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found object (art)
...Coco Fusco’s video docudrama Operation Atropos (2006) of the experience of the artist and six other women as they underwent a rigorous training program in resisting interrogation. Found objects marked another trend, seen in Jedediah Caesar’s Helium Brick aka Summer Snow (2006), which was made of studio debris such as paper cups and plywood scraps encased in eerily......
found poem
a poem consisting of words found in a nonpoetic context (such as a product label) and usually broken into lines that convey a verse rhythm. Both the term and the concept are modeled on the objet trouvé (French: “found object”), an artifact not created as art or a natural object that is held to have aesthetic value when taken out of its context. ...
foundation (construction)
Part of a structural system that supports and anchors the superstructure of a building and transmits its loads directly to the earth. To prevent damage from repeated freeze-thaw cycles, the bottom of the foundation must be below the frost line. The foundations of low-rise residential buildings are nearly all supported on spread footings, wide ...
foundation (organization)
...as American mutual funds; the Massachusetts business trust (now little used but providing a means of limiting the liability of participants in a business activity like the limited partnership); the foundation (fondation, Stiftung), a European organization that has social or charitable objects and often carries on a business whose profits are devoted to those objects; and, finally, the......
foundation (cosmetic)
The classic foundation is vanishing cream, which is essentially an oil-in-water emulsion that contains about 15 percent stearic acid (a solid fatty acid), a small part of which is saponified (converted to a crystalline form) in order to provide the quality of sheen. Such creams leave no oily finish, though they provide an even, adherent base for face powder, which when dusted on top of a......
foundation axiom (set theory)
The American mathematician John von Neumann and others modified ZF by adding a “foundation axiom,” which explicitly prohibited sets that contain themselves as members. In the 1920s and ’30s, von Neumann, the Swiss mathematician Paul Isaak Bernays, and the Austrian-born logician Kurt Gödel (1906–78) provided additional technical modifications, resulting in what is...
Foundation Day (holiday)
holiday (January 26) honouring the establishment of the first permanent European settlement on the continent of Australia. On January 26, 1788, Arthur Phillip, who had sailed into what is now Sydney Cove with a shipload of convicts, hoisted the British flag at the site. In the early 1800s the date, called ...
Foundation of the Royal Zoological Society Natura Artis Magistra (zoo, Amsterdam, Netherlands)
zoological garden founded in 1838 by the Royal Zoological Society of Holland. It occupies a 10-hectare (25-acre) site in Amsterdam and houses nearly 5,600 specimens of some 1,350 species. Heavily oriented toward scientific research, the zoo has an ...
foundation, philanthropic (charitable organization)
a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization, with assets provided by donors and managed by its own officials and with income expended for socially useful purposes. Foundation, endowment, and charitable trust are terms used interchangeably to designate these organizations, which can be traced far back in history. They existed in the ancient civi...
foundation tone (music)
...Apollo as part of a bargain. From then on Apollo played the lyre at the banquets of the gods, while the Muses sang to his accompaniment. An ancient Chinese myth tells of the discovery of the “foundation tone,” which, in addition to being a musical note of specific pitch, also had political implications, since each dynasty was thought to have its own “proper pitch.” T...
foundation wall (construction)
...are usually made of concrete poured directly on undisturbed soil to a minimum depth of about 30 centimetres (12 inches). If typical continuous concrete footings are used, they usually support a foundation wall that acts either as a retaining wall to form a basement or as a frost wall with earth on both sides. Foundation walls can be built of reinforced concrete or masonry, particularly......
foundationalism (epistemology)
in epistemology, the view that some beliefs can justifiably be held by inference from other beliefs, which themselves are justified directly—e.g., on the basis of rational intuition or sense perception. Beliefs about material objects or about the theoretical entities of science, for example, are not...
