163,665 research outputs found
Venus revisited : reflecting sights/sites of beauty and its embodiments
No full textIncludes bibliographical references (p. 82-86).In this project the idealised body of Venus represents an uncomfortable whole. She symbolises the richly divergent, contrasting, and often thematic concerns of female beauty that my, work has attempted to represent. She signifies arid originates the centuries of fluctuating meaning and contesting truths about women and the way in which they are represented that are at the centre of my research - in an image that resists resolution. As the title of the body of practical work implies, Venus Revisited points to a journey of return. It refers to a recurrence of ideas about the idealised female body informed by its origins in Greek myth. Venus still informs current Western visual culture - the female body remains 'the map on which we mark our meanings' (Mullins, 1985: 331)
From artifact to icon: an analysis of the Venus figurines in archaeological literature and contemporary culture
No full textThis thesis examines the body of material known as the Venus figurines, which date from the European Upper Palaeolithic period. The argument proceeds in two stages: the first examines this material through a detailed textual analysis of the archaeological literature that has discussed these figurines since their initial discovery at the end of the 19th century to the present day; the second investigates the utilisation of particular Venus figurines in the contemporary medium of the World Wide Web. The textual analysis identifies and discusses a number of factors relevant to the presentation and fundamental construction of the Venus figurines as an archaeological category. These include examination of the use of terminology to label and define the figurines as a class of material(Chapter 2); assessment of information presented in the literature pertaining to contextual and chronological factors (Chapter 3); evaluation of the evidence provided for both the homogeneity and diversity apparent within this category (Chapter 4); Chapter 5 isolates and discusses a number of methods implicit in the production of the literature by which aspects of both individual figurines and the wider class are prioritised to create and consolidate a particular impression of the archaeological material; Chapter 6 presents three detailed Case Studies of these processes as they are in practice applied to the Venus figurines. In Chapter 7 the specific use of these figurines in one medium of contemporary culture, the World Wide Web, is examined. Within this medium, the figurines are removed from their original archaeological context and contemporary meanings are attributed to them. This popular usage is then compared and contrasted with archaeological practice. My analysis demonstrates that parallels between the two approaches can be drawn, and identifies the role of the Venus figurines as a "commodity" within both archaeology and contemporary culture
Venus 1873
No full textSupplement to Papers relating to the transit of Venus in 1874, published in Washington, 1872. On the application of photography to the observation of the transit of Venus, by Simon Newcomb": pt. 1, p. 14-25. "Charts and tables for facilitating predictions of the several phases of the transit of Venus, by George W. Hill": pt. 2, p. [7]-48.Maps: Transit of Venus, Dec. 8, 1874 chart no. 1 ingress, exterior contact -- Transit of Venus, Dec. 8, 1874 chart no. 2 ingress, interior contact -- Transit of Venus, Dec. 8, 1874 chart no. 3 egress, interior contact -- Transit of Venus, Dec. 8, 1874 chart no. 4 egress, exterior contact.The Transit of Venus is when the planet Venus moves across the sun and becomes visible as a small black dot while viewed from Earth. The transit of Venus in 1874 was the first of a pair of transits in the 19th century. The last transits occurred more than a century before in 1761 and 1769 and would not occur again until 2004 and 2012. The transit of Venus was an opportunity to improve previous observations and measurements, and many countries put together special committees to observe and record the transit, including the United States. The United States established a "Transit of Venus Commission" in the 1870s and sent eight expeditions to Kerguelen, Tasmania, New Zealand, Chatham Island, China, Japan, and Russia. The expeditions produced 350 photographic plates of the transit and led to the publication of this atlas including charts recording the transit from ingress to egress. The transit was also highly anticipated by the public; several private expeditions were launched, observatories hosted viewings, and the general public watched the transit with special dark glasses. LPMColor
Remote sensing of water vapour in Venus' middle atmospere
