Author: Richard Newman File Type: pdf The physics and materials science behind paintings the pigments, binders, canvas, and varnish that go into making a painting appear the way it does. The text discusses the physical principles behind the colors seen and how these change with illumination, the various types of paint and binders used in both old and modern paintings, and the optics and microscopic structure of paint films. Chapters on dating, binders, and dendochronology have been contributed by experts in the respective fields.ReviewIn this respect the book by W Stanley Taft and James W Mayer is quite successful. Besides constituting a good and comprehensive introduction to the science of materials involved in a painting and to the processes through which a painting is made, which is of interest to those concerned with conservation and restoration of art objects, it is also an intriguing reading for everyone interested in gaining insight into the making of paintings and curious about the mechanisms of their perception by the viewer. The book starts with a systematic analysis of the materials used for making a painting The book is well written. Apart from some of the appendices (where, however, mathematics has been conveniently limited) all the technical stuff is well balanced throughout the text, and its reading is never boring. All scientists involved in the conservation and restoration of paintings, especially those needing an introduction to the physics behind these topics, will enjoy reading this book. --Measurement Science and Technology Ones appreciation of a beautiful painting is enhanced by knowing about the aesthetic choices the artist made in composition and execution of the painting. It is also enhanced by knowing how the artists selection and use of materials - and their interplay with light - affects what we see in the painting. This book discusses the physics and materials science that go into making a painting appear the way it does the physical principles behind the colors one sees in paintings and how they change with illumination the pigments, binders, varnish, and support materials used in both old and modern paintings the optics and microscopic structure of paint films and the various physical and chemical methods used to investigate and authenticate paintings. Chapters on dating, binders, and dendochronology are contributed by experts in the respective fields. Based on courses given at Cornell and Arizona, the treatment requires no prior knowledge of physics or chemistry. The insights gained from this book can help the amateur or connoisseur and also the artist understand the advantages and limitations of materials used in paintings, and it can help the historian and conservator authenticate and preserve works of art.

Author: Donald Keyhoe File Type: pdf The Flying Saucers Are Real investigates numerous encounters between fighter pilots, other people, and UFOs. Author Donald Keyhoe states that while Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials for centuries, the Air Force was actively investigating these cases of close encounter, and hiding them from the people. The Flying Saucers are Real is not fiction. Keyhoe researched real facts and sightings, concluding that the saucers are interplanetary. Keyhow, who had some access to original military files, did not believe in visitors from space before starting this book. Keyhoe examines the most prominent UFO cases up to 1950 - the Kenneth Arnold sighting, the Mantell Crash, the Chiles-Whitted UFO sighting, and numerous others - and offers his views on the subject. After checking every other possible answer thoroughly, however, he saw that they didnt fit in the sightings and the reports. The Flying Saucers are Real is a must for anyone who wants to know the truth about the UFO phenomenon. In the realm of UFOlogy, it was not only one of the first, but also one of the best reports ever written on the subject. There is no sensationalism in the pages of this excellent tome - just cold, hard, and well researched facts. Donald Keyhoe was one of the most prominent figures in the early history and development of the UFO phenomenon in the U.S. His book The Flying Saucers Are Real established Keyhoe as a leading figure in the UFO phenomenon, and over the next two decades he would be frequently interviewed on television and radio. In 1957 he became the leader of NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena), the largest and most influential civilian UFO research group of the 1950s and 60s. He remained NICAPs leader until 1969.About the AuthorDonald Keyhoe (1897-1988) was one of the most prominent figures in the early history and development of the UFO phenomenon in the United States. A reporter by trade, Keyhoe traveled with famed aviator Charles Lindbergh after he returned to the USA from his historic 1927 flight across the Atlantic he wrote a bestselling book about his travels with Lindbergh. He also served in the Marine Corps and rose to the rank of Major. In 1949, in the wake of the first widely-publicized UFO sightings and incidents in the USA, True magazine, a respected publication at the time, hired Keyhoe to write an article about the UFO mystery. After talking with his extensive contacts in the U.S. government and military gained from his years as a reporter and military officer, Keyhoe came to the conclusion that the UFO phenomenon was real, that the flying saucers were alien spaceships exploring the Earth, and that the U.S. government knew this and were covering up the true story to prevent panic. In January 1950 True published Keyhoes article. Entitled The Flying Saucers Are Real, it created a media sensation. UFO historian Curtis Peebles described the article as one of the most widely read and discussed magazine articles up to that time. The fact that someone of Keyhoes credibility and government contacts had published such an article gave the UFO phenomenon credibility in the minds of many people. In June 1950 Keyhoe expanded the article into a book. Also entitled The Flying Saucers Are Real, the book sold over 500,000 copies and helped to establish many of the ideas and beliefs of the modern UFO phenomenon. Among the ideas Keyhoe helped develop were the notion that UFOs were spacecraft from an advanced alien civilization, that the aliens were simply exploring the Earth, and that the U.S. government knew this but was covering up the truth. Keyhoes insistence that there was a vast government conspiracy regarding UFOs would set a pattern that continues to motivate UFO believers even today. The Flying Saucers Are Real would establish Keyhoe as a leading figure in the UFO phenomenon, and over the next two decades he would be frequently interviewed on television and radio. In 1957 he became the leader of NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena), the largest and most influential civilian UFO research group of the 1950s and 60s. He remained NICAPs leader until 1969.

