoted from Zuo Shu Zhang (左庶長; Vice Prime Minister of Qin) to Da Liang Zao (大良造; Prime Minister of Qin) by King Zhaoxiang of Qin.

In 278 BC, he led the Qin army to capture Ying (), the capital city of Chu, in the process seizing considerable amounts of territory. As a reward, he was given the title Lord Wu'an (武安君; literally: Lord of Martial Peace). Reportedly drowning 100,000 people in a flood attack.

In 273 BC, the Qin army under his command defeated the joint armies of Zhao () and Wei at Huayang (華陽; south of present-day Zhengzhou (), Henan), where he massacred the submitting soldiers, reportedly numbering around 150,000 troops in total: 130,000 Wei soldiers with a further 20,000 Zhao soldiers being killed and thrown into a river.

In 264 BC, he successfully besieged 5 Han fortresses and thereafter decapitated the 50,000 enemy soldiers.

During the Battle of Changping in 260 BC, he succeeded Wang He as the commander of the Qin army, and soon defeated the Zhao army commanded by the inexperienced Zhao Kuo, who himself had replaced Lian Po as acting commander. The Zhao army was split into two parts and its supply lines and retreat route cut off by Bai Qi. More than 400,000 Zhao soldiers, including the Shangdang people who surrendered after Zhao Kuo was shot dead by Qin archers, were slain (坑殺; buried alive) on the orders of Bai Qi.

Bai Qi wanted to end Zhao once and for all, as they were weary and psychologically affected by the losses incurred from the Battle of Changping, but the prime minister of Qin, Fan Ju (), who was persuaded by a talker from Zhao, feared Bai Qi's rising power, and recommended that the king stop the attack on the pretext that the Qin troops ought to be rested, and to accept a ceded territory negotiation. Bai Qi stopped the attack; on his return journey to the State of Qin, he fell ill.

According to the Shiji, in the year 257 BC, Qin started to besiege Handan, the capital of Zhao. Because Bai Qi was ill, the Qin king used another prominent general, Wang Ling (), who subsequently lost the battle. After about four months, when Bai Qi seemed to have recovered, the king asked him to return to his post as commander, but Bai Qi held a different opinion, he argued that Qin no longer had enough resources for such a long-range war, and the other states would soon attack Qin since Qin had been contrary to the negotiation. However, the king insisted on continuing the attack. Bai Qi refused the king's command, using his illness as an excuse. The king, therefore, had to use Wang He (), another prominent Qin general, instead of Bai Qi, as the commander.

This decision did not help the Qin army in the battle at all; Chu and Wei soon sent troops to assist Zhao. After more than five months of continuous defeat at Handan, Qin had suffered major losses. The king asked Bai Qi to become commander again, but he once more used his illness to refuse the request. In the Zhan Guo Ce, his true intentions were supposedly revealed when he stated that he would rather be executed for refusing the king's order, than lose his long undefeated fame on the battlefield. Having been refused several times, the king became angry, removed all titles from Bai Qi, and forced him to leave Xianyang, the Qin capital. In addition, Fan Ju persuaded the king that Bai Qi would join another state as a general and become a threat to the State of Qin. Convinced by Fan Ju's information, the king then forced Bai Qi to commit suicide in Duyou (). Before he committed suicide, Bai Qi stated that he deserved such a tragic ending after having killed so many people.

Legacy
Bai Qi sometimes appears as a door god on Chinese and Taoist temples, usually paired with Li Mu.

He is noted in Chinese history as a symbol of brutality rather than for his military talent. The traditional Tofu dish of Gaoping, today's Changping, called Bai Qi meat, is well known. Some stories have been written about Bai Qi suffering for his brutal actions, such as one mentioned in the Chronicles of the Eastern Zhou Kingdoms, which says that an ox with two Chinese characters, 'Bai Qi', tattooed on its back, was executed by lightning during the Tang Dynasty.

Human remains used to and still continue to be found at the site of the Battle of Changping around Gaoping. The Emperor Xuanzong of Tang once decided to dedicate a temple over a collection of the remains there.

