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AlokeKumar
Last seen: 3 hours ago
Aloke is a 53 year old guy from Calcutta(kolkata), WB, India
We live in a fantasy world. I know this because I live in that world, and I actually receive my e-mail there.And, sometimes when I don't ,I think I am having a bad dream.......
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B. V. Doshi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rated • 2 reviews • biographies • wikipedia.org
BALAKRISHNA DOSHI
(1927-present)
My acquaintance with Doshi goes back to 1995 when I was building a Heritage Park in Calcutta. The parent company was engaged in experimenting with an unique module to build a township which would accommodate the low, middle and higher income group houses. It is here that Doshi came in. A quite man, aspiring to be a teacher rather than an architect.
Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi was born in Poona, India in 1927. After he completed his studies at J. J. School of Art, Bombay in 1950 he became a senior designer, he worked with Le Corbusier in Paris (1951-1954) as senior designer, and then in India to supervise Corbusier's projects in Ahmedabad and Chandigarh.
Over the years Doshi has created architecture that relies on a sensitive adoption and refinement of modern architecture within an Indian context. The relevancy of his environmental and urban concerns make him unique as both a thinker and teacher. Architectural scale and massing, as well as a clear sense of space and community mark most of his work. Doshi's architecture provides one of the most important models for modern Indian architecture.
As an academician, Professor Doshi has been visiting the U.S.A. and Europe since 1958, and has held important chairs in American universities. He has received numerous international awards and honours, including Padma Shri from the Government of India, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Professor Doshi served a member of the 1992 Award Master Jury, and was presented a 1995 Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Aranya Community Housing in Indore, India.
Apart from his international fame as an architect, Dr. Doshi is equally known as educator and institution builder. He has been the first founder Director of School of Architecture, Ahmedabad (1962-72), first founder Director of School of Planning (1972-79), first founder Dean of Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (1972-81), founder member of Visual Arts Centre, Ahmedabad , founder Director of Kanoria Centre for Arts, Ahmedabad and has been instrumental in establishing the internationally known research institute Vastu-Shilpa.
. This spot is for my friend Esra, who is interested in architecture.
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Joseph Dalton Hooker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rated • 1 review • biographies, british, explorer, joseph dalton hooker, botanist • wikipedia.org
JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER
(1817-1911)
I was introduced to this English botanist and explorer by my father, when he invited me to have a look at the monumental work Flora of British India. He had purchased a set of the seven volume work from Sotheby's and it was one of his prized possessions.
Joseph Dalton Hooker was born at Halesworth in Suffolk and studied medicine at Glasgow University, where his father William Hooker was professor of botany. After graduating in 1839, he joined the Antarctic expedition on HMS Erebus (1839-43), nominally as assistant surgeon but primarily as naturalist. Between 1844 and 1860, using collections made on the expedition, Hooker produced a six-volume flora of the Antarctic Islands, New Zealand, and Tasmania.
When he returned from the Antarctic expedition Hooker was congratulated on his work by Charles Darwin, who had been following his progress, and in 1844 Darwin confided to Hooker his theory of evolution by natural selection. This communication later proved important in establishing Darwin's precedence when his theory - together with Alfred Russel Wallace's essentially identical conclusions - was presented by Hooker and George Lyell at the famous Linnaean Society meeting of July 1858.
Following his unsuccessful application in 1845 for the botany chair at Edinburgh University, Hooker was employed to identify fossils for a geological survey, but he took time off between 1847 and 1850 to explore the Indian subcontinent and produce a seven-volume masterpiece, `Flora of British India'.
In 1855 Hooker was appointed assistant director at Kew Gardens and in 1865 succeeded his father as director. In his 20 years as head of the institute he founded the Jodrell Laboratory and Marianne North Gallery, extended the herbarium, and developed the rock garden. His efforts established Kew as an international center for botanical research .
Hooker retired from the directorship of Kew in 1885 owing to ill health but continued working until his death.
This spot is for my friend Cheryl, who loves plants.