No full textThe Pioneer Venus Orbiter Infrared Radiometer and Venera 15 Fourier Transform Spectrometer observations of thermal emission from Venus' middle atmosphere between 10°S and 50°N were used to determine global maps of temperature, cloud optical depth and water vapour abundance. The spectral regions observed include the strong 15 μtm carbon dioxide band and the 45 μm fundamental rotational water band. The main aim of this thesis is to reconcile the water vapour abundance results from these two sets of observations reported in previous studies. New radiative transfer and retrieval models have been developed for this purpose based on new correlated-k absorption tables calculated with up-to-date spectral line data. The H2SO4 cloud opacity and scattering properties have been recalculated from new refractive index data using Mie theory. For the first time these two sets of observations have been analysed using the same retrieval tools. From the Pioneer Venus Orbiter Infrared Radiometer observations we report a high abundance of water vapour in the early afternoon at the equatorial cloud-top region and a strong day-night variability in the cloud-top pressure. From the Venera 15 Fourier Transform Spectrometer observations we report medium local variability in water vapour abundance, with highest values in the near-equatorial region and slight decrease towards the polar region. It is found that serious constraints are placed on the validation of the retrievals by the lack of adequately accurate H2SO4 optical properties data in the shorter wavelengths and by the poor vertical resolution when sensing the complex but interesting cloud region which prohibits its rigorous modelling. The proposed European Space Agency Venus Express mission will carry a number of high resolution infrared and UV instruments that will shed new light to the interesting question of water vapour abundance in Venus' middle atmosphere
Significant Dot: The 1769 transit of Venus - a tale of astronomy, medicine and empire
No full textThis article places the 6 June 2012 transit of Venus in the context of James Cook’s voyage from England to the South Pacific to observe the 1769 transit of Venus. A description is given on how to use a computer program called Stellarium to ‘observe’ the 1769 transit of Venus exactly as Cook saw it from the island of Tahiti in the South Pacific
Goddess's or Satan's intervention? A palimpsest reading of Roman Polanski's "Venus in fur" (2013)
No full textTekst dotyczy filmu Romana Polańskiego Wenus w futrze (2013) interesującego ze względu na fakt, iż jest typem opowieści wielopoziomowej i rodzajem psychodramy rozpisanej na dwie postaci, rozgrywającej się na kilku płaszczyznach relacji: aktorka-reżyser, postać literacka - jej interpretator, kobieta-mężczyzna. Wenus w futrze została zdefiniowana jako rodzaj palimpsestu tj. opowieści filmowej powstałej na fabularnym szkielecie innych dzieł. W nawiązaniu do koncepcji Gérarda Genette`a, który skategoryzował sposoby wchodzenia ze sobą w relacje różnych tekstów, prześledzono przypadek hipertekstualności, czyli powiązania Wenus w futrze jako hipertekstu "zaszczepionego" na podłożu wcześniejszych dzieł (hipotekstów). Omówienie Wenus w futrze jako tekstu kultury, stanowiącego rodzaj hipertekstu nadbudowanego nad innymi tekstami literackimi – dramatem Davida Ivesa, powieścią Leopolda von Sacher-Masocha, opowieściami mitologicznymi i biblijnymi oznacza, że trzeba było opisać ich wzajemne relacje rozszyfrowując typ powiązań, przetworzenia, reinterpretacji i aktualizacji. Ze względu na wpisane w film wzajemne relacje pomiędzy różnymi tekstami kultury został on potraktowany jako typ lektury palimpsestowej. W centrum zainteresowania znalazła się też relacja reżyser-aktorka i funkcja postaci kobiecej w powiązaniu z reinterpretacją mitu bogini Wenus.The text concerns Roman Polanski's Venus in Fur (2013), a multi-layer psychodrama written for two charakters, talking place on several levels of human relations: actress vs. director, literary character vs. performing artist, man vs. woman. Venus in Fur has been defined as a kind of palimpsest, i.e. a film story based on the fictional skeleton of other works. Referring to the concept developed by Gérard Genette, who categorized the ways in which different texts interact with each other, the article investigates the film's hypertextuality, i.e. the "graftimg" of Venus in Fur (as a hypertext) upon earlier works (hypotexts). When discussing Venus in Fur as a text of culture constituting a hypertext superimposed on other literary pieces, such a David Ives' dramas, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch`s novels, mythological and biblical stories, it was necessary to identify their mutual relations by deciphering all the interconnections, reworkings, reinterpretations, and revisions. Due to the relationships exciting between the various cultural texts in the film, the analysis was treated as a palimpsest reading. Attention was also paid to the director-actress relationship and the role of the female character in connection with the reinterpretation of the myth of the goddess Venus
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A solar storm observed from the Sun to Venus using the STEREO, Venus Express, and MESSENGER spacecraft
