Fireworks for the Emperor. A new hand-colored impression of Sebald Beham’s “Military Display in Honor of the Visit of Emperor Charles V to Munich”

A little studied Einblattdruck, or single-sheet woodcut, from the sixteenth century shows early incendiary devices used to honor the entry of the Holy Roman Emperor in 1530. The large woodcut displays the military honors given to the emperor: cannons firing on a castle constructed for the occasion and fireworks. Harnessing the potential of powders for both pyrotechnics and color added by hand to prints was among the many cultural developments of the sixteenth century. This article makes known a recently rediscovered impression of the print, unique with hand coloring, which serves as the focus of discussion for several aspects of the print including the ephemeral and incendiary, the states, and related prints with rocket Turks. A technical analysis discusses the color azurite and completes the article. “The Military Display in Honor of the Visit of Emperor Charles V to Munich” ( Pauli 1115)1 measures slightly over 1 foot x 4 feet (360 x 1340 mm, 14.17 x 52.76 in.). It was printed from five wood blocks onto five sheets of paper glued side-by-side, with each image and sheet measuring ca. 350/360 x 1330/1340 mm.2 The banderole at the top indicates that the “The Princely City of Munich – Die Furstlich Statt München” is the location depicted. The year 1530 is included at lower left, and although the print is not signed, the style is unmistakably Sebald Beham’s. It is initialed “NM” at center bottom indicating the printer was Niklas Meldemann, also from Nuremberg, for whom Beham designed other prints.3 Meldemann included his name and date in the placard at upper right as the person responsible for printing the woodcut (“ytzd im druck verfertigt vnd auszgangen […] 1530. Des 10. Tags Junij”). The date of 10 June 1530 indicates the day Charles V victoriously entered Munich after his defeat of the Ottoman Turks at Vienna. The Bavarian and Austrian coat of arms, upper left and right, underscore the connection to the men identified in the placard as Bavarian dukes, the brothers Wilhelm and Ludwig. The print appears to have been made both to commemorate the event and to honor the two brothers (“Zu eren den Hochgebornen Fürsten vnd Herrn”) on the occasion of the entry of his Imperial Majesty. The inscription calls the woodcut a “true record – aigentlich verzeichnus”) of the event. The Emperor’s name, Charles V, appears to have been included only in the first state of the print, which is now lost, and his image is almost impossible to locate in the composition as are those of Wilhelm and Ludwig. Zu den bedeutendsten Stücken in der Sammlung des Historischen Vereins von Oberbayern gehört das einzige bekannte altkolorierte Exemplar von Sebastian Behams Holzschnitt »Manöver zu Ehren Kaiser Karls V. anlässlich dessen München-Besuchs 1530«. Das von Niklas Meldemann gedruckte Blatt wurde 1860 im Rahmen der Gesamttagung der Geschichtsvereine an den Verein geschenkt und jahrzehntelang in den Vereinsräumen ausgestellt. Durch den vorliegenden Beitrag wird es aus seiner zwischenzeitlichen Versenkung wieder hervorgeholt und – im Vergleich mit eindrucksvollen Abbildungen verschiedener Siegesfeiern – als herausragende Dokumentation eines Huldigungsevents und einer militärischen Darbietung der Zeit vorgestellt. Neben der Darstellung militärischer Macht wurden auf Blättern dieser Art stets die technischen Errungenschaften der Zeit, darunter die verschiedenen Formen der Pyrotechnik, mit Freude am Detail illustriert. Auch die besiegten »Feinde« – insbesondere die einfach darzustellenden Türken – wurden gerne vorgeführt. Unter vergleichbaren Siegesfeier-Darstellungen nimmt der Beham-Holzschnitt des Historischen Vereins aufgrund seiner außergewöhnlichen Größe, seines theatralischen Aufbaus und vor allem seiner Farbigkeit eine Sonderstellung ein. Jüngst auf Anregung der Autorin Alison Stewart durchgeführte Analysen der eingesetzten Farben bestätigten, dass die eindrucksvolle Kolorierung – mit der Ausnahme einer kleinen Retusche – aus der Zeit des Drucks stammt. Die reichhaltige Farbpalette beinhaltet Pigmente, die zu dieser Zeit in der Malerei weit verbreitet waren. Die Farben kamen aus den gleichen Quellen, die auch die Chemikalien für das abgebildete Schießpulver und die Pyrotechnik lieferten – den deutschen Apotheken des 16. Jahrhunderts. Dieser Beitrag ist das Ergebnis einer Zusammenarbeit von Alison G. Stewart und Nicole Roberts. Letztere schrieb den Abschnitt »Farbanalyse« am Ende des Aufsatzes

How a professionals slash writer disrupts readers' expectations

Professionals fandom is a fertile ground for AU stories. At face value, Rhiannon's The Larton Chronicles is a pleasant, cozy AU that bears only a token resemblance to the show that inspired it. On closer examination, though, it disrupts a number of the themes that thread through The Professionals, including those of sexuality, race, and class

Style, Language and Gender in Angela Carter's "Fireworks": A Metaphorical (De) Construction of Female Identity

Autorka artykułu, stosując narzędzia krytyki feministycznej, analizuje zbiór opowiadań Angeli Carter Fireworks [fajerwerki]. Celem analiz jest odszyfrowanie ideologicznych założeń leżących u podstaw omawianego tekstu. Przyglądając się kobiecym postaciom występującym w poszczególnych opowiadaniach, autorka pokazuje, w jaki sposób za pomocą środków językowych Carter (de)konstruuje kobiecą tożsamość swoich bohaterek. Najpierw pozbawia je podmiotowości, by następnie przypisać im jej nowy wymiar. Analiza obejmuje m.in. przyglądanie się roli często używanych zaimków (on, ona, my), czasowników (zaufać, niszczyć) i rzeczowników (broń, rana). Ponadto autorka bada funkcje występujących w opowiadaniach dychotomii (podmiot/przedmiot, ja/inny) oraz symboli (wrak statku, ogień, lustro)

A user interface for customizing cane layouts in Virtual Glass

Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. "February 2013."Includes bibliographical references (unnumbered page).Cane pulling is a technique used in glass blowing to build up intricate patterns which come out in the final piece. Virtual Glass was created to model the cane pulling process from start to finish. There are a variety of standard cane layout patterns, but in truth the full range of possibilities is limited only by the glassblower's skill and imagination. For this reason the previous Virtual Glass interface, which provided only templates, proved to be too restrictive for users. In this thesis I describe an alternative interface we have developed which frees users from the limitations of template patterns. I provide a side-by-side comparison of several previous cane designs replicated in the program with and without the use of this interface. I also detail several unimplemented features and describe the foreseeable challenges with adding them, as well as how they might integrate into the interface when they are included.by Kimberly Baldauf.M. Eng

Performances of peace: Utrecht 1713

The Peace of Utrecht (1713), which brought an end to the War of the Spanish Succession, was a milestone in global history. Performances of Peace aims to rethink the significance of the Peace of Utrecht by exploring the nexus between culture and politics. For too long, cultural and political historians have studied early modern international relations in isolation. By studying the political as well as the cultural aspects of this peace (and its concomitant paradoxes) from a broader perspective, this volume aims to shed new light on the relation between diplomacy and performative culture in the public spher