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Max Ernst | Biography (1891-1976)
Rated • 1 review • biographies • leninimports.com
MAX ERNST
(1891-1976)
German painter of the Dada and surrealist movements, possessed an amazing range of styles and techniques.
Max Ernst was born in 1891, in Brühl, Germany. His memories of his childhood were remarkably vivid, and they provided him with many subjects for his later paintings. He attended the University of Bonn, where he studied philosophy and abnormal psychology, which also provided material for his art. In 1912 he turned to painting seriously, but it was only in 1918, after his war service, that he began to develop his own style. He made a series of collages, using illustrations from medical and technical magazines to form bizarre juxtapositions of images.
These collages were Ernst's main production when he was active in the Dada group in Cologne from 1919 to 1922. The Dada movement with its irreverent attitude to conventional art and mores appealed to Ernst and his friends. Dadamax was the pseudonym Ernst used during this period.
In 1922 Ernst moved to Paris, where the surrealists were gathering around André Breton. Ernst had already started doing more illusionistic paintings, strongly influenced by Giorgio de Chirico, and Breton and his friends admired them. In 1923 Ernst finished Les Hommes n'en sauront rein, known as the first Surrealist painting because all the characteristic elements of Surealist painting: the dreamlike atmosphere, the irrational juxtaposition of images of widely different assocaitons, the digrams of celestial phenomena, the desert landscape and the central eroticism were all there. In 1924 he completed one of his most famous pieces, Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale. Ernst himself was a winning figure, very charming and brilliant, and particularly fascinating to women. His romantic life was colorful, with many love affairs and several marriages; these were always accompanied by wild stories, and the surrealists enjoyed his life-style as much as they did his art.
In 1925 Ernst introduced his new technique of frottage; he placed sheets of paper on floorboards, tiles, bricks, or whatever was to hand and rubbed them with graphite, producing strange obsessive shapes. This technique fitted in with the surrealist cult of automatic drawing and writing, with their reliance on chance. The texture of these frottage drawings was then applied by Ernst to his paintings, combined with other techniques he invented.
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Soviet Psychology: Biography of A R Luria
Rated • 1 review • russia, biographies, neuropsychology, a r luria, cultural historical psychology • marxists.org
A R LURIA
(1902-1977).
Famous Soviet neuropsychologist . He was one of the founders of cultural-historical psychology .
Alexander Romanovich Luria was born in Kazan of Jewish extraction, and was educated at the University of Kazan. He graduated in social sciences in spite of his father's wish that he should qualify in medicine, which in fact he did several years later when his career in psychology underwent an unexpected check. His interest in psychology developed rapidly and while still a student he had the temerity to found a psychoanalytic circle in Kazan which he brought to the attention of Sigmund Freud -- though later he repudiated psychoanalysis.
In 1925 Luria was appointed to a junior post at the Moscow Institute of Psychology, where, under the direction of N. K. Kornalov, he carried through an ambitious research programme on the effects of emotional stress on human motor reactions recorded under experimental conditions. Luria wrote up his experimental findings in a massive book which was published in English translation as The Nature of Human Conflicts (1932).
In 1924, Luria had made the acquaintance of Leo Semionovich Vygotsky, originally a language teacher who deviated to psychology and came to exert a remarkable influence on Luria's and diverted his interests towards neuropsychology.
Partly as a result of Vygotsky's influence, Luria successfully qualified in medicine, and in 1941 he was pressed into service as a medical officer with special responsibilities for the assessment and rehabilitation of brain-injured servicemen. His background in psychology, together with a more recently acquired knowledge of linguistics, enabled him to devise some simple, yet effective, methods of assessing deficits in higher psychological capacities and of retraining the patients whenever possible. This work was later transferred to the Institute of Neurosurgery in Moscow, and Luria continued to work there until 1950, when he was summarily dismissed from his post, apparently for ideological reasons, in particular his somewhat feeble enthusiasm for Pavlovian methods and theory. Fortunately, he was restored to his post some years later and was able to return to his neuropsychological studies virtually until his death.