Foundations of Algebraic Geometry (work by Weil)
...natural to want a theory of varieties defined by equations with coefficients in an arbitrary field. This was provided for the first time by the French mathematician André Weil, in his Foundations of Algebraic Geometry (1946), in a way that drew on Zariski’s work without suppressing the intuitive appeal of geometric concepts. Weil’s theory of polynomial equation...
Foundations of Arithmetic, The (work by Frege)
There followed a period of intensive work on the philosophy of logic and of mathematics, embodied initially in his first book, Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884; The Foundations of Arithmetic). The Grundlagen was a work that must on any count stand as a masterpiece of philosophical writing. The only review that the book received, however, was a devastatingly hostile one......
Foundations of Differential Geometry, The (work by Veblen and Whitehead)
...properties of Riemannian geometry. In collaboration with his brilliant student John Henry Whitehead, Veblen extended the knowledge of the Riemann metric for more general cases in The Foundations of Differential Geometry (1932)....
Foundations of Economic Analysis (work by Samuelson)
Samuelson contributed to many areas of economic theory through powerful mathematical techniques that he employed essentially as puzzle-solving devices. His Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947) provides the basic theme of his work, with the universal nature of consumer behaviour seen as the key to economic theory. Samuelson studied such diverse fields as the dynamics and......
Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, The (work by Ayer)
...answered all major philosophical questions, the problems he had so confidently “solved” soon came back to haunt him. In a series of important papers and a book, The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940), he wrestled with critics who doubted that all meaningful discourse could be analyzed in terms of sense experience. In particular, he turned for......
Foundations of Geometry, The (work by Hilbert)
...axioms were uncovered in Euclid’s geometry. These discoveries were organized into a more rigorous axiomatic system by David Hilbert in his Grundlagen der Geometrie (1899; The Foundations of Geometry). In this and related systems, however, logical connectives and their properties are taken for granted and remain implicit. If the logic involved is taken to b...
Foundations of Modern Art, The (work by Ozenfant)
...and directions of contemporary art. Ozenfant’s definitive work on this subject, the two-volume L’Art, was published in 1928 (translated into English as The Foundations of Modern Art in 1931). From 1931 to 1938 he painted a massive figural composition in the Purist style entitled Life....
Foundations of Social Theory (work by Coleman)
...As a result of his interaction with economists, for example, James S. Coleman was the first sociologist since Parsons to build a comprehensive social theory. Coleman’s Foundations of Social Theory (1990), based on economic models, suggests that the individual makes rational choices in all phases of social life....
Foundations of Sovereignty, and Other Essays, The (work by Laski)
...of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Felix Frankfurter, who was later appointed to the court. During this period he wrote Authority in the Modern State (1919) and The Foundations of Sovereignty, and Other Essays (1921). In both works he attacked the notion of an all-powerful sovereign state, arguing instead for political pluralism. In his Grammar......
Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, The (work by Chamberlain)
...(1895) followed. In these publications, Chamberlain emphasized the heroic Teutonic aspects in the composer’s works. In 1899 he published Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, 2 vol., 1911), a broad but biased analysis of European culture, in which he claimed that the Western Aryan peoples have been responsible for the......
Foundations of the Theory of Probability (work by Kolmogorov)
...aimed to develop a rigorous, axiomatic foundation for probability—into an influential monograph Grundbegriffe der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung (1933; Foundations of the Theory of Probability, 1950). In 1929, having completed his doctorate, Kolmogorov was elected a member of the Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics at Moscow State......
founder effect (genetics)
in genetics, the principle whereby a daughter population or migrant population may differ in genetic composition from its parent population because the founders of the daughter population were not a representative sample of the parent population. For example, if only blue-eyed inhabitants of a town whose residents included brown-eyed people decided to found a ...
founder principle (genetics)
in genetics, the principle whereby a daughter population or migrant population may differ in genetic composition from its parent population because the founders of the daughter population were not a representative sample of the parent population. For example, if only blue-eyed inhabitants of a town whose residents included brown-eyed people decided to found a ...
