Alexander Sandy Calder Essays - Kinetic Art, Motion,

Alexander Sandy Calder Alexander Sandy Calder was born into a family of renowned artists who encouraged him to create from a very young age. As a boy, he had his own workshop where he made toys for himself and his sister. He received a degree in mechanical engineering in 1919 but soon after decided to pursue a career as an artist. Calder attended classes at the Art Students League in New York from 1923 to 1926, supporting himself by working as an illustrator. In 1926 Calder arrived in Paris where he developed his Cirque Calder,a work of performance art employing small-scale circus figures he sculpted from wire, wood, cloth, and other materials. Through these elaborate performances, Calder met members of the Parisian avant-garde. At the same time, Calder sculpted three- dimensional figurative works using continuous lengths of wire, which critics described as drawings in space. He explored ways to sculpt volume without mass and to captured the essence of his subject through an economy of line and articulated movement. Calder's wire works then became increasingly gestural, implying motion. By the end of 1930, this direction yielded his first purely abstract sculptures. After translating drawing into three dimensions, Calder envisioned putting paintings into motion. He developed constructions of abstract shapes that can shift and change the composition as the elements respond to air currents. These sculptures of wire and sheet metal (or other materials) are called mobiles. A mobile laid flat exists only as a skeleton, a reminder of its possibilities, but when suspended it seems to come alive. Calder also developed stabiles, static sculptures that suggest volume in multiple flat planes, as well as standing mobiles, in which a mobile is balanced on top of a stabile. Calder furthered his work by developing a monumental scale. His later objects were huge sculptures of arching lines and graceful abstract shapes that now inhabit public plazas worldwide. Calder was an artist of great originality who defined volume without mass and incorporated movement and time in art. His inventions redefined certain basic principles of sculpture and have established him as the most innovative sculptor of the twentieth century. Alexander Calder, America's first abstract artist of international renown, is forever associated with his invention of the mobile. Born into a Philadelphia family of sculptors, he studied first as a mechanical engineer and then as a painter in the style of the Ashcan School. In 1926, Calder left for Paris, then Europe's cultural capital. There he attracted the attention of the avant-garde with his amusing performances with a partly-mechanized miniature circus of wire and cloth figures. By 1930 he had developed freely moving sculptures of arcs and spheres. Calder's mobiles were squarely within the spirit of the times, from their engagement with machine technology to their use of abstraction as a universal language of creative truth. Linked to Dada and Surrealism by playfulness and chance arrangement, his sculpture responded to Constructivism by energizing art's elements in the viewer's space. Astronomy Essays