Author: Thomas Bernhard File Type: epub Visceral, raw, singular, and distinctive, Frost is the story of a friendship between a young man at the beginning of his medical career and a painter who is entering his final days. A writer of world stature, Thomas Bernhard combined a searing wit and an unwavering gaze into the human condition. Frost follows an unnamed young Austrian who accepts an unusual assignment. Rather than continue with his medical studies, he travels to a bleak mining town in the back of beyond, in order to clinically observe the aged painter, Strauch, who happens to be the brother of this young mans surgical mentor. The catch is this Strauch must not know the young mans true occupation or the reason for his arrival. Posing as a promising law student with a love of Henry James, the young man befriends the mad artist and is caught up among an equally extraordinary cast of local characters, from his resentful landlady to the towns mining engineers. This debut novel by Thomas Bernhard, which came out in German in 1963 and is now being published in English for the first time, marks the beginning of what was one of the twentieth centurys most powerful, provocative literary careers. From the Hardcover edition. **From Publishers Weekly A students increasingly erratic dispatches over 27 days comprise this obsessive first novel by Bernhard (19311989), published to European acclaim in 1963. An unnamed medical student is sent from Vienna by his supervisor, an eminent surgeon named Strauch, to undertake precise observation of the surgeons brother, a famous painter who has suddenly left the city for the dismal village of Weng. After systematically inveigling himself into the company of the painter under the pretense of being a vacationing law student, the student slowly feels his own mood and mental attitudes being subsumed by the painters paranoid outbursts and disjointed monologues. Weng itself, located in a grim valley still bearing the grisly traces of WWII, is a hotbed of murky scandal the landlady sleeps with the village knacker (handyman), while her husband, against whom she testified in a murder trial, sits in jail a traveling show appears in the village displaying deformed women and deformed animals a barn is torched. All are dutifully reported by the disintegrating student. Bernhards glorious talent for bleak existential monologues is second only to Becketts, and seems to have sprung up fully mature in his mesmerizing debut. (Oct. 19) Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. From Booklist Austrian Bernhards first novel, which appeared in German in 1963, is being published in English for the first time in a translation that finely captures Bernhards bitter, acerbic prose. The story follows an unnamed young medical student who is sent by a colleague to watch over an elderly painter named Strauch. What follows is roughly 300 pages of a dying, demented man spewing relentless bile and invectives against, well, everything. The modern world is a rotting chaos, the natural world a threatening lunacy, and memory and imagination nothing more than symptoms of the malignant disease of life. The younger mans mind, predictably, soon becomes infected by the elder mans corrosive diatribes. Bernhard, who died in 1989, would go on to achieve distinction as a playwright, poet, and novelist, but his first book is more an extended, free-association tirade than a novel, mapping out Bernhards assured examinations into the language of isolation, paranoia, and futility. For readers who find Beckett too glib and Kafka a mere fusspot. Ian Chipman American Library Association. lt

Author: Jorge Bastos Da Silva File Type: pdf The emergence of Utopian Studies as a dynamic field of inquiry situated at the crossroads of several disciplines is a striking development of the past few decades. It is symptomatic of a general trend towards the overcoming of epistemological and institutional boundaries, and has borne fruit in a number of ways. The traditions of utopianism have come to be valued as an important nurturing of possibilities, devoted to the critique and the transformation of the world. By undertaking the critical interrogation of the given, utopia is a figure not only of inversion, but of transcendence and fulfilment. The present volume takes into account the international development of Utopian Studies in recent decades. Its aim is to provide critical revisions (revisitings) of the assumptions and methods of the discipline through a set of theoretically-informed essays that focus on a number of different manifestations of utopianism. The topics covered range from Platos Republic and Mores Utopia to modern-day cosmopolitics, glocalization, and the intersections of fiction with esotericism and science. **