Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-12-31/Featured content
Featured content
A bit fruity
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Vertumnus -
Oenothera rubricaulis, the common evening primrose, photographed by George Chernilevsky.
This Signpost "featured content" report covers material promoted from 14 to 20 December 2014.
Featured articles
Three
featured articles
were promoted this week.
- Paul Chabas, this nude painting was exhibited at the Paris Salonof 1913 and received a warm, if somewhat standard, reception. September Morn would have become a mere footnote to a footnote of art history as just one of the many nude depictions regularly exhibited at the Paris Salon, if it were not for the controversy which it sparked when reproductions were shown in the US, particularly in Chicago and New York. In response to concerns that the painting was indecent, the market was swamped with calendars, pins, movies, songs, stage plays and other reproductions featuring the young woman "dressed as the day she was born".
- Chase for the Sprint Cup, which determines the series champion. Brad Keselowski earned the pole position; the race was won by Clint Bowyer of the Richard Childress Racing team, followed by Denny Hamlin and Jamie McMurrayin second and third respectively. Bowyer's win, however, would be overshadowed with a post-race penalty that docked his team 150 points. Despite this, Bowyer was still credited with the win.
- Louis-Phillipewhen he turned autocratic. Having served, to his best ability, both America and France to great acclaim and with a strong moral code, he is sometimes known as the "Hero of Two Worlds", a living symbol of friendship between France and America, and the symbol of the universal goodwill wishing for a new and better world.
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Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette is now the subject of a featured article. -
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Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato's The Virgin in Prayer
Featured lists
Three
featured lists
were promoted this week.
Scheduled Monuments in Taunton Deane
that are the subject of a new featured list.- defenses. It even contains 13th century fish ponds. An interesting list, well worth a look.
- Pakistan national women's cricket team first played in Women's Twenty20 International (T20I) in 2009. Since then, 32 players have played at least one match for the team. Sana Mir, the current captain of the team, has made the most appearances with 52. Bismah Maroof is the leading run-scorer with 817 runs from 46 innings. Mir has taken 44 wickets in the T20I matches, the most by a Pakistani woman player. Batool Fatima has 50 dismissals to her name, the second highest after England's Sarah Taylor.
- List of municipalities in Nunavut (nominated by Mattximus) Nunavut separated from Canada's Northwest Territories in 1999, and consists of a decently-sized chunk the mainland and many, many islands, some quite large, extending towards Greenland in the North, but also including several more southerly islands in Hudson Bay and James Bay, which lie nearer other Canadian territories than any other parts of Nunavut (for example, Akimiski Island is just off the coast of Ontario). One of the most remote, sparsely settled regions in the world, being so far north, 99.97% of its population is clustered into its twenty-five municipalities, which are relatively well-scattered throughout the territory.
Featured pictures
Fifteen
featured pictures
were promoted this week.
St. James's, Spanish Place, photographed by David Iliff
.Vienna, Austria, as photographed by Thomas Wolf
.
- National Treasures of Korea, this one being National Treasure No. 78, whereas the previously featured one is National Treasure No. 83. Although it has a more formalized depiction than the relative naturalism of No. 83, hinting at an origin in the Sillakingdom of Korea, it is nonetheless a fine work, with a delicately posed hand, and a very expressive face with just a hint of a smile. Likely dating from the middle or late 6th century, its detailed craftsmanship and superb preservation (a gilt halo has been lost, but the rest of it looks near-perfect), means it well deserves its own featured picture. Even if having the same name as another work is confusing. We can deal with that.
- French Enlightenmentre–evaluated the concept of what was natural. It was believed that it was right to follow nature, and that the human body, the pursuit of pleasure and its functions were natural. This influenced a new acceptance for the conception of the nude body and the depiction of the naked. It was only after the French Revolution, when a new morality emerged based on political grounds, that these visions of pleasure and delight were condemned, and the expressions of beauty free from moral strictures became less fashionable.
- Le Pouldu, a remote coastal village in Brittany. It shows a panoramic view on a narrow path with a couple on it, a girl and a boy. He plays a flageolet, an early flute, and is seen from an unusual vantage point, overlooking the Atlantic.
- European Parliament (created and nominated by David Iliff) Gleaming white and almost aggressively modern, the European Parliament in Strasbourg marks a stark contrast from the older, dark-wood dominated parliamentary buildings of many countries, and, indeed, even from places like the Scottish Parliament, which imitate the older ones, or, indeed, the debating chamber of the Parliament before 1999. This gorgeous photo shows the Parliament in session in 2014.
- mud bricks; some are covered with Arabic tiles, and some houses have been whitewashed with white lime, but none of this breaks the color harmony. It's a beautiful scene.
- St. John's College was happy to snatch them up... but then, wait! In 1714, Sir Thomas Cookes decided to reform the lost college, naming it, not after Gloucester, but after his own county of Worcestershire! And so, we have the stately halls, dating back to the 13th century as an institution of learning... but by a long, wavy path, because Henry VIII just couldn't handle married life very well, and so founded his own religion. ...That sounds wrong, somehow.
