RAW: Number Six

Cover Art for Raw, Number Six, 1984, Published by Raw Books and Graphics, New York

“Raw” was a comics anthology edited by Art Spiegelman, a cartoonist best know for his graphic novel “Maus”, and Françoise Mouly, a Paris-born designer and editor. The anthology ran from 1980 to 1991. It was a flagship publication of the 1980s alternative comics movement, serving as a more intellectual counterpoint to Robert Crumb’s visceral “Weirdo”, which followed in the underground tradition of “Zap” and “Arcade”. The anthology “Raw” was one of the main venues for European comics to reach the United States at that time.

“Raw” featured a mix of American and European contributors, including some of Spiegelman’s students at the School of Visual Arts, as well as various contributors from other parts of the world. These included the Argentine duo of José Muñoz and Carlos Sampayo , the Congolese painter Chéri Samba, and several Japanese cartoonists known for their work in “Garo”, a monthly manga magazine. Though comics were the main focus, many issues included galleries of non-comics illustration and illustrated prose or non-fiction pieces.

Calendar: September 16

A Year: Day to Day Men: 16th of September

Red and Whites

On September 16, 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla spoke his famous “El Grito de Dolores” to his congregation.

Father Hidalgo was born into a moderately wealthy family in the city of Guanajuato, northwest of Mexico City, in 1753. He attended the Jesuit College of San Francisco Javier, received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mexico in 1774, and was ordained into the priesthood in 1778. He soon earned the enmity of the authorities, however, by openly challenging both church doctrine and aspects of Spanish rule by developing Mexican agriculture and industry.

In 1803, Hidalgo accepted the curacy of the small parish of Dolores, not far from his native city of Guanajuato. Between 1803 and 1810, he directed most of his energy to improving the economic prospects of his parishioners. Hildalgo also joined the Academia Literaria, a committee seeking Mexico’s independence from Spain.

In September 1810, Spanish authorities learned of the group’s plot to incite a rebellion. On September 13, they searched the home of Emeterio González in the city of Queretaro where they found a large supply of weapons and ammunition. Warned of his impending arrest, Hidalgo, on the morning of September 16th, summoned the largely Indian and mestizo congregation of his small Dolores parish church and preempted authorities by issuing the “El Grito de Dolores”, urging the people to take up arms and fight for Mexico’s independence from Spain. Attracting enthusiastic support from the Indian and mestizo population, he and his band of supporters moved toward the town of San Miguel.

The rebel army encountered its first serious resistance at Guanajuato. After a fierce battle that took the lives of more than 500 Spaniards and 2,200 Indians, the rebels won the city. By October of 1810, the rebel army, now 80,000 strong, was close to taking Mexico City. Hidalgo, fearful of unleashing the army on the capital city, hesitated, then retreated to the north.

He was captured in Texas, then still a part of the Spanish empire, and executed by firing squad on July 31, 1811. After ten more years of fighting, a weakened and divided Mexico finally won independence from Spain with the signing of the Treaty of Córdoba on August 24, 1821. Father Hidalgo’s “El Grito de Dolores” is commemorated on September 16 as Mexican Independence Day.

Centaur and Lapith

Centaur and Lapith, Metope South XXVII, Acropolis of Athens, Greece

The metopes of the Parthenon are the surviving set of what were originally 92 square carved plaques of Pentelic marble originally located above the columns of the Parthenon peristyle on the Acropolis of Athens. If they were made by several artists, the master builder was certainly Phidias. They were carved between 447 or 446 BC. or at the latest 438 BC, with 442 BC as the probable date of completion. Most of them are very damaged. Typically, they represent two characters per metope either in action or repose.

Calendar: September 9

A Year: Day to Day Men: 9th of September

Summer Leisure

September 9, 1924 marks the day of the Battle of Hanapepe in Hawaii.

Sugarcane was introduced to Hawaii by its first inhabitants and was observed by British sailors upon arrival in 1841. Sugar quickly turned into a big business and generated rapid population growth in the islands with 337,000 people immigrating over the span of a century. By the 1840s, sugarcane plantations had a foothold in Hawaiian agriculture and market demand had increased.