This spot is for my friend
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Vātsyāyana - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rated • 1 review • biographies, kama sutra, erotica, vatsyayana, indian love treatise • wikipedia.org
MALLANGA VāTSYāYANA
(4th - 6th Centuries AD )
Is an Indian philosopher in the Vedic tradition who lived some time in the Gupta period He is the author of the Kama Sutra, the treatise on love.
Hardly anything is known about him. His real name is supposed to be Mallinaga , Vatsyayana being his family name. It is impossible to fix the exact date either of the life of Vatsyayana or of his work. It is supposed that he must have lived between the first and sixth century of the Christian era.
Vatsyayana was a son of a Brahmin scholar. Some speculate that his childhood was spent largely in the brothel, where his aunt worked. There, Vatsyayana is said to have gained his first hand knowledge of love and erotica.
The Kama Sutra , is widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behavior in Sanskrit literature. A portion of the work consists of practical advice on sex. Kāma means sensual or sexual pleasure, and sūtra are the guidlines of yoga, the word itself means thread in Sanskrit.
The first transmission of Kama Shastra is attributed to Nandi the sacred bull, Shiva's doorkeeper, who was moved to sacred utterance by overhearing the lovemaking of the god and his wife Parvati which was later recorded for the benefit of mankind- impressions of sexual artifice and the arousal of desire.
Kama Sutra', deals with The 'Aphorisms on Love' containg about one thousand two hundred and fifty slokas or verses, and are divided into parts,chaptersand paragraphs. The whole consists of seven parts, thirty-six chapters, and sixty-four paragraphs. Vatsyayana is considered as the great authority, and always quoted as the chief guide to Hindu erotic literature.
The most widely known English translation of the Kama Sutra was privately printed in 1883. It is usually attributed to Sir Richard Francis Burton, but the chief work was done by the pioneering Indian archeologist, Bhagvanlal Indraji, under the guidance of Foster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot.
This spot is for Lady of Pain,who likes all sorts of things from dark arts to erotica.
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Juan Pablo Bonet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rated • 1 review • biographies, spanish, sign language, jesuit priest, juan pablo bonet • wikipedia.org
JUAN PABLO BONET
(1573-1633)
A Spanish priest and pioneer of education for the deaf. He published the first book on deaf education in 1620 in Madrid.
Juan Pablo Bonet was secretary to Juan Fernández de Velasco, the sixth Constable of Castile. While serving in the constable's household, Bonet observed the methods of a tutor hired to teach Luis, the constable's second son, who was deaf from birth. In this wealthy and titled family as well as in others related by marriage or birth were a number of deaf sons and daughters whose parents wanted them educated in addition to their hearing siblings as they were in line to inherit the family's properties, and literacy was a requirement for legal recognition as an heir.
Latter he himself took up teaching the constable's son and thus gave the world the first sign language. Bonet took his education in hand. To make his pupil understand words and speak them he invented a system of visible signs and of gymnastics for pronunciation. This consisted in certain signs representing to the sense of sight the sounds of words, in exercises of breathing in the formation of sounds and to adapt the different organs of articulation, the lips, tongue, and teeth, to the proper pronunciation of each sound. He reduced his system to practice by means of a manual alphabet--a combination of signs made with the hands representing the various letters--and a description of the dispositions of the vocal organ necessary to the pronunciation of each letter.
The recorded history of sign language thus began with Bonet. In 1620, Juan Pablo Bonet published Summary of the letters and the art of teaching speech to the mute in Madrid. Considered the first modern treaty of phonetics of signed language and the use of signed language to teach speech to the deaf. This book depicted Bonet's form of a manual alphabet.
Bonet's system of signs and manual alphabet has influenced many signed languages, such as Spanish, French, and American.
This spot is for my friend Serina who is deeply interested in sign language.