- The Storm (created by Pierre Auguste Cot, nominated by Crisco 1492) A gorgeous, delicately painted work, The Storm shows a young woman wearing a diaphanous, gleaming white dress (that shows far more than it conceals), and a young man (not particularly well-clothed either) clinging to her, both holding a cloak over their head as a makeshift umbrella and running down a dimly-lit path while a storm brews behind them. A shaft of sunlight illumines the two as they seek shelter. The artist, Pierre Auguste Cot, had made a huge hit at the Salon of 1873 with his similar painting Spring, which showed a woman with similar taste in lack of clothing cuddling with a young, virile man on a swing. That painting was bought by John Wolfe, and is believed to have led his cousin, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, to have commissioned this painting, on a similar subject.
- St Christopher's Chapel, Great Ormond Street Hospital (created and nominated by David Iliff) Built in 1875 for the old Great Ormond Street Hospital building, the gorgeously-detailed Franco-Italianate chapel is full of references to childhood, as befits a chapel inside a major children's hospital. One can easily see the "teddy bear choir" (it's literally what it sounds like) and the prayer tree (it's literally what it sounds like), but what one can't see is a fascinating bit of the chapel's history: when the old Great Ormond Street Hospital building was demolished in the 1980s, the chapel was moved on a "concrete raft" to its new position intact. I presume that it still exists, buried in the chapel's foundations.
- caféand an observation deck, which provides panoramic views of the city – but more about that part next week.
- still-lifes, and especially the paintings depicting the Virgin Mary declined, but never stopped, particularly in Catholic countries. Her hands raised in prayer, head demurely covered, the gorgeous fabric wrinkles and delicate skin mark this as a master painting.
- Point Reyes Station, California (founded in 1994). The brine wash encourages the development of the red-orange rind that gives the cheese its name. The Cowgirl Creamery crafts their own artisanal cheeses using organic milk from the neighboring Straus Family Creamery. It was awarded "Best in Show" at the 20th annual conference of the American Cheese Society.
- Dordogne (created by Luc Viatour, nominated by Tomer T) A lovely elevated picture of a river, the Dordogne, as it passes through the Périgord area of southwest France, near Castelnaud-la-Chapelle. The bridge is part of the D57 road. The county of Périgord that was the former province of Périgord, a natural region and a former province of France, which corresponds roughly to the current Dordogne département witch was one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution. The region is noted for its well-preserved mediaeval architecture, though as this scene appears to be taken from some of said architecture and thus doesn't show it, we shan't tempt you with a description of the several castles, chateaux, churches, bastides and cave fortresses; nor with the number of wonderful villages which still have their market halls, dovecotes, tories (stone huts), churches, abbeys and castles. We certainly won't mention Connezac, La Roque-Gageac, Saint-Jean-de-Côle and Saint-Léon-sur-Vézère and other jewels of medieval architecture.
- St James's, Spanish Place (created and nominated by David Iliff) As a building, St James's, Spanish Place is a relatively recent church, first opening to the public in 1890, and being consecrated in 1949 (although that was after some major delays caused by war). Its history as a congregation, however, goes back quite a ways further, to 1791, when it served as a rare Catholic church in Protestant England, connected to the Spanish Embassy; however, the original building was leased without possibility of renewal, requiring construction of a new one. Despite its relative recentness, it is designed in an early Gothic style – although probably really more of a Gothic Revival, in truth – and is considered one of the most artistically designed in London (according to our not-entirely-unbiased article, at least – but an inspection of the photo will confirm it is beautiful).
- evening primrose opes anew / Its delicate blossoms to the dew; / And, hermit-like, shunning the light, / Wastes its fair bloom upon the night, / Who, blindfold to its fond caresses, / Knows not the beauty it possesses; / Thus it blooms on while night is by; / When day looks out with open eye, / Bashed at the gaze it cannot shun, / It faints and withers and is gone. – John Clare
- Golden erathat has returned under the Emperor's rule. Looking from the distance, Arcimboldo's whimsical portraits might look like straight portraits, but they are assembled using vegetables, books, plants, kitchen utensils, fruits, sea creatures, animals and tree roots, each individual object chosen to give the impression of anatomical trait of a human face. Generally these faces are composed around certain themes, like the four seasons, four elements and so on. These portraits were an expression of the Renaissance minds fascination with riddles, puzzles, and the bizarre Arcimboldo's traditional religious subjects were forgotten but his portraits of human heads made up by objects were greatly admired by his contemporaries and are still fascinating even today.
No. 90 (Composite) Wing RAAF is a new featured topic.
Featured topics
One
featured topic
was promoted this week.
- wing that operated during the early years of the Malayan Emergency. It administered two RAAF units, No. 1 (Bomber) Squadron, flying Avro Lincolns, and No. 38 (Transport) Squadron, flying Douglas C-47 Dakotas. The wing was termed "composite" because it operated a mixed complement of aircraft, rather than only one type. Following No. 38 Squadron's departure for Australia in December 1952, No. 90 Wing was disbanded, leaving No. 1 Squadron to carry on as the sole RAAF unit in the campaign until its withdrawal in July 1958. It includes a good article on No. 90 (Composite) Wing, and featured articles on the two squadrons that made it up.
Discuss this story
Remarkably good choice of pictures. Thank you. Tony (talk) 03:24, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]