Founders Fund (American company)
...No charges were filed, but he was forced to step down as president of Facebook (though he continued to own a minority stake in the company worth hundreds of millions of dollars). He joined the Founders Fund, a venture capital firm cofounded by Thiel, in 2006 as a managing partner. In 2007 he and activist Joe Green founded Causes, which developed an application for Facebook users to......
Founder’s Jewel (brooch)
...which were open in the centre, also were popular. They took many forms, including round, pentagonal, and star-, heart-, or wheel-shaped. One outstanding bejeweled and enameled example—the Founder’s Jewel bequeathed by William of Wykeham to New College, University of Oxford, in 1404—is in the shape of the letter M. The arches formed by the letter resemble Gothic windows,......
founding (technology)
the process of pouring molten metal into a cavity that has been molded according to a pattern of the desired shape. When the metal solidifies, the result is a casting—a metal object conforming to that shape. A great variety of metal objects are so molded at some point during their manufacture....
Founding Fathers (United States history)
the most prominent statesmen of America’s Revolutionary generation, responsible for the successful war for colonial independence from Great Britain, the liberal ideas celebrated in the Declaration of Independence, and the republican form of government defined in the United States Constitution. While there are no agreed-upon criteria for inclusion, membe...
Founding of the Trinitarian Order (painting by Carreño de Miranda)
...he is known primarily as a portraitist, he also painted many religious works in oil and fresco that reveal a unique Baroque sensibility. Such works as his masterpiece, Founding of the Trinitarian Order (1666), are marked by mastery of execution, subtle interplay of light and shadow, and inventiveness of scene. Following the tradition of Velázquez’......
Foundling Hospital (building, Florence, Italy)
...on the capitals of a row of columns, a style that was standard in the Romanesque and Gothic periods and that was revived and widely used during the Renaissance (e.g., Filippo Brunelleschi’s Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence). In Byzantine arcades, spreading blocks called impost blocks were often placed between the capitals and arches, a style used widely throughout the East....
foundry aluminum alloy (alloy)
The Aluminum Association of the United States has established systems for classifying foundry and wrought aluminum alloys. Foundry alloys are identified by four-digit numbers, with the first numeral indicating the major alloying element or group of elements (see table; sometimes a letter precedes the four digits to identify a variant of the original composition)....
foundry coke
...the larger pieces may have to be cut. The bulk of oven coke (sized about 40 to 100 millimetres) is used throughout the world in blast furnaces to make iron. Exceptionally large strong coke, known as foundry coke, is used in foundry cupolas to melt iron. Coke in 10- to 25-millimetre sizes is much used in the manufacture of phosphorus and calcium carbide; from the latter, acetylene, mainly for......
Fount of Philosophy, The (work by Godfrey)
In his other notable work, the Fons philosophiae (c. 1176; “The Fount of Philosophy”), Godfrey, in rhymed verse, proposed a classification of learning and considered the controversy between Realists and Nominalists (who held that ideas were only names, not real things) over the problem of universal concepts. Fons philosophiae is an allegorical account of the......
Fountain (work by Duchamp)
On Jan. 4, 2006, a 77-year-old performance artist named Pierre Pinoncelli made international headlines when he cracked Marcel Duchamp’s iconic ready-made Fountain (1917) with a hammer while it was on display in the Dada exhibition at Pompidou Centre, Paris. Despite Pinoncelli’s argument that he was acting in the name of art and that his action made Fountain, one of eigh...
fountain
in landscape architecture, an issue of water controlled or contained primarily for purposes of decoration, especially an artificially produced jet of water or the structure from which it rises....