By the 1920s sugarcane plantation owners had become disillusioned with both Japanese and Filipino workers and tried to get the U.S. Congress to relax restrictions of the Chinese Exclusion Act, hoping to bring in new Chinese workers. However, organized labor on the U.S. mainland supported the Exclusion act; so for a while militant unionism on the Hawaiian plantations was a not an issue. To oppose organized labor, the Hawaiian Territorial Legislature passed the 1919 Criminal Syndicalism Law, the Anarchistic Publication Law of 1921 and the 1923 Anti-Picketing Law.

These laws with penalties up to ten years in prison, increased the discontent of workers. The Filipinos, the dominant work force, had deep-seated grievances, being treated the most poorly. Planters claimed labor shortages but were actively seeking workers from the Philippines, only hiring illiterate workers and turning back any arrivals who could read or write, as many as one in six.

By 1922 Filipino labor activist Pablo Manlapit had organize a 13,000 member Filipino Higher Wage Movement. In 1924 it called for a strike on the island of Kaua’i demanding two dollars a day in wages and a reduction of the workday to eight hours. As previously done, the plantation owners used armed forces, the National Guard and strike-breakers to put down the strike. Workers were turned out of their homes; propaganda whipped up racism; and infiltration of the strikers’ ranks were done.

On September 9, 1924, outraged strikers seized two strike-breakers at Hanapepe and prevented them from working. The police, armed with clubs and guns, came to the union headquarters to rescue them. The Filipino strikers armed with homemade weapons and knives resisted the police. By the end of the Battle of Hanapepe, local police had shot dead nine strikers and fatally wounded seven; strikers had shot and stabbed three sheriffs to death and fatally wounded one. A total of twenty people had died in the battle.

After the battle, police rounded up all male protesters they could find; a total of 101 Filipino men were arrested. Seventy-six were brought to trial with sixty of these receiving four-year jail sentences. Pablo Manlapit was charged with subornation of perjury and was sentenced to two to ten years in prison. After a short term, he was paroled on condition that he leave Hawaii. After the 1924 strike, the labor movement in Hawaii dwindled but did not die. Manlapit returned in 1932 and started a new labor organization, including all ethnic groups. However, because of the Great Depression years, not much was accomplished besides small nuisance strikes in 1933.

Calendar: September 6

A Year: Day to Day Men: 6th of September

Crates of Lathe

September 6, 1642 was the day that theater experienced both a major closing and a major reopening 277 years apart.

The major closing was the banning of all theater at the start of the English Civil War. On September 6, 1642, by an act of Parliament, all theaters in England were closed. This meant specifically that the great playhouses and theatrical companies of London, many from the Elizabethan age, ceased operations for good. The reason given for the ordinance was that attending theater was “unseemly” during such turbulent times.

The real reason was that the playhouses had become meeting places for the Royalist opposition, a group against the Parliament. Their Puritan rivals, who controlled Parliament, understood this and closed the theaters. Within a few years most of the grand old structures, now abandoned, had decayed beyond use or were dismantled altogether, leaving no visible trace of the playhouses of Shakespeare’s day.

Theatre would remain illegal until the end of the Interregnum in 1660, when the Puritans lost power and the monarchy was restored. Almost immediately, playhouses reopened and theatrical entertainments resumed. Theatre returned full force with the Restoration of the English monarchy under Charles II, leading to a revival of English drama and performance that paved the way for the great age of acting and wit during the eighteenth century.

it was also on this day, September 6th, that theaters reopened. On September 6, 1919, the great Equity Strike in New York and Chicago by theater actors came to an end. Broadway producers had finally reached an agreement with the upstart actors’ union, the Actors’ Equity Association. The only exception was Broadway’s biggest star and largest employer George M, Cohen who was granted a singular exception to continue as before without unionization.

