The Forbidden City was placed in the very heart of Beijing, and was home to 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The construction work for it started in the fourth year of the Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty and ended in 1420. In historical times, the emperor had said that he was a son of heaven and emperors’ residence on earth was built as a copy of the Purple Palace where god was thought to live in heaven. To represent the power of the emperor given from god, and the place where he lived being the center of the world, all the gates, palace and other structures of the Forbidden City were arranged about the north-south central axis of old Beijing. For safety the Forbidden City is enclosed by a 10 meter high defensive wall and at each corner stands watchtowers, which was heavily guarded in the past. Around the city there is a moat as the first line of defense which is 52 meters wide. The city consists of about 980 buildings, mostly in …show more content…
Only the imperial family and their servants had access to the inner court. The most important hall in the outer court and in the entire complex is the Hall of Supreme Harmony. It was built in 1420, covers an area of 2400 square meters, and with 36.57 meters is the highest place in the city. In this palace one also finds the dragon throne, the throne of the emperor, supported by two elephants symbolizing peace. The imperial family lived in the inner court called Neiting. It consists of three palaces: The Quanqinggong, the Jiaotaidian and the Kunninggong. Others dwellers in the household were hundreds of concubines and palace eunuchs. In addition, there were many other palaces, pavilions and smaller courtyards with special areas for the Empress and the concubines. Two more palaces were reserved for the emperor himself: the Fasting Palace and the Yangxindian, the Hall of Mental Cultivation. It was the private place for the emperor when he wanted to be
Mao Zedong was born December 26, 1893 and lived until September 9 in 1976 when he died in Beijing China. Mao Zedong died from the Motor neuron disease. Mao Zedong was born into a peasant family in the place Shoshanna near Hunan. During the years of 1928 throughout 1931. Mao Zedong and others that worked with Mao Zedong established armies in the hinterlands and created the Red Army which was known as the most feared “army” in china during the time of the revolution.
Thousands upon thousands of innocent Jews, men, women, and children tortured; over one million people brutally murdered; families ripped apart from the seams, all within Auschwitz, a 40 square kilometer sized concentration camp run by Nazi Germany. Auschwitz is one of the most notorious concentration camps during WWII, where Jews were tortured and killed. Auschwitz was the most extreme concentration camp during World War Two because innumerable amounts of inhumane acts were performed there, over one million people were inexorably massacred, and it was the largest concentration camp of over two thousand across Europe.
Qin Shi Haung Di was the first emperor of the Qin Empire in China during the 3rd century BCE. Born in 261 BCE, Haung inherited the throne from his father at the early age of 13 and showcased his ambitious spirit by unifying China and creating his empire (Swart 1984). While he is known mostly for building the Great Wall of China, he also left quite a legacy when it comes to his elaborate burial grounds. In 246 BCE, thirty-six years before his death in 210 BCE, Emperor Qin started planning the construction of his extravagant final resting place (Swart 1984). The Emperor’s mausoleum was essentially a small, underground city showcasing Qin’s power and influence using different artistic mediums.
Ai Weiwei was born during the Cultural Revolution in China of 1950s, he inherited a lot of his political knowledge from his father who was a poet called Ai Quig. Ai Quig was then later exiled with his family to re-education camps on the out reaches of a desert in 1958 for questioning government authority. After the Cultural Revolution, Chinese citizens were allowed to travel outside their borders again in 1970s. As a young man, the place that Ai Weiwei dreamed about going to was New York. He went to New York and was exposed to its western influences, its liberty and freedom of expression (Springford, 2011).Using photography Weiwei recorded and documented everything that inspired him. Weiwei visited galleries and art museums that exposed him to the world of conceptual art, becoming influenced by Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp. Ai Weiwei admired the ways of artists who could simply proclaim what was art and what wasn’t art, how Duchamp questioned art and when something gets to be art (Springford, 2011).Ai Weiwei came back to China in 1993 to take care of his sick father, and found himself drawn to his responsibility as an artist, to take the task of re-awakening his country through his art and to expose his thoughts on the corrupt and controlling nature of China’s government (Philipson,2012). Ai Weiwei has always been an outspoken artist. In the course of his art making, Weiwei has used a form of activism in his art, with political ideologies that exist because of the Chinese government. He also uses a sense of memory and the countrys past and history. Most of his art involves the public and their outlook of the government. Weiwei requests engagement from the public as a show of protest in his artworks (Harris & Zucker, 2009). When...
Auschwitz Concentration Camp “Get off the train!”. Hounds barking loud and the sound of scared people, thousands of people. The “Now!”. I am a shaman. All sorts of officers yelling from every angle.