Fountain Colony (Colorado, United States)
city, seat (1873) of El Paso county, central Colorado, U.S. It stands on a mesa (6,008 feet [1,831 metres]) near the eastern base of Pikes Peak, east of Pike National Forest. Founded in 1871 as Fountain Colony by General William J. Palmer, builder of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, it was renamed for the nearby Manitou mineral sp...
fountain grass (plant)
...and subtropical areas. Kikuyu grass (P. clandestinum), a perennial sod-forming species, is grown for pasturage in Central America. Several varieties of feathertop (P. villosum) and fountaintop, or fountain grass (P. setaceum, formerly P. ruppelii), both native to Ethiopia, are cultivated in North America as ornamentals for their arching form and feathery, coloured......
fountain moss (plant)
(Fontinalis), genus of mosses belonging to the subclass Bryidae, often found in flowing freshwater streams and ponds in temperate regions. Of the 20 species of water moss, 18 are native to North America. A brook moss may have shoots 30 to 100 (r...
Fountain of Age, The (work by Friedan)
...It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women’s Movement and in 1981 The Second Stage, an assessment of the status of the women’s movement. The Fountain of Age (1993) addressed the psychology of old age and urged a revision of society’s view that aging means loss and depletion. Friedan’s other books include t...
Fountain of Bakhchisaray, The (work by Pushkin)
...Kavkazsky plennik (1820–21; The Prisoner of the Caucasus), Bratya razboyniki (1821–22; The Robber Brothers), and Bakhchisaraysky fontan (1823; The Fountain of Bakhchisaray)....
Fountain of Life, The (work by Ibn Gabirol)
His Fountain of Life, in five treatises, is preserved in toto only in the Latin translation, Fons vitae, with the author’s name appearing as Avicebron or Avencebrol; it was re-identified as Ibn Gabirol’s work by Salomon Munk in 1846. It had little influence upon Jewish philosophy other than on León Hebreo (Judah Abrabanel) and Benedict de Spinoza, but it inspired...
Fountain of Neptune (work by Ammannati and Calamech)
Two other major works by Ammannati in Florence are the Bridge of Santa Trinità (1567–69), which contains elliptical arches, and the Fountain of Neptune (1567–70; destroyed 1944, rebuilt 1957); the latter, in the Piazza della Signoria, features a colossal marble statue of that deity. In his old age Ammannati was strongly influenced by the Counter-Reformation philosophy of the.....
Fountain of the Four Rivers (fountain by Bernini)
Bernini’s most spectacular public monuments date from the mid-1640s to the 1660s. The Fountain of the Four Rivers in Rome’s Piazza Navona (1648–51) supports an ancient Egyptian obelisk over a hollowed-out rock, surmounted by four marble figures symbolizing four major rivers of the world. This fountain is one of his most spectacular works....
Fountain of the Innocents (work by Goujon)
...of Mannerist sculptural style to Italian artists at Fontainebleau, to Primaticcio’s stucco style, and to Cellini. Jean Goujon began from this point of inspiration, and his decorations for the “Fountain of the Innocents” at the Louvre (1547–49) possess a sophisticated refinement all’antica unequalled by any non-Italian artist of the period....
Fountain of the Seasons (work by Bouchardon)
...to Louis XV and produced significant work for the royal residence. Though he began his career as an artist committed to classicism, Bouchardon did produce work with Rococo characteristics. The “Fountain of the Seasons” (1739–45) in the rue de Grenelle in Paris is an elaborate, two-storied architectural piece decorated with reliefs and statues of the seasons and a......
fountain pen (writing implement)
The inconvenience of having to continually dip a pen to replenish its ink supply stimulated the development of the fountain pen, a type of pen in which ink is held in a reservoir and passes to the writing point through capillary channels. The first practical version of the fountain pen was produced in 1884 by the American inventor L.E. Waterman....
Fountainhead, The (novel by Rand)
novel by Ayn Rand, published in 1943. An exposition of the author’s anticommunist philosophy of “objectivism,” The Fountainhead tells of the struggle of genius architect Howard Roark—said to be based on Frank Lloyd Wright—as he confronts conformist mediocrity....
Fountainhead, The (film by Vidor)
Though today regarded as dated and overwrought, Neal’s second film, director King Vidor’s adaptation of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead (1949), established her reputation as an intelligent and sophisticated actress. That film also introduced Neal to leading man Gary Cooper, with whom she also costarred in Bright Leaf (1950). Neal revealed in her autobiography, As ...