The strike lasted a month and had closed nearly 40 major productions across the city, with revenue loses in excess of three million dollars. The two sides reached a five-year deal that finally recognized Equity as the professional actors’ union. Over the next few years working conditions improved and Broadway flourished for nine years until the 1928 season. The advent of “talkies” caused a decline in the theater with a noticeable lack of attendance and thus profits. The stock market crash of 1929 reset the commercial theatre’s entire economic picture for the next several decades.

Calendar: September 3

A Year: Day to Day Men: 3rd of September

Feet Off the Ground

September 3, 301 is the official founding date of the Republic of San Marino.

The Republic of San Marino is an enclave micro-state surrounded by Italy, situated on the northeastern side of Italy in the Apennine Mountains. Its size is just over 61 square kilometers or 24 square miles. San Marino has the smallest population, 33, 562 inhabitants, of all the Council of Europe’s forty-seven member states.

Saint Marius, a stonemason by trade who came from modern-day Croatia, fled persecution for his Christian beliefs during the Diocletianic Persecution, the last and most severe of the persecutions by the Roman Empire. He became a deacon and was ordained by Gaudentius, the Bishop of Rimini, a diocese in Italy. Saint Marius fled to Monte Titano and built a chapel and monastery there; its founding date was September 3rd in the year 301. After Marius’ canonization as a saint, the State of Marino grew from that monastery.

San Marino is governed by its constitution, the Leges Statutae Republicae Sanct Marini, a series of six books written in Latin in the late 16th century. These books dictate the country’s political system, among other matters. The country is considered to have the earliest written governing documents, still in effect. San Marino’s independence was recognized in 1631 by the Papacy.

Although traces of human presence from both prehistoric and Roman times exist in the territory, Mount Titano and its slopes are known to have been populated, with certainty, only after the arrival of St. Marinus and his followers. San Marino citizens, or Sammarinesi, make up more than four-fifths of the country’s population, with Italians composing most of the remainder. There is no official religion, although the majority are Roman Catholics, and the official language is Italian.

Because centuries-long quarrying has exhausted Mount Titano’s stone and ended the craft that depended upon it, the territory is now without mineral resources. All electrical power is transferred via electrical grid from Italy, San Marino’s main trading partner. The country’s principal resources are industry, tourism, commerce, agriculture, and crafts. Ceramic and wrought-iron articles, as well as modern and reproduction furniture, are among San Marino’s traditional craft products. Fine printing, particularly of collectible postage stamps, is a consistent source of revenues; and banking is a vital industry. San Marino adopted the euro as its national currency.

Commodus Hercules

Michael Beckschebe, “Commodus Hercules”, Date Unknown, Silver Gelatin Print

This marble bust is titled “Commodus Hercules”, a marble portrait sculpture created sometime in 180-193 AD, more probably in 192 AD. The bust is one of the most famous masterpieces of Roman portraiture and depicts Emperor Commodus in the guise of Hercules. Commodus has been given the attributes of Hercules: the emblematic lion’s skin,, the club in this right hand, and the golden apples of Hesperides in his left hand.

The incredibly well-preserved bust is placed on a complex allegorical composition. Two kneeling Amazons besiege a globe decorated with the signs of the zodiac and hold aloft a cornucopia, which is entwined with a Peltaion, the Amazons’ characteristic shield.

The celebratory intent that, through a wealth of symbols, imposes the divine cult of the Emperor, is further underlined by the two marine Tritons flanking the central figure to express his deification. The group was recovered in an underground room of the Horti Lamiani complex, where it had probably been hidden.

Reblogged with thanks to http://mytro.tumblr.com

Added thanks to http://ganymedesrocks.tumblr.com for providing the information.

Photo taken in 2008 by Michael Beckschebe

Beatrice Cuming

Beatrice Cuming, “Chubb”, 1941, Oil on Canvas, Lyman Allyn Art Museum

The early 20th century in the United States was a time of rapid expansion and industrialization fueled in part by waves of immigration. A decade of exuberance followed World War I before the stock market crash of 1929 initiated the Great Depression of the 1930s. Abstraction and European modernism filtered into American art, while a realistic, regional style simultaneously held sway, resulting in a mix of subjects and styles.

