This Day in History: Jul 30, 1898: Henry Moore born

 

English sculptor Henry Moore is born in Castleford, Yorkshire, on July 30, 1898. The son of a coal miner, he overcame early criticism of his work to become one of the most acclaimed sculptors of the 20th century. His majestic, semi-abstract sculptures of the human figure are characterized by their smooth, organic shape and often include empty hollows that evoke form as meaningfully as solid mass.

 

 

The seventh of eight children, Moore grew up in the small coal-mining town of Castleford in northern England. His father was an ambitious man who taught himself advanced mathematics in order to rise from ordinary miner to the position of mining engineer. Moore decided he wanted to become a sculptor at age 11, after hearing a Sunday school story about Michelangelo. He served in France during World War I and in 1917 was injured in a gas attack. After being demobilized in 1919, he won a veteran's grant to study at the Leeds School of Art in West Yorkshire. In 1921, he was awarded a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art in London.

 

At London's libraries and museums, he studied Egyptian, Etruscan, Pre-Columbian, Oceanic, and African sculpture, and he brought the vital spirit of this artwork into his early sculpture. This effort was often ridiculed by his instructors, and in his first year at the Royal College one of his teachers remarked, "this young man has been feeding on garbage." He was also deeply influenced by the semi-abstract paintings of Paul Cezanne, such as the Large Bathers (1900-1905), which shows monumental reclining nudes integrated into an abstract landscape. The reclining human figure would become a central theme in Moore's sculpture.
After graduating from the Royal College in 1924, he traveled and taught art and in 1928 was given his first one-man exhibition at the Warren Gallery in London. Appreciated by his fellow avant-garde artists but lacking a wider public audience, Moore taught to support himself as he continued to develop his art. His first major mature work was Reclining Figure in Wood (1936), a highly abstract depiction of the human form. That year, Moore was included in the "Cubism and Abstract Art" show at New York City's Museum of Modern Art, which became an important patron of the English artist.

During World War II, Moore's studio was damaged by bombs, and sculpture material was difficult to come by. He turned to drawing and as a commissioned war artist produced a series of drawings of Londoners huddled in the underground bomb shelters. The Shelter Drawings (1940) seemed to capture the spirit of the times and brought Moore his first great fame. In 1946, he was given a major retrospective by the Museum of Modern Art, and in 1948 he won the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the 24th Venice Biennale. From thereon, Moore's reputation was firmly established, and he began to receive major public commissions for sculptures in bronze and marble.

In addition to the reclining figure, other common themes of Moore's sculpture include the mother and child, family groups, and fallen warriors. Among his major commissions were sculptures for UNESCO headquarters in Paris (1957-58), for Lincoln Center in New York City (1963-65), for the University of Chicago (1964-66), and for the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (1978). For the last four decades of his life, he lived unostentatiously in a farmhouse in Much Hadham, 30 miles north of London. He died in 1986.

 

Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/henry-moore-born [30.07.2013]

This Day in History: Jul 29, 1981: Prince Charles marries Lady Diana

Nearly one billion television viewers in 74 countries tune in to witness the marriage of Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, to Lady Diana Spencer, a young English schoolteacher. Married in a grand ceremony at St. Paul's Cathedral in the presence of 2,650 guests, the couple's romance was for the moment the envy of the world. Their first child, Prince William, was born in 1982, and their second, Prince Harry, in 1984.

 

Before long, however, the fairy-tale couple grew apart, an experience that was particularly painful under the ubiquitous eyes of the world's tabloid media. Diana and Charles announced a separation in 1992, though they continued to carry out their royal duties. In August 1996, two months after Queen Elizabeth II urged the couple to divorce, the prince and princess reached a final agreement. In exchange for a generous settlement, and the right to retain her apartments at Kensington Palace and her title of "princess," Diana agreed to relinquish the title of "Her Royal Highness" and any future claims to the British throne.