Fountains Abbey (historical abbey, North Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom)
...styles from late Norman to Perpendicular Gothic. The city also has a spacious market square and is a local service and tourist centre for Yorkshire Dales National Park. The impressive ruins of Fountains Abbey, a Cistercian monastery, stand 3 miles (5 km) southwest of Ripon. Pop. (2001) 15,922....
fountaintop (plant)
...and subtropical areas. Kikuyu grass (P. clandestinum), a perennial sod-forming species, is grown for pasturage in Central America. Several varieties of feathertop (P. villosum) and fountaintop, or fountain grass (P. setaceum, formerly P. ruppelii), both native to Ethiopia, are cultivated in North America as ornamentals for their arching form and feathery, coloured......
Fouqué, Ferdinand (French geologist)
...composition of feldspars; his methods have been applied to other minerals. He formulated the first classification of igneous rocks that considered mineralogy, chemical composition, and texture. With Ferdinand Fouqué, Michel-Lévy studied and experimented widely in the synthesis of igneous rocks. They showed that the same molten mixture yields rocks of different mineralogy, dependin...
Fouqué, Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte, Baron (German writer)
German novelist and playwright remembered chiefly as the author of the popular fairy tale Undine (1811)....
Fouques-Duparc, Henri (French composer)
French composer known for his original and lasting songs on poems of Charles Baudelaire, Leconte de Lisle, Théophile Gautier, and others....
Fouquet, Georges (French artisan)
Unlike Lalique, the jewelers Georges Fouquet (1858–1929) and Henri Vever (1854–1942) expressed themselves through more synthetic geometric forms. The pendant representing a butterfly by Fouquet and the bracelet and ring for the actress Sarah Bernhardt (both in the Périnet Collection, Paris) show a carefully thought-out stylization....
Fouquet, Jean (French painter)
preeminent French painter of the 15th century....
Fouquet, Nicolas (French minister)
French finance minister in the early years of the reign of Louis XIV, the last surintendant (as opposed to contrôleur général), whose career ended with his conviction for embezzlement....
Fouquier-Tinville, Antoine-Quentin (French revolutionary lawyer)
French Revolutionary lawyer who was public prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal during the Reign of Terror....
Fouquieria (plant genus)
French Revolutionary lawyer who was public prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal during the Reign of Terror.......
Fouquieria splendens (plant)
flowering spiny shrub characteristic of rocky deserts from western Texas to southern California and southward into Mexico. It is a member of the candlewood family (Fouquieriaceae), which belongs to the order Ericales. Near the plant’s base the stem divides into several slender, erect, widespreading, intensely spiny branches, usually abo...
Fouquieriaceae (plant family)
Fouquieriaceae, or the ocotillo family, are shrubs that grow in drier parts of western North America. There is a single genus, Fouquieria (including Idria), with 11 species. They are often little-branched shrubs with spirally arranged leaves. Leaves on some shoots are borne close together (short shoots), while those on others are well separated (long shoots) and......
four (number)
The number of order in the universe is 4—the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water; the four seasons; the four points of the compass; the four phases of the Moon (new, half-moon waxing, full, half-moon waning). The Four Noble Truths epitomize Buddhism. To the Pythagoreans 4 was the source of the tetractys 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10, the...
Four Aces system (bridge)
...those who had been the principal authorities in auction bridge (the official system), by leading players such as Phillip Hal Sims (the Sims system), and by leading teams such as the Four Aces (the Four Aces system), all during the early 1930s, the Culbertson system was paramount throughout the world until the late 1940s....
Four Ages (Greek mythology)
...seem to have been open to criticism and alteration on grounds of morality or of misrepresentation of known facts. In the Works and Days, Hesiod makes use of a scheme of Four Ages (or Races): Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron. “Race” is the more accurate translation, but “Golden Age” has become so established in English that both terms shou...