Many artists were drawn to the energy and bustle of the modern city, awash in crowds and transformed by industry, skyscrapers and the automobile. Beatrice Cuming’s painting, “Chubb”, shows a submarine being built in the Groton, Connecticut shipyard during World War II. Cuming’s canvas affirmed New London’s long connection to the sea and celebrated industry at a time when the nation was consumed with the war effort.

Calendar: August 17

A Year: Day to Day Men: 17th of August

The Birdcage

August 17, 1590 marks the date Governor John White returned to the Roanoke Island colony, only to find it abandoned.

The first attempted settlement at Roanoke Island was headed by Ralph Lane in 1585. Sir Richard Grenville had transported the colonists to Virginia and returned to England for supplies as planned. The colonists were desperately in need of supplies and Grenville’s return was delayed. While awaiting his return, the colonists relied heavily upon a local Algonquian tribe. In an effort to gain more food supplies, Lane led an unprovoked attack, killing the Secotan’s chieftain Wingina and effectively cutting off the colony’s primary food source. As a result, when Sir Francis Drake arrived at Roanoke, the entire population abandoned the colony and returned with Drake to England.

In 1587, a group of 120 English men, women and children now led by John White tried to settle in Roanoke Island again. At this point in time the Secotan Tribe and their Roanoke dependents were totally hostile to the English; but the Croatoan tribe, who were on better terms with the previous settlers, remained allies. Manteo. the Croatoan chief, remained aligned with the English and attempted to bring the English and his Croatoan tribe together. John White, father of the colonist Eleanor Dare and grandfather to Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World, left the colony to return to England for supplies. He expected to return to Roanoke Island within three months.

Instead, England itself was attacked by massive Spanish Invasion; all ships were confiscated for use for defending the English Channel. White’s return to Roanoke Island was delayed until 1590, by which time all the colonists had disappeared. The settlement was left abandoned. The whereabouts of Manteo and his people after the 1587 settlement attempt were also unknown.

Speculation has suggested that Manteo left with his people to live on Croatoan island. The only clue White found was the word “CROATOAN” carved into a post, as well as the letters, “CRO” carved into a tree. Before leaving the colony three years earlier, White had left instructions that if the colonists left the settlement, they were to carve the name of their destination, with an added Maltese cross if they left due to danger.

Croatoan was the name of an island to the south, now known as Hatteras Island where the Croatoan people, still friendly to the English, was known to live. The 1587 colonists might have tried to reach that island. However, foul weather kept White from venturing south to search on Croatoan for the colonists, so he returned to England. White never returned to the New World. Unable to determine exactly what happened, people referred to the abandoned settlement as “The Lost Colony.” The fate of those first colonists remains unknown to this day and is one of America’s most intriguing unsolved mysteries.

Gold Headdress

Gold Headdress, 2600 BC, Gold Leaves, Strings of Lapis and Camelian

This ornate headdress and pair of earrings were found with the body of Queen Puabi in the Royal Cemetery at Ur. The headdress is made up of 20 gold leaves, two strings of lapis and carnelian, and a large gold comb. In addition, she wore chokers, necklaces, and large lunate-shaped earrings.

Her upper body was covered by strands of beads made of precious metals and semiprecious stones that stretched from her shoulders to her belt. Ten rings decorated her fingers. A diadem or fillet made up of thousands of small lapis lazuli beads with gold pendants depicting plants and animals was apparently on a table near her head.

Two attendants were in the chamber with Puabi, one crouched near her head, the other at her feet. Various metal, stone, and pottery vessels lay around the walls of the chamber.

Her name and title are known from the short inscription on one of three cylinder seals found on her person. Although most women’s cylinder seals at the time would have read “wife of ___,” this seal made no mention of her husband. The fact that Puabi is identified without the mention of her husband may indicate that she was queen in her own right. If so, she probably reigned prior to the time of the First Dynasty of Ur, whose first ruler is known from the Sumerian King List as Mesannepada.