No full textThe suite of SECCHI optical imaging instruments on the STEREO-A spacecraft is used to track a solar storm, consisting of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and other coronal loops, as it propagates from the Sun into the heliosphere during May 2007. The 3-D propagation path of the largest interplanetary CME (ICME) is determined from the observations made by the SECCHI Heliospheric Imager (HI) on STEREO-A (HI-1/2A). Two parts of the CME are tracked through the SECCHI images, a bright loop and a V-shaped feature located at the rear of the event. We show that these two structures could be the result of line-of-sight integration of the light scattered by electrons located on a single flux rope. In addition to being imaged by HI, the CME is observed simultaneously by the plasma and magnetic field experiments on the Venus Express and MESSENGER spacecraft. The imaged loop and V-shaped structure bound, as expected, the flux rope observed in situ. The SECCHI images reveal that the leading loop-like structure propagated faster than the V-shaped structure, and a decrease in in situ CME speed occurred during the passage of the flux rope.We interpret this as the result of the continuous radial expansion of the flux rope as it progressed outward through the interplanetary medium. An expansion speed in the radial direction of ~30 km s-1 is obtained directly from the SECCHI-HI images and is in agreement with the difference in speed of the two structures observed in situ. This paper shows that the flux rope location can be determined from white light images, which could have important space weather applications
Venus monitoring camera for Venus express
No full textThe Venus Express mission will focus on a global investigation of the Venus atmosphere and plasma environment, while additionally measuring some surface properties from orbit. The instruments PFS and SPICAV inherited from the Mars Express mission and VIRTIS from Rosetta form a powerful spectrometric and spectro-imaging payload suite. Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC)—a miniature wideangle camera with 17.51 field of view—was specifically designed and built to complement these experiments and provide imaging context for the whole mission. VMC will take images of Venus in four narrow band filters (365, 513, 965, and 1000 nm) all sharing one CCD. Spatial resolution on the cloud tops will range from 0.2 km/px at pericentre to 45 km/px at apocentre when the full Venus disc will be in the field of view. VMC will fulfill the following science goals: (1) study of the distribution and nature of the unknown UV absorber; (2) determination of the wind field at the cloud tops (70 km) by tracking the UV features; (3) thermal mapping of the surface in the 1 mm transparency ‘‘window’’ on the night side; (4) determination of the global wind field in the main cloud deck (50 km) by tracking near-IR features; (5) study of the lapse rate and H2O content in the lower 6–10 km; (6) mapping O2 night-glow and its variability
Is the naked Venus by Lucas Cranach the Elder only glamour? The meaning of paintings by Cranach in the light of contemporary understanding of beauty, love and charm
No full textLucas Cranach the Elder is the author of more than a dozen of paintings depicting the goddess Venus with Cupid holding a honeycomb, as well as the image of Venus preventing Cupid from firing his bow. The paintings come from the period between 1526––1527 and 1537. The image of Venus with armed Cupid has a moralethical meaning as well as a political-dynastic one since she was the patron goddess of the Saxony and Magdeburg ruling family. Venus not only protects the human hearts from suffering caused by love, but also defends peace and truly noble virtues. The second group of works has its origin in the antique poem by Theocritus: Nineteenth
Idyll (the second half of the third century BC). In these paintings Cranach presented Venus as a guard of morality, reminding that love is not separate from suffering. The convention of body in the works of Cranach is gothic, the body of the goddess is subtilised, supple, slim, but also sensual. The image of Venus, her beauty and charm that emanate from the naked body of the goddess gain the status of glamour. Cranach created his own canon of beauty and assigned it to Venus. He broadened the understanding of the beauty of a naked body by adding the sphere of contemporary spiritual beauty, and in accordance with Protestant ideology.Małgorzata Żak-Kulesza - dr, historyk sztuki, od 2006 roku asystent w Instytucie Kulturoznawstwa KUL, obecnie w Katedrze Teorii Kultury i Sztuki. Zainteresowania naukowe związane są ze sztuką przełomu średniowiecza i renesansu, szczególnie z malarstwem niderlandzkim i niemieckim, ikonografią sztuki na tle przemian
religijnych, obyczajowych i kulturowych. Wybrane publikacje: „Cóż rzec o piękności klejnotów...?” Znaczenie symboliczne i magiczne kamieni szlachetnych w ikonografii i złotnictwie średniowiecza, [w:] Kamień w języku, literaturze i kulturze, t. 2, red. M. Roszczynialska, K. Wądolny-Tatar (Kraków 2013), A Physicians Towards the Patient in the light of Ancient and Medieval Medical Regulations. Religious Rules and Law Provisions, [w:] Studia Antropologica. Pogranicza historii sztuki i kultury, red. U. M. Mazurczak (Lublin 2013), Formy dialogu z widzem – na przykładzie wybranych dzieł malarstwa niderlandzkiego i niemieckiego w XV i pierwszej połowie XVI wieku,
[w:] Komunikowanie artystyczne, red. M. Stępnik (Lublin 2011).Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski10311
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