Four Ages of Man (poetry by Macpherson)
...songs, the poetry of William Blake, Anglo-Saxon riddles, and traditional ballads. Often written in traditional verse forms, her poems repeatedly stress the importance of the imagination. Four Ages of Man (1962) is an illustrated account of classical myths, designed for older children. Welcoming Disaster (1974) is a collection of her poems from 1970 to 1974. Her study of......
Four Apostles (painting by Dürer)
...although several well-known character portraits and some important portrait engravings and woodcuts also date from this period. One of Dürer’s greatest paintings, the so-called “Four Apostles” (St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Mark), was done in 1526. This work marks his final and certainly highest achievement as a painter. His delight in his own virtuosity no....
Four Articles of Prague (Bohemian religion)
...he died and was succeeded by a bitter enemy of the Hussites, his half brother Sigismund, king of the Romans and of Hungary. The Hussites would have acknowledged Sigismund had he accepted the Four Articles of Prague that Jakoubek had formulated: (1) freedom of preaching; (2) communion in both kinds; (3) poverty of the clergy and expropriation of church property; (4) punishment of......
“Four Books” (Confucian texts)
four ancient Confucian texts that were used as official subject matter for civil service examinations in China from 1313 to 1905 and that usually serve to introduce Chinese students to Confucian literature. Students later turn to the more extensive and, generally speaking, more difficult ...
Four Books of Architecture (work by Palladio)
At the end of 20 years of intensive building, Palladio in 1570 published I quattro libri dell’architettura. This work was a summary of his studies of classical architecture. He used a number of his own designs to exemplify the principles of Roman design. The first book contains studies of materials, the classical orders, and decorative ornaments; the second, many of Palladio’s...
Four Books of Defenses of the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (work by Capreolus)
...existence of universals (qualities or properties in virtue of which a class of objects is referred to by the same general term) and gave primacy to the will over the intellect. His Four Books of Defenses of the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (1409–33) inspired numerous other writings by philosophers and theologians drawing mainly from the works of Aquinas. Another......
Four Books of Sentences (work by Lombard)
...on Aristotle’s works by Averroës, a 12th-century Spanish-Arabian philosopher. At Saint-Jacques he lectured on the Bible for two years and then for another two years on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, the theological textbook of the medieval universities. In 1245 he was graduated master in the theological faculty and obtained the Dominican chair “for foreigners....
“Four Books of True Christianity, The” (work by Arndt)
...of these orthodox Lutherans found its highest expression and widest audience in the writings of Arndt, who may well be called the “father of Pietism.” His chief work, Four Books on True Christianity (1606–10), was soon being read in countless homes. Although Arndt stressed the notion of the unio mystica (mystica...
Four Books on True Christianity (work by Arndt)
...of these orthodox Lutherans found its highest expression and widest audience in the writings of Arndt, who may well be called the “father of Pietism.” His chief work, Four Books on True Christianity (1606–10), was soon being read in countless homes. Although Arndt stressed the notion of the unio mystica (mystica...
Four Books, The (collection of hadith)
...the most famous of which was compiled by al-Bukhārī. In the 10th century the Shīʿites brought together their own collection in four volumes known as The Four Books (Al-Kutub al-arbaʿah), of which the most famous was by al-Kulaynī, but some Shīʿite authorities believe that Shīʿism also......
Four Branches of the Mabinogi, The (Welsh literature)
four distinct but linked Welsh narratives compiled some time between the latter half of the 11th century and the early 13th century. Believed to be the work of a single redactor, the Four Branches have deep, often clearly visible roots in Celtic myth and folklore, while at the same time the courtly settings and generally courteous behaviour of the characters—quite distinct from the frequent...
Four Brothers (song)
...solo on Herman’s Early Autumn.) The band pioneered the combination of three tenor saxophones and one baritone saxophone and became identified with the song Four Brothers, which used that grouping. Herman at this time was also one of the few big band leaders to incorporate bebop-tinged material into his repertoire, as on the hit ......