Tribute Bearer

Tribute Bearer, Bas Relief, 710-705 BC, Assyrian Empire

This sculptured head of a man comes from a bas relief of tribute bearers in a procession. The turban on his head and style of his hair and beard identify him as being fron the western part of the Assyrian Empire, probably the Syrian Coast or Turkey. The relief was on a wall in the Palace of Sargon II, located in Khorsabad, Iraq.

Sargon II, a son of Tigiath-Pileser III, came to power late in his life, by ursurping the throne of his brother in a coup. Sargon II suppressed rebellions, conquered the Kingdom of Israel, and in 710 BC conquered the Kingdom of Babylon. He reunited Assyria with its southern rival, Babylonia, which had been seperated for the last thousand years.

In 705 BC, five years after taking Babylon, Sargon II was killed while leading a campaign to Tabal, which had rebelled against Assyrian rule seven years prior. His body was never recovered; his son Sennacherib became the new king.

Remedios Varo

Remedios Varo, “Creating with Astral Rays”, 1955, Oil on Canvas

The visionary lone painter, Remedios Varo, typically portrays herself sitting at a desk engaged in magical work, embarking on a journey to unlock true meaning, or dissolving completely into the environment that surrounds her. As a well-studied alchemist, seeker, and naturalist, however dreamlike her imagery may appear, it is in fact reality observed more clearly; Varo painted deep, intuitive, and multi-sensory pictures in hope to inspire learning and promote better individual balance in an interconnected universe.

Interestingly, and understandably, it was not until the last 13 years of the artist’s life, having fled war-torn Europe, found home in Mexico (amongst a community of other displaced Surrealists) and finally become free of ongoing financial constraints, that Varo was able to paint prolifically. Every work completed by Varo demonstrates profound technical skill and an extraordinary insight into human nature.

Although an avid believer in the inter-relatedness of all things and people, including the inter-weave of sound, light and image, her paintings are not typically populated by multiple figures. Instead we are usually introduced to an isolated creaturely hybrid thinker/artist character, reminiscent of St. Jerome in his study or a wise crone wandering in search of new discoveries.Varo repeatedly situates mystical machines in her pictures.

While in most cases such industrial looking devices function to make products that can be touched, held, and made use of, Varo’s structures are here to process that which we cannot see. As our emotions and psychological lives are intangible and invisible, it is useful to investigate them within some kind of known parameters, i.e. within a previously encountered system. Therefore, such apparatus, however made strange, help us to communicate what would be otherwise unspeakable ideas.

Charles Sheeler

Charles Sheeler, “Criss-Crossed Converyors, River Rouge Plant, Ford Motor Company”, 1927, Gelatin Silver Print, Metropolitan Museum of Art

A realistic painter as well as a photographer, Charles Sheeler rarely failed to uncover harmonious coherence in the forms of indigenous American architecture. His series of photographs of the Ford plant near Detroit was commissioned by the automobile company through an advertising agency. Widely reproduced in Europe and America in the 1920s, this commanding image of technological utopia became a monument to the transcendent power of industrial production in the early modern age.

Sheeler was one of the founders of American modernism, developing a syle of painting known as Percisionism. He attended the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial art from 1900 to 1903. Sheeler later attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where he studied under William Merritt Chase, who later established the Parsons School of Design.

Realizing he could not make a living with Modernist painting, Sheeler focused in 1910 on commercial photography, particularly on architectual subjects. He was a self-taught photographer, leaning his trade on a five-dollar Brownie made by Eastman Kodak. The theme of machinery and technology featured prominently in Sheeler’s photographic work, which continued the linear precision of his paintings.

Calendar: August 11

A Year: Day to Day Men: 11th of August

Smoke in the Air

August 11, 1866 marks the opening of the first roller rink in the United States.

The four-wheeled turning roller skate, or quad skate, with four wheels set in two side-by-side pairs (front and rear), was first designed, in New York City by James Leonard Plimpton, a New York city furniture dealer, in an attempt to improve upon previous designs. Instead of being directly attached to the sole of the skate, the wheel assembly was fastened to a pivot with a rubber cushion. The pivoting action allowed the skater to skate a curve just by pressing his weight to one side or the other, most commonly by leaning to one side.