In popular culture
Bai Qi is played by Sun Ting in the 2012 television series The Qin Empire II: Alliance and by Xing Jiadong in its 2017 sequel The Qin Empire III.
Bai Qi, also known by the Japanese reading of his name, "Haku Ki", was the leader of the former generation of the "Qin Six Great Generals" in the manga series Kingdom. He was one of the best tacticians of his era and one of the most feared Generals in China, he personally led the infamous Battle of Changping, and under his cold gaze, executed and buried alive 450,000 Zhao soldiers.
Bai Qi is one of the 32 historical figures who appear as special characters in the video game Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI by Koei. He has the highest military leadership statistics of all the characters, tied only to Han Xin.

See also
King Zhaoxiang of Qin
Lament for Ying
Li Mu
Lian Po
Records of the Grand Historian
Sima Qian
Wang Jian
Zhao Kuo

References

Citations

Bibliography
Hawkes, David, translator and introduction (2011 [1985]). Qu Yuan et al., The Songs of the South: An Ancient Chinese Anthology of Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets. London: Penguin Books.

Further reference
  西漢, 司馬遷.史記 卷七十三 白起王翦列傳(Western Han Dynasty, Sima Qian, Biography of Wang Jian and Bai Qi, Volume 73 of Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji))
  清, 蔡元放. 東周列國志(Qing dynasty, Cai Yuanfang. Records of the states during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty)

External links

  Bai Qi Time Line

257 BC deaths
3rd-century BC executions
Ancient suicides
Chinese gods
Deified Chinese people
Executed Qin dynasty people
Forced suicides of Chinese people
Generals from Shaanxi
People executed by the Qin dynasty
People from Baoji
Qin dynasty generals
Suicides by sharp instrument in China
Suicides in China
Year of birth unknown
Zhou dynasty generals
Qin state people

Bai Qi


Prema Yin Ranee A/P Kali Kavandan (born 3 October 1986), known by her stage name Prema Yin, is a Malaysian singer musician and former contestant of Who Will Win Malaysia Topstar, where she first became widely known to the public.

Biography

Prema Yin was born 3 October 1986 in Seremban, Negri Sembilan, Malaysia as the youngest of five children. Two of her older brothers (Keevan Raj and Logan Raj) are retired Malaysia national field hockey team players who participated in the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Sunder Raj is working in Canada for a gaming a design company while the youngest of the boys, Mano Raj, who was also on the verge of joining the National Hockey Squad finished his IT degree.

Prema Yin started singing at the age of three and was entertaining crowds on private functions. At the age of 14, she started writing her own material. Being proficient on piano and guitar, she wrote countless pieces and kept them for herself.

Who Will Win Malaysia Topstar

In 2004, she joined the nationwide singing competition Who Will Win Malaysia's Topstar and emerged as the winner. Besides winning the cash price, she also received a recording contract with Syncrosound studios.

Musical career

As she felt she was not ready yet to take on the music industry after winning the reality TV show, she decided to hit the Pubscene and joined world music outfit Aseana Percussion Unit to gain more experience as a performer. Participating in numerous band competitions with her band "Broken View", she slowly ventured into the indie scene and worked her ways around there performing at many of Kuala Lumpur's underground music venues.

After splitting up with her band, she joined International Groove Collective (IGC) where she blended her vocals with the eclectic music style of the 3 piece band. By August 2007, IGC called it quits and the band members pursued their own careers. Having carved her teeth in the indie circuit, Prema Yin finally started recording and performing her original compositions.

She hit the studios with AIM- and ARIA-winning record producer Greg Henderson to record her debut EP Eyo Eyo.

Prema Yin premiered her first single Bleed in 2008 to the Malaysian public and managed to reach number No. 1 on the Hitz.fm MET10 and No. 3 on Fly FM Campur charts for several weeks and subsequently gained heavy rotation on Fly FM and Hitz.fm.

She released Eyo Eyo in August 2009 with 5 tracks, one in Bahasa Malaysia and four in English. The title track Eyo Eyo is in Bahasa Malaysia. The English version of Eyo Eyo has been released separately in 2011 in the United States on iTunes and other online stores. The music video for Eyo Eyo was produced and directed by the team of Phuture Phlow and launched on the same date with the EP in Mist Club Bangsar.

The response from the media was very positive and Prema Yin got branded as the new "Rock Princess" of Malaysia.
Local star sessionists Jamie Wilson and Eric Li have contributed playing on several tracks.