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Mace Ruette - 1638
Rated • 1 review • biographies, french, biblio, mace ruette, decorative bookbinder • cyclopaedia.org
MACé RUETTE
1584-1644
Macé Ruette was a French Decorative Bookbinder, starting his apprentice in 1598 at the early age of 14. He excelled in the smaller formats, especially when mixing the standard solid tools with pointillés and branchages. However the style in which he proved himself to be very original is that of losange-ecoincons. . He invented the use of marble paper as end paper used in bookbinding.
Macé Ruette, was the son of Michel Ruette, Chargeur de bois au port de l'Escale de Saint as Binder in Ordinary to the King Louis XIV. I t appears from records, that Clovis Eve was succeeded by Mace Ruette as Binder to the King. Prior to that in 1598, he was 'binding apprentice' for a term of four years to Dominique Salis, stationer and bookbinder, living in the Rue Saint Jean de Latran. According to La Caille, 'c'est Mace Ruette, he invented the use of marble paper as end paper to bookbinding. Mace Ruette was master of the Guild of St. Jean, from 1629 to 1634: he was still working for the King when he died in 1644.
When books were first made, in the earliest times, there was little more than a special department of gold-smiths' who worked on them. Books were then valuable, and were covered with gold or silver and ornamented with ivory and jewels. But since some manuscripts could not have been of such notable value, or their owners rich enough to ornament them in so costly a manner, a humbler style of binding grew up, which, employing leather as a suitable and inexpensive material, laid the foundation of bookbinding proper as we now understand it. Few jeweled bindings have come down to our time, for they were too valuable to escape the greed of rulers .
French Decorative Bookbinding reached its peak,particularly gold tooled works from the 16th to the 18th centuries. One of the most prominent book binder of the time was Macé Ruette. He used small spiral leaves as filler and as attachments in some of the first recorded examples of this type of decorative gold tooling, known as pointillé. Ruette mixed pointillé style tools with some standard solid tools attaching these spiral leaves as extensions to this small vase.
In his time, Macé Ruette edited a few volumes of de sainteté . Macé Ruette opened his own establishments in 1606 and ran two different well separated workshops each having different complete sets of decorative tools, no tools but some materials were perhaps exchanged between these two workshops and possibly a long standing assistant guilder carried out the work in the 'other' shop.
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Li Po Biography
Rated • 1 review • poetry, biographies, tao, chinese, li po • famouspoetsandpoems.com
LI PO
(701 - 762)
A Chinese poet. He was part of the group of Chinese scholars called the "Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup". Li Po is often regarded, along with Du Fu, as one of the two greatest poets in China's literary history.
Li Po's birthplace is uncertain, but one possible place is Suyab in Central Asia . However his family had originally dwelled in what is now southeastern Gansu and later moved to Jiangyou, when he was five years old. At the age of ten, his formal education started. Among various schools of classical Chinese philosophies, Taoism was the deepest influence, as demonstrated by his compositions. In 720, he was interviewed by Governor Su Ting, who considered him a genius. Though he expressed the wish to become an official, he could not be bothered to sit for the Chinese civil service examination. Instead, beginning at age twenty-five, he travelled around China, enjoying liquor and leading a carefree life. His personality fascinated the aristocrats and common people alike, and he was introduced to the Emperor Xuanzong around 742.
He became a member of the Han-lin Academy, an appointment that lasted only two years. The association between China's most gifted literary magician and its dilettante emperor was not a happy one, and Li Po was exiled from court on several occasions, the result of the poet's distaste for tradition and authority. Many poems praise the light-headed simplicity that wine brings, and their author sometimes appeared less than sober' Li Po continued his wanderings, and in 755 he joined the force led by the emperor's 16th son, Prince Lin, a move probably forced on him by the troubled times of the An Lushan rebellion. Lin was defeated, captured and executed. A similar fate was ordered for Li Po, but the poet was reprieved, exiled to Yunnan, and pardoned when the old emperor died. There are many legends surrounding Li Po's death, but he probably died at Dangtu, possibly of cirrhosis of the liver in Anhui province in 762.
Li Po Poems.
This spot is for Helen.
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