James Plimpton received a patent for the design in 1863. A modification of leather straps and metal side braces was added to the design in 1866. This addition to the quad skate allowed easier turns and maneuverability, and the quad skate came to dominate the industry for more than a century.

James Plimpton started the New York Roller Skating Association (NYRSA) and leased the The Atlantic House Hotel in Newport, converting the dining room into a skating area. On August 11th in 1866, the first roller rink opened to the public in the United States. The sport was not promoted for the masses but as an acceptable supervised activity for young ladies and gentlemen. To control the quality of his clientele, Plimpton did not sell his skates, but rented them. As rinks proliferated, James Plimpton toured them in the 1870s, giving lessons to new and current skaters for two dollars a week, which included the skate rental.

In America, roller skating was most popular first between 1935 and the early 1960s. When polyurethane wheels were created and disco music made its appearance, roller rinks were again the rage in the 1970s. Roller skating made a third resurgence with in-line outdoor roller skating, thanks to the improvement to the skates by Scott and Brennan Olson.

In 1979, seeing the potential for off-ice hockey training, the Olson brothers redesigned inline skates, made in the 1960s by the Chicago Roller Skate Company, using modern materials and attaching ice hockey boots. A few years later they began to heavily promote the skates and launched the company, Rollerblade, Incorporated. The Rollerblade skates became synonymous in the minds of many with “inline skates” and skating, so much so that many people came to call any form of skating “Rollerblading”.

Calendar: August 10

A Year: Day to Day Men: 10th of August

Leaves of Green

August 10, 1628 marks the sinking of the Swedish warship Vasa.

King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus, who was a keen artillerist, saw the potential of ships as gun platforms, and large, heavily armed ships made a more dramatic statement in the political theater of naval power. Beginning with the Vasa, he ordered a series of ships with two full gundecks, outfitted with much heavier guns. The Vasa was built simultaneously with her sister ship Applet; the only significant difference was Vasa’s three foot increase in width.

King Gustavus Adolphus ordered 72 24-pound cannons for the Vasa on the 5th of August 1626, and this was too many to fit on a single gun deck. Since the king’s order was issued less than five months after construction started, it would have come early enough for the second deck to be included in the design. The French Gallon du Guise, the ship used as a model for Vasa, according to Arendt de Groote, also had two gun decks. Laser measurements of Vasa’s structure conducted in 2007–2011 confirmed that no major changes were implemented during construction, but that the centre of gravity was too high.

On 10 August 1628, Captain Söfring Hansson ordered Vasa to depart on her maiden voyage to the naval station at Alvsnabben. The day was calm, and the only wind was a light breeze from the southwest. The ship was hauled by anchor along the eastern waterfront of the city to the southern side of the harbor, where four sails were set, and the ship made way to the east. The gun ports were open, and the guns were out to fire a salute as the ship left Stockholm.

As Vasa passed under the lee of the bluffs to the south, a gust of wind filled her sails, and she heeled suddenly to port The sheets were cast off, and the ship slowly righted itself as the gust passed. At Tegelviken, where there is a gap in the bluffs, an even stronger gust again forced the ship onto its port side, this time pushing the open lower gun ports under the surface, allowing water to rush in onto the lower gun deck. The water building up on the deck quickly exceeded the ship’s minimal ability to right itself, and water continued to pour in until it ran down into the hold; the ship quickly sank to a depth of 105 ft only 390 ft from shore.

Survivors clung to debris or the upper masts, which were still above the surface, to save themselves, and many nearby boats rushed to their aid, but despite these efforts and the short distance to land, 30 people perished with the ship, according to reports. Vasa sank in full view of a crowd of hundreds, if not thousands, of mostly ordinary Stockholmers who had come to see the great ship set sail. The crowd included foreign ambassadors, in effect spies of Gustavus Adolphus’ allies and enemies, who also witnessed the catastrophe.