The Holocaust, an event in a history that some people want to forget, while others will never forget the tragedy of the horrific holocaust. Furthermore, it was a day where more than “ Six million Jews lost their lives”. (Biography. com) A time period when a mastermind by the name of Adolf Hitler took the minds of countless German soldiers to create an almost unstoppable army. From Julius Caesar from Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler was definitely the most terrifying and vicious of them all because unlike all other leaders, he killed millions while others couldn’t even compare to his German accomplishments and only killed hundreds or thousands. Therefore, we would have never of had a detailed image about the Holocaust if it wasn’t for a man
Transcribed on the entrance of the Parisian Catacombs are the words, “Arrete! C’est ici l’empire de la Mort.” Translated to English, this means, “Stop! This is the empire of the Dead”(Gup). Past this interesting transcription lies the largest ossuary in the world (Geisweiller). Containing six million bodies and bones, this is more massive than the largest cemetery on Earth, the Wadi Al-Salaam, which contains over five million bodies (Wright). Some people go into Paris for the sole purpose of venturing into these Catacombs, some more devoted than others. While catacombs can easily be connected to cemeteries, their complex histories, structures, and audiences are harder to explain.
It was the largest capital yet seen, nearly six miles east-west and more than five miles north south. In the center of the northern part of the city was the walled palace called “Imperial City” with the residence hall to the north and the administrative office right across from it. The rest of the city was divided by eleven north-south streets and fourth teen east west ones. There were 108 walled buildings each with four gates. The Japanese adopted the city’s urban plan, putting the Imperial place in the northern most part of the city in there capital Kyoto (it was the nation’s capital from ca. 795 until
The Great Wall of China, one of the world’s eight wonders, is one of the most famous feats of human architecture in the history of the world. This ancient marvel is not only a great spectacle, but is also significant in the shaping and molding of the China everyone knows today. The Great Wall of China allowed China to possess some of the longest lived governmental structures in the world by providing a means of protection against hostile nomadic groups and other warlike peoples. This allowed the lifespans of the dynasties-- lines of hereditary rulers who rule over a country for a long period of time-- inside the wall to be prolonged. This massive structure is therefore a key part of China’s history, influencing nearly every dynasty that ruled the region, since the rise of the first emperor.
The Holocaust Museum and Learning Center opened in May 1995. The Museum is a department of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis (About the Holocaust). It was created through the vision of many communities and Holocaust survivors of St. Louis to remember the tragic Holocaust. The Holocaust was a genocide in which six million Jews were persecuted and murdered by the Nazi regime. The term “Holocaust” itself is of Greek origin meaning “sacrifice by fire” (About the Holocaust). The Nazis came to power during World War II and believed that the Jews were a threat to the superior German race. Einsatzgruppen, which were mobilized killing units, carried out mass murder operations against the Jews. To detain the Jewish population, Nazi German authorities deported millions of Jews to ghettos or concentration camps. The ghettos were brutal and the concentration camps involved
A raw glimpse of desperation, poverty and violence, the 2002 film City of God showcases the brutal and harsh realisms of Brazilians living in the oppressive confines of favelas. The story is told through the eyes of the main character, Rocket, a poor, black youth who grows up in the hostile environment of the hood but manages to break away to become a professional photographer. Oddly, the way of life in the City of God is anything but heavenly. The violent and fast paced film begins in the 1960s when Rio de Janeiro was just a new housing project and the main characters were children and petty thieves. The story then ends in the early 1980s when the favela is a war zone where most of the protagonists are either dead or engrossed in bloody drug war. Life in the favelas, urban poverty, violence and gender roles demonstrate a great deal of importance to the overall message of City of God. Although the film fails to propose an alternate way of life, it gives viewers a glimpse of the gruesome truths of a world they would have never imagined existed.
China during this period was the largest country comprising 4.6 million square miles of land and was the wealthiest country. In the foreground (bottom right-hand side corner) stands a crowd of figures. Viewers’ attention is drawn immediately to this group of figures as they are placed at eye-level, and it is the most colourful area of the painting. These are all guests from neighbor states and foreign lands including Korea, Burma, Kazakhstan and France. Some of these envoys may have been travelling over a long period to arrive in China and present their tributes of precious goods to Qianlong Emperor. Following the implied line created by continuous groups of Qing Imperial court officials dressed in blue, the viewer’s attention is drawn to the rather large figure – Qianlong, who is surrounded by many court officials. The slightly enlarged proportion of the Emperor’s body indicates his importance in the painting. The contrast between the Qianlong’s sitting posture and envoys standing, as well as the barriers created by the many architectural walls reinforce the importance of the Qianlong. He is located in a much higher position in the painting, indicating the legitimate status of Qianlong Emperor and his political
My exhibition pitch for the tower of London is medieval crime and punishment for witches. I believe that this would be a valuable exhibition to have. It would teach how superstitious the people in medieval times were. Many women and men were killed during the middle ages by simply just being accused of practicing dark magic which was associated with the devil.
The Great Wall of China stretches about 5,500 miles long crossing deserts, mountains, grasslands, and plateaus. It took more than 2,000 years to build this incredible manmade structure. Many people died to build this wall. It displays the changes between the agricultural and nomadic civilizations. It proves that the superb structure was very important to military defense. It became a national symbol of the Chinese as a security for their country and its people. The Great Wall of China must be preserved at all cost because it is a historical symbol that made it possible for China and other nations across the world to prosper (UNESCO World Heritage Centre: The Great Wall).
Luxurious banquets was one of the events that the opera house would hold for the royal family (Britannica). The Opera house was one famous part of the Palace, the Hall of Mirrors is also one of the most famous parts of the