In the year following the divorce, the popular princess seemed well on her way of achieving her dream of becoming "a queen in people's hearts," but on August 31, 1997, she was killed with her companion Dodi Fayed in a car accident in Paris. Tests conducted by French police indicated that the driver, who also died in the crash, was intoxicated and likely caused the accident while trying to escape the paparazzi photographers who consistently tailed Diana during any public outing.

On April 9, 2005, Prince Charles wed his longtime mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles, in a private civil ceremony. The ceremony had originally been planned for April 8, but had to be rescheduled so as not to conflict with the funeral of Pope John Paul II. After the civil ceremony, which the queen did not attend, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams blessed the union on behalf of the Church of England in a separate blessing ceremony. An estimated 750 guests attended the event, which was held at St. George's Chapel in Windsor and was attended by both of Charles' parents, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.

Though Camilla technically became the Princess of Wales with the marriage, she has announced her preference for the title Duchess of Cornwall, in deference to the beloved late princess. Should Charles become king, she will become Queen Camilla, though she has already announced her intention to use the title Princess Consort, most likely in response to public opinion polls showing resistance to the idea of a Queen Camilla.

Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/prince-charles-marries-lady-diana [29.07.2014]

This Day in History: Jul 29, 1588: Spanish Armada defeated

 

Off the coast of Gravelines, France, Spain's so-called "Invincible Armada" is defeated by an English naval force under the command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake. After eight hours of furious fighting, a change in wind direction prompted the Spanish to break off from the battle and retreat toward the North Sea. Its hopes of invasion crushed, the remnants of the Spanish Armada began a long and difficult journey back to Spain.

In the late 1580s, English raids against Spanish commerce and Queen Elizabeth I's support of the Dutch rebels in the Spanish Netherlands led King Philip II of Spain to plan the conquest of England. Pope Sixtus V gave his blessing to what was called "The Enterprise of England," which he hoped would bring the Protestant isle back into the fold of Rome. A giant Spanish invasion fleet was completed by 1587, but Sir Francis Drake's daring raid on the Armada's supplies in the port of Cadiz delayed the Armada's departure until May 1588.

On May 19, the Invincible Armada set sail from Lisbon on a mission to secure control of the English Channel and transport a Spanish army to the British isle from Flanders. The fleet was under the command of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia and consisted of 130 ships carrying 2,500 guns, 8,000 seamen, and almost 20,000 soldiers. The Spanish ships were slower and less well armed than their English counterparts, but they planned to force boarding actions if the English offered battle, and the superior Spanish infantry would undoubtedly prevail. Delayed by storms that temporarily forced it back to Spain, the Armada did not reach the southern coast of England until July 19. By that time, the British were ready.

 

 

On July 21, the English navy began bombarding the seven-mile-long line of Spanish ships from a safe distance, taking full advantage of their long-range heavy guns. The Spanish Armada continued to advance during the next few days, but its ranks were thinned by the English assault. On July 27, the Armada anchored in exposed position off Calais, France, and the Spanish army prepared to embark from Flanders. Without control of the Channel, however, their passage to England would be impossible.

Just after midnight on July 29, the English sent eight burning ships into the crowded harbor at Calais. The panicked Spanish ships were forced to cut their anchors and sail out to sea to avoid catching fire. The disorganized fleet, completely out of formation, was attacked by the English off Gravelines at dawn. In a decisive battle, the superior English guns won the day, and the devastated Armada was forced to retreat north to Scotland. The English navy pursued the Spanish as far as Scotland and then turned back for want of supplies.

Battered by storms and suffering from a dire lack of supplies, the Armada sailed on a hard journey back to Spain around Scotland and Ireland. Some of the damaged ships foundered in the sea while others were driven onto the coast of Ireland and wrecked. By the time the last of the surviving fleet reached Spain in October, half of the original Armada was lost and some 15,000 men had perished.

Queen Elizabeth's decisive defeat of the Invincible Armada made England a world-class power and introduced effective long-range weapons into naval warfare for the first time, ending the era of boarding and close-quarter fighting.

Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/spanish-armada-defeated [29.07.2013]