A fen is a marsh or stretch of wet boggy land often containing extensive pools. The soil of fen lands is generally black and rich to a depth of almost one metre, and with proper management in the matter of draining they will produce heavy crops of grass and corn. Research Fen
Genre painting is a type of painting concerned with the realistic depiction of scenes from everyday life. Originally the term was applied to all paintings that were factual representations of nature (animals, fruit, and landscapes), as well as scenes of ordinary life, rather than to works of imagination, such as religious and historical paintings. Genre paintings deal with ordinary life, including family life, sports, street scenes, picnics, festivals, and tavern scenes. They are usually characterised by human interest and by the care and finish with which they are executed.
Genre painting originated in ancient times. Many of the scenes painted on the walls of Egyptian tombs represent the daily life of the people of ancient Egypt. Excavations in the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum have revealed many genre paintings, both conventional and erotic. In the late Middle Ages genre painting reappeared, represented chiefly in the religious calendars that formed part of the illuminations, or illustrations, of manuscript books; the calendars show people going about the occupations appropriate to each season of the year.
In Italy during the early Renaissance, many of the religious and historical pictures of such painters as the 15th-century Florentines Ghirlandaio and Benozzo Gozzoli and the later Venetians Giorgione and the Bassano family are considered genre paintings because of their contemporaneous backgrounds and costumes as well as their use of people of the times as models. In 17th- century Italy, Mannerist painters such as Caravaggio executed genre paintings of extreme realism and dramatic power. In the 15th century the Flemish painter Petrus Christus in some of his religious paintings represented scenes from ordinary life, and in the following two centuries genre painting rose to its highest level in history with the work of the Flemish artists Pieter Brueghel the Elder, David Teniers, and Adriaen Brouwer. The greatest national school of genre painting was that of the Netherlands in the 17th century. Probably never before or after was the ordinary life of a nation depicted so fully as was the Dutch life of this period. Not only the great masters but also the less outstanding Dutch painters excelled in it.
The most important of the Dutch genre painters were the so-called little masters, including Gerard Ter Borch, Jan Steen, Gabriel Metsu, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard Dou, and Adrian Van Ostade. The three leading 17th-century Dutch masters, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Jan Vermeer, also created genre paintings of unrivalled beauty. French genre painting showed a vital development in the work of Antoine Watteau, Nicolas Lancret, Jean Baptiste Chardin, and Jean Honore Fragonard. One of the most noted English genre painters was the great satirist William Hogarth. In the 19th century, genre painting was widely practised in both Europe and the USA Among the outstanding European painters in this style were the French painters Jean Leon Gerome and Jean Meissonier, the English painter William Powell Frith, and the American painter William Sidney Mount, known as the 'JanSteen of Long Island.' Among the many 19th- and 20th- century American painters whose work included genre painting were Robert Henri, John Sloan, George Wesley Bellows, George B Luks, Charles E Burchfield, Reginald Marsh, Grant Wood, and Thomas Hart Benton. Research Genre Painting
The Southwark Poisoning Case was a notorious series of murders committed by Severino Klosowski, a Russian Pole. Becoming a publican, Severino Klosowski advertised for barmaids whom he then slowly poisoned with doses of antimony. Tow of his victims were an Elizabeth Taylor, who died in February 1901 and a Maude Marsh who died at the Crown public house, Borough High Street, in October 1902. Severino Klosowski was tried, found guilty of murder and executed at Wandsworth in April 1903. Research Southwark Poisoning Case
Alismacese is the water-plantain family, a natural order of endogenous plants, the members of which are herbaceous, annual or perennial; with petiolate leaves sheathing at the base, hermaphrodite (rarely unisexual) flowers, disposed in spikes, panicles, or racemes. They are floating or marsh plants, and many have edible fleshy rhizomes, They are found in all countries, but especially in Europe and North America, where their rather brilliant flowers adorn the pools and streams. The principal genera are Alisma (water-plaintain) and Sagittaria (arrow-head). Research Alismaceae
Allosaurus was the biggest and fiercest carnivorousdinosaur of the Jurassic period. It was 15m tall, about 12 m long and weighed about three tons. Remains of Allosaurus were first discovered in Colorado in 1869 and then in 1877 more were discovered by Dr O C Marsh. Research Allosaurus
Apatosaurus - also known as Brontosaurus - was a huge, plant-eating dinosaur, of the suborder Sauropoda, that lived in the Late Jurassic period, more than 140 million years ago. The name Brontosaur comes from the Greek bronte, 'thunder' and sauros, 'lizard', and implies that the animal shook the ground when it walked. It was about 21 metres long and weighed up to 30 metric tons. Its body was relatively short and thick, the neck long and slender, the tail large and strong, and the four limbs massive and of nearly equal length. The first brontosaurus skeleton was discovered in 1879 in Colorado by the American palaeontologist Othniel Charles Marsh. It lacked a skull, so Marsh gave it a blunt, small skull found nearby. Scientists confirmed in 1979 that the skull was that of another sauropod, Camarasaurus. The Apatosaurus true skull was found to have a longer snout and longer, finer teeth. Research Apatosaurus
The Bentheimer Landschaf (Landrace of Bentheim) is a sheep of the heath- sheep landrace group and is a cross between German and Dutch heathsheep and a marshsheep. Since 1934 it has been bred in the northern German Emsland area, especially in the county of Bentheim. The highly endangered, frugal
Bentheimer Landschaf is used for landscape preservation. It is the largest of the German heath-and-moor sheep with long legs and hard hoofs. A slender, long head, Roman nose, small ears, no horns, long and woolly tail, describe the sheep. The sheep is white, but dark pigmentation is permitted around the eyes, on the ears and on its legs. Research Bentheimer Landschaf
The buck-bean (Menyanthes trifoliate) or bog-bean or marsh-trefoil is a perennialherb of the family Gentianaceae. It has a thick, far-creeping rhizome which bears alternate, long-stalked trifoliate leaves with sheafing bases and an erect leafless stem topped by a raceme of numerous five-lobed white or pinkish coloured flowers. It is common in boggy soils and at the edges of ponds and lakes, and is found in England, Europe and North America. It is a bitter tasting plant and was once used as a tonic. Research Buck-bean
Butomus is a genus of monocotyledons of the family Butomaceae. The only species, Butomus umbellatus, the Flowering Rush, is the most elegant and beautiful of British marsh plants. Research Butomus
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Fen