Four Cantons, Lake of the (lake, Switzerland)
principal lake of central Switzerland, surrounded by the cantons of Lucerne, Nidwalden, Uri, and Schwyz. The lake is named after the city of Lucerne, which lies at its western end. The lake is most beautifully situated between steep limestone mountains, the best-known being the Rigi (north) and Pilatus (west), at an elevation of 1,424 feet (434 m). The lake’s area is 44 s...
Four Continents Championship (figure skating)
The European championships have been held since 1891 and are open to all countries in Europe. In 1948 no such restriction was stated, and two North Americans, American Dick Button and Canadian Barbara Ann Scott, both entered and won the competition as singles skaters. In Olympic years the Olympic team for those countries participating in the competition is chosen after the European......
Four Corners (region, United States)
...region of the state. The state lies in the heart of the West and is bounded by Idaho to the north, Wyoming to the northeast, Colorado to the east, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. At Four Corners, in the southeast, Utah meets Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona at right angles, the only such meeting of states in the country. Utah became the 45th member of the Union on Jan. 4,......
Four, Council of (European history)
...would constitute a Supreme Council, or Council of Ten, to monopolize all the major decision making. In March, however, the Supreme Council was, for reasons of convenience, reduced to a Council of Four, numbering only the Western heads of government, as the chief Japanese plenipotentiary, Prince Saionji Kimmochi, abstained from concerning himself with matters of no interest to......
Four Courts (building, Dublin, Ireland)
Along the Liffey’s northern quays stand James Gandon’s Neoclassical masterpieces of the Custom House (1781–91) and the Four Courts (1786–1802). The Custom House was burned out in 1921 by republicans who wished to destroy administrative records; the Four Courts was ruined by shellfire and mines at the outbreak of civil war in June 1922. Both have since been rebuilt....
Four Dissertations (work by Hume)
...1754 and 1762, preceded by Political Discourses (1752). His recent writings had begun to make him known, but these two brought him fame, abroad as well as at home. He also wrote Four Dissertations (1757), which he regarded as a trifle, although it included a rewriting of book II of the Treatise (completing his purged restatement of this work) and a......
Four Ends (United States history)
...States. The first nine months of 1918 saw Wilson’s famous series of pronouncements on his war aims: the Fourteen Points (January 8), the “Four Principles” (February 11), the “Four Ends” (July 4), and the “Five Particulars” (September 27). Most important, not least because of Germany’s deluded reliance on them in its eventual suing for peac...
Four Evangelists, The (work by Cimabue)
...the potentialities of painted architecture, which he introduced into his scenes to give an indication of place and a heightened sense of three-dimensionality. The fresco The Four Evangelists, in the vault of the crossing of the upper church at Assisi, is sculpturally conceived, but its solidity and bulk are heightened by the crystalline city views that......
Four Feathers, The (film by Korda [1939])
British action-adventure film, released in 1939, that was based on the 1902 novel of the same name by A.E.W. Mason. It is widely considered to be the best of the many film adaptations of the book....
Four Freedoms (mural by Rockwell)
...a total of 322 magazine covers. From 1926 to 1976 Rockwell also illustrated the official Boy Scout Calendar. During World War II, posters of his paintings portraying the “Four Freedoms” were reproduced and distributed by the Office of War Information....
Four Freedoms (United States history)
a formulation of worldwide social and political objectives by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the State of the Union message he delivered to Congress on Jan. 6, 1941. Roosevelt stated these freedoms to be the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom of every person to worship God in his own w...
Four Gallican Articles (declaration by French clergy)
The best expression of theological Gallicanism was found in the Four Gallican Articles, approved by the assembly of the clergy of France in 1682. This declaration stated: (1) the pope has supreme spiritual but no secular power; (2) the pope is subject to ecumenical councils; (3) the pope must accept as inviolable immemorial customs of the French Church—e.g., the right of secular......