Question Mark Definition and Examples

Question Mark Definition and Examples A  question mark (?)  is a  punctuation symbol placed at the end of a sentence or phrase to indicate a direct question, as in:  She asked, Are you happy to be home?  The question mark is also called an  interrogation point, note of interrogation, or  question point. To understand the question mark and its use, its helpful to know that in grammar, a  question  is a type of  sentence  expressed in a form that requires (or appears to require) an answer. Also known as an  interrogative sentence, a question- which ends with a question mark- is generally distinguished from a sentence that makes a  statement, delivers a  command, or expresses an  exclamation. History The origination of the question mark is shrouded in myth and mystery, says Oxford Living Dictionaries. It may date to the ancient cat-worshiping Egyptians who created the curve of the question mark after observing the shape of an inquisitive cat’s tail. There are other possible origins, says the online dictionary: Another possibility links the question mark with the Latin word  quaestio  (‘question’). Supposedly, in the Middle Ages scholars would write ‘quaestio’ at the end of a sentence to show that it was a question, which in turn was shortened to  qo. Eventually, the  q  was written on top of the  o, before steadily morphing into a recognizably modern question mark. Alternatively, the question mark may have been introduced by Alcuin of York, an English scholar and poet born in 735, who was invited to join the court of Charlemagne in 781, says Oxford. Once there, Alcuin wrote many books- all in Latin- including some works on grammar. For his books, Alcuin created the  punctus interrogativus  or point of interrogation, a symbol resembling a tilde or lightning flash above it, representing the rising tone of voice used when asking a question. In A History of Writing, Steven Roger Fischer says that the question mark first appeared around the eighth or ninth century- possibly beginning with Alcuins works- in Latin manuscripts but did not appear in English until 1587 with the publication of  Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia. Sidney certainly made full use of the punctuation mark when introducing it to the English language:  According to a version of Arcadia transcribed by Risa Bear  and published by the University of Oregon, the question mark appeared in the work nearly 140 times. Purpose The question mark always indicates a question or doubt, says Merriam-Websters Guide to Punctuation and Style, adding that A question mark ends a direct question. The dictionary gives these examples; What went wrong?When do they arrive? The question mark is the least demanding of punctuation marks, says Rene J. Cappon, author of The Associated Press Guide to Punctuation, adding: All you need to know is what a question is and you punctuate accordingly. Merriam-Webster defines a question as  an interrogative expression, often used to test knowledge, as in: â€Å"Did you go to school today?†Ã‚   The purpose of the question mark would seem simple, then. They are direct questions, invariably followed by the interrogation point, says Cappon. But a closer look shows that this seemingly simple punctuation mark can be tricky to use and easy to misuse. Correct and Incorrect Use There are a number of cases where using the question mark can be tricky for writers: Multiple questions:  Cappon says that you  do  use a question mark, even multiple question marks, when you have multiple questions for which you expect an answer or answers, even with sentence fragments such as: What were her vacation plans? Beach? Tennis? Reading War and Peace? Travel? Note that the quote marks at the end of War and Peace come before the question mark because this punctuation mark is not part of the books title. Omit the Comma and Other Punctuation Marks: Harold Rabinowitz and Suzanne Vogel in The Manual of Scientific Style: A Guide for Authors, Editors, and Researchers, note that a question mark should never be placed  next to a  comma, nor should it be next to a  period  unless it is part of an  abbreviation. Question marks should not generally be doubled for emphasis or paired with  exclamation points. And The Associated Press  Stylebook, 2018 says that a question mark should never supersede a comma, as in: Who is there? she asked. You would  never  pair a comma and a question mark, neither before nor after quotation marks. In this sentence, the question mark also comes before the quote mark because it ends the interrogative sentence. Indirect questions: As a general rule, do not use a question mark at the end of an indirect question, a  declarative sentence  that reports a  question  and ends with a  period  rather than a  question mark. An example of an indirect question would be:  She asked me if I was happy to be home. Cappon says that you don’t use a question mark when no answer is expected and gives these examples of indirect questions:   â€Å"Would you mind closing the window† is framed like a question but probably isn’t. The same applies to, â€Å"Would you please not bang the door when you leave.† Gerald J. Alred, Charles T. Brusaw, and Walter E. Oliu in The Business Writers Companion, agree, further explaining that you omit the question mark when you ask a  rhetorical question, essentially a statement for which you do not expect an answer. If your question is a polite request for which you simply assume youll get a positive response- Can you carry in the groceries, please?- omit the question mark. A Question Within an Indirect Question Using the question mark can become even more difficult, as the Merriam-Webster punctuation guide shows with this example: What was her motive? you may be asking. The sentence itself is an indirect question: The speaker does not expect an answer. But the indirect question contains a question sentence, where the speaker is essentially quoting or announcing the listeners thoughts. Merriam-Webster provides even trickier examples: I naturally wondered, Will it really work?  Thoroughly puzzled, â€Å"Who could have done such a thing?† she wondered. The first sentence is also an indirect question. The speaker (I)  is quoting his own thoughts, which are in the form of a question. But the speaker does not expect an answer, so this is not an interrogative statement. Merriam-Webster also suggests that you reframe the first sentence above as a simple declarative statement, negating the need for a question mark: I naturally wondered whether it would really work. The second sentence is also an indirect question that contains an interrogative statement. Notice that the question mark comes  before  the quote marks because the interrogative statement- Who could have done such a thing?- is a question that requires a question mark. George Bernard Shaw, in Back to Methuselah, gives a classic example of indirect questions that also contain interrogative statements (or questions): You see things; and you say, Why​? But I dream things that never were; and I say, Why not? The speaker is making two statements; he does not expect an answer for either. But, within each statement is a question- Why? and Why not?- both quoting the listener. Conversational Mark The question mark is the most profoundly human form of punctuation, says  Roy Peter Clark, author of The Glamour of Grammar. This punctuation mark envisions  communication  not as assertive but as interactive, even  conversational. A question mark at the end of an interrogative statement implicitly recognizes the other person and seeks her views and input. The question mark is the engine of debates and interrogations, of mysteries, solved and secrets to be revealed, of conversations between student and teacher, of anticipation and explanation, adds Clark. Used correctly, the question mark can help you engage your reader; it can help draw in your  reader as an active partner whose answers you seek and whose opinions matter.

Strategic management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 5

Strategic management - Essay Example Retrieved from http://www.usnews.net/index.php/sid/232821615 Treanor, J. (2015). Co-op declares miscount in election to members council. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/13/co-op-group-extends-voting-deadline-after-miscount The Cooperative group has claimed that there was miscounting of votes for election to its council members and had to extend the vote casting period for its members. Members casting their votes via the website faced some problems making the management extend the registration that was set for Wednesday noon. Some individuals who vied for the election got information from the company that the information that they had won the elections was incorrect. The members council comprises of about 100 representatives of its members (The Guardian, 2015). The individuals wishing to represent the independent societies on the members’ council were affected most such as the Midcounties that have an ownership of 22% of the Co-op (Murray, (2015). The rest percentage belongs to the 7 million members using the group’s funeral homes, shops, and the other services. The votes are supposed to be weighted according to the relationship existing between the society and the main group, which never happened in some votes. Two candidates received incorrect information of their success, and some two others were informed that they did not succeed. The bank had a scandal that caused the group to suffer a loss of 2.5bn pounds in the year 2014, and the elections were to bring some reforms in the Co-op group according to The Guardian (2015). There are some controversies regarding the selection of the candidates to represent their members on the group board as initially there was a list containing six members later reduced to three. The reduction of the candidates reduced competition in the contested elections. The top