Eyo Eyo was a critical hit that gained four nominations in AIM 17 in 2010. Despite not winning any awards, she was humbled by the fact that she was nominated and recognised by the Malaysian music industry.

Prema Yin toured and played in Japan, Singapore, Germany, United States, China, and Thailand, and in festivals such as the Penang Jazz Festival and Rock the World 10.

Late 2010, Prema Yin signed a management deal with reputable US artist management company TC Music, LLC.

In 2011, she released her next single Marilah which was accompanied by a music video directed by Gambit Saifullah. The video got over 100,000 hits in the first week of release and as, of 2012, over 450,000 views. The video was regarded as controversial and "not suitable" for Malaysian culture as it was considered too "explicit" for the audience. The English version of Marilah is called Addicted and uses the same video, shot in English. This version of the video has been viewed over 120,000 times to date.

In May 2011, Prema Yin travelled to Los Angeles and started working with producers and composers such as Scott Krippayne, Dan Hoal, The Highschoolers, Ra Domini. Prema met and worked with American songwriter Hope Raney and German producer Florian Reutter for her 2012 song "Prove It To Me",  to broaden her style.

Prema Yin has been chosen to be one of the performers for the Arthur's Day 2011 celebrations in Malaysia that took place on September, 23rd at Speed City KL alongside other performers like Taio Cruz, The Kartel (featuring Joe Flizzow), Dandee, Take-T, Soler, Mizz Nina, and Dragon Red. The event was attended by a 20,000 strong audience, and marked the celebration of Arthur Guinness singing the lease for his brewery in Dublin, Ireland in 1759.

Awards & recognitions

VIMA 2011 nominations
Best Pop/R&B Song – Addicted
Best Rock Song – Blow my Mind feat. MON9
Best Rock Vocalist
Best Female Vocalist Overall (won Gold Award)
Best Music Video – Addicted

Hollywood Music in Media Awards 2011 nominations
Best Pop Song in a Movie – Eyo Eyo in A Novel Romance

AIM17 2010 nominations
Best New Artist
Best Music Video – Eyo Eyo
Best Engineered Album
Best Arrangement in a Song – Eyo Eyo

AVIMA 2010 nominations
Best Female Vocalist Overall
Best Pop Song – Eyo Eyo
Asian Anthem of the Year – Eyo Eyo (won)

VIMA 2010 nominations
Best Female Vocalist Overall
Best Pop Song – Eyo Eyo (won Gold Award)
Best Rock Vocalist
Best Music Video – Eyo Eyo

VIMA 2009 nominations
Best Female Vocalist
Best Rock Vocalist (won Bronze Award; only girl in this category)
Best Rock Song – Bleed
Best of luck

Chart Success
August 2009
 Bleed No. 1 on hitz.fm MET 10 and No. 3 on Fly FM Campur Charts

May 2010
 Eyo Eyo No. 1 on hitz.fm MET 10 and No. 2 on Fly FM Campur Charts

December 2010
 Blow my Mind (feat. MON9) No. 1 on hitz.fm MET 10 and No. 2 on Fly FM Campur Charts

January 2012
 Superstar No. 1 on Traxx.fm Upstage Charts
 Eyo Eyo No. 1 on Indonesian Radio Station Ardan.fm "Ardan Indie 7"
 Eyo Eyo No. 2 on Indonesian Radio Station FB9020FM PURWAKARTA

May 2012
 Prove It to Me No. 1 on hitz.fm MET10

Discography

Eyo Eyo EP (2009)
Eyo Eyo (Bahasa Malaysia)
Ain't got Tears (featuring Moots! of Pop Shuvit)
These are the Days
Bleed
Higher Love

Singles
Marilah  (2010)
Addicted (2011)
Fight (feat. Reefa) – theme song in Project O&O (2011)
Superstar – theme song for Share the Love and in Julie's Biscuit (2011)
''Prove It To Me" (2012)

References

Time Out KL
Westfalen Blatt
The Star Newspaper
Utusan Malaysia http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2009&dt=1022&pub=Utusan_Malaysia&sec=Hiburan&pg=hi_01.htm
New Straits Times
NST Interview
Prema Yin Official Website
Arthur's Day 2011 Malaysia

External links

1986 births
Living people
People from Negeri Sembilan
Malaysian people of Chinese descent
21st-century Malaysian women singers
Malaysian people of Indian descent

Prema Yin