Four Gospels: A Study of Origins, The (work by Streeter)
Streeter became widely known as a student of the New Testament. His most important work was The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (1924), in which he originated a “four document hypothesis” (including a Proto-Luke) as a solution to the synoptic problem and developed the theory of “local texts” in the manuscript transmission of the New Testament. This work was......
Four Gospels, The (work by Zola)
...Les Trois Villes (1894–98; The Three Cities) and Les Quatre Évangiles (1899–1903; The Four Gospels) are generally conceded to be far less forceful than his earlier work. However, the titles of the novels in the latter series reveal the values that underlay his entire life......
Four Great Song Calligraphers (Chinese artist)
Huang Tingjian and Su Dongpo are frequently mentioned together (sometimes as Su-Huang). These two poets are also frequently grouped with Mi Fu and Cai Xiang as the Four Great Song Calligraphers. Huang Tingjian was a more scholarly and introverted person than Su Dongpo, and his approach to creativity was more mystical. His wild cursive script was derived from the 8th-century Tang-dynasty priest......
Four Horsemen (American athletes)
name given by the sportswriter Grantland Rice to the backfield of the University of Notre Dame’s undefeated gridiron football team of 1924: Harry Stuhldreher (quarterback), Don Miller and Jim Crowley (halfbacks), and Elmer Layden (fullback). Supported by the Seven Mules (the nickn...
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (film by Ingram [1921])
...several films in 1917, Mathis was hired in 1918 by Metro (later Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer [MGM]) to write film scenarios. In 1919 she succeeded in adapting Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s novel The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for the screen (released 1921). By that time Mathis had already gained enough influence with Richard Rowland, the head of Metro, to have the then-unknown...
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The (work by Blasco Ibáñez)
Spanish writer and politician, who achieved world renown for his novels dealing with World War I, the most famous of which, Los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis (1916; The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1918), was used as the basis for two U.S. films. He was associated with the Generation of ’98 (q.v.)....
Four Hundred, Council of the (Greek history)
(411 bc) oligarchical council that briefly took power in Athens during the Peloponnesian War in a coup inspired by Antiphon and Alcibiades. An extremely antidemocratic council, it was soon replaced, at the insistence of the Athenian fleet, by a more moderate oligarchy, the Five Thousand. The new council laste...
Four Lakes, Battle of (American history)
...spread to other tribes in Washington and Oregon. Three years of raids, ambushes, and engagements followed until September 1858, when the Native American forces were decisively defeated at the Battle of Four Lakes on a tributary of the Spokane River....
Four Lands, Council of the (rabbinical conference)
Later, while serving as a rabbi in Vladimir, Volhynia, Pol., Heller again became the centre of controversy. At a rabbinical conference known as the Council of the Four Lands, he fought for the renewal of a decree preventing the purchase of rabbinical offices, simony being a practice at that time. This aroused the anger of some of the wealthier Jews, who succeeded in obtaining a decree from the......
Four Letter Scenes from Gulliver (work by Blackwood)
...piano; and four more symphonies noted for increased mastery of rhythms and dissonant harmonies, while retaining their dramatic qualities. In 1972 he composed the multimedia opera Four Letter Scenes from Gulliver using equal tempered 12-, 15-, 16-, and 23-tone scales; a synthesizer was required to perform his score. He went on to experiment with 13- to 24-note scales......
Four Lovers, the (American music group)
American rock-and-roll group that was among the best-selling recording artists of the early and mid-1960s. Best remembered for lead singer Frankie Valli’s soaring falsetto, the Four Seasons had a string of more than 25 hits over a five-year period that began with “Sherry” in 1962. The principal members were Frankie Valli (original name Franci...
Four Masters of Anhui (Chinese artists)
group of Chinese artists who were born and worked in Anhui province in the 17th century (Qing dynasty) and who, being somewhat remote from the traditional centres of Chinese painting, developed rather unusual styles. The “four masters” ar...