text:
John Banville

William John Banville (born 8 December 1945) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, adapter of dramas and screenwriter. Though he has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov", Banville himself maintains that W. B. Yeats and Henry James are the two real influences on his work.

Banville has won the 1976 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the 2003 International Nonino Prize, the 2005 Booker Prize, the 2011 Franz Kafka Prize, the 2013 Austrian State Prize for European Literature and the 2014 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007. Italy made him a Cavaliere of the Ordine della Stella d'Italia (essentially a knighthood) in 2017. He is a former member of Aosdána, having voluntarily relinquished the financial stipend in 2001 to another, more impoverished, writer.

Banville was born and grew up in Wexford town in south-east Ireland. He published his first novel, Nightspawn, in 1971. A second, Birchwood, followed two years later. "The Revolutions Trilogy", published between 1976 and 1982, comprises three works, each named in reference to a renowned scientist: Doctor Copernicus, Kepler and The Newton Letter. His next work, Mefisto, had a mathematical theme. His 1989 novel The Book of Evidence, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of that year's Guinness Peat Aviation award, heralded a second trilogy, three works which deal in common with the work of art. "The Frames Trilogy" is completed by Ghosts and Athena, both published during the 1990s. Banville's thirteenth novel, The Sea, won the Booker Prize in 2005. In addition, he publishes crime novels as Benjamin Black — most of these feature the character of Quirke, an Irish pathologist based in Dublin.

Banville is considered a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He lives in Dublin.

Early life and family
William John Banville was born to Agnes (née Doran) and Martin Banville, a garage clerk, in Wexford, Ireland. He is the youngest of three siblings; his older brother Vincent is also a novelist and has written under the name Vincent Lawrence as well as his own. His sister Anne Veronica "Vonnie" Banville-Evans has written both a children's novel and a memoir of growing up in Wexford. Banville stole a collection of Dylan Thomas's poetry from Wexford County Library while in his teens.

Banville was educated at CBS Primary, Wexford, a Christian Brothers school, and at St Peter's College, Wexford. Despite having intended to be a painter and an architect, he did not attend university. Banville has described this as "A great mistake. I should have gone. I regret not taking that four years of getting drunk and falling in love. But I wanted to get away from my family. I wanted to be free." Alternately he has stated that college would have had little benefit for him: "I don't think I would have learned much more, and I don't think I would have had the nerve to tackle some of the things I tackled as a young writer if I had been to university – I would have been beaten into submission by my lecturers."

After school, Banville worked as a clerk at Aer Lingus, which allowed him to travel at deeply discounted rates. He took advantage of these rates to travel to Greece and Italy. On his return to Ireland, he became a sub-editor at The Irish Press, eventually becoming chief sub-editor. before The Irish Press collapsed in 1995, Banville became a sub-editor at The Irish Times. He was appointed literary editor in 1998. The Irish Times, too, endured financial troubles, and Banville was offered the choice of taking a redundancy package or working as a features department sub-editor. He left.

Banville has two sons from a marriage to the American textile artist Janet Dunham, whom he met in the United States during the 1960s. Asked in 2012 about the breakdown of that marriage, Banville's immediate thoughts focused on the effect it had on his children; "It was hard on them", he said. Banville later went on to have two daughters from another relationship. He lives in Dublin.

Writing
Banville published his first book, a collection of short stories titled Long Lankin, in 1970. He has disowned his first published novel, Nightspawn, describing it as "crotchety, posturing, absurdly pretentious".

As an unknown writer in the 1980s, he toured Dublin's bookshops — "and we had a lot of bookshops back then" — around the time of the publication of his novel Kepler "and there wasn't a single one of any of my books anywhere". But, he noted in 2012, "I didn't feel badly about it because I was writing the kinds of books I wanted to write. And I had no one but myself to blame if I wasn't making money, that wasn't anybody's fault. Nobody was obliged to buy my books".

Since 1990, Banville has been a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books.

Banville has written three trilogies: the first, The Revolutions Trilogy, focused on great men of science and consisted of Doctor Copernicus (1976), Kepler (1981), and The Newton Letter (1982). He said he became interested in Kepler and other men of science after reading Arthur Koestler's The Sleepwalkers. He realised that, like him, scientists were trying to impose order in their work.

The second trilogy, sometimes referred to collectively as The Frames Trilogy, consists of The Book of Evidence (1989), with several of its characters being featured in Ghosts (1993); Athena (1995) is the third to feature an unreliable narrator and explore the power of works of art.

The third trilogy consists of Eclipse, Shroud and Ancient Light, all of which concern the characters Alexander and Cass Cleave.

In a July 2008 interview with Juan José Delaney in the Argentine newspaper La Nación, Banville was asked if his books had been translated into Irish. He replied that nobody would translate them and that he was often referred to pejoratively as a West Brit.

He wrote fondly of John McGahern, who lost his job amid condemnation by his workplace and the Catholic Church for becoming intimately involved with a foreign woman. While on a book tour of the United States in March 2006, Banville received a telephone call: "I have bad news, I'm afraid. John Banville is dead". However, Banville was aware that McGahern had been unwell and, having performed the necessary checks to ensure that he was still alive, concluded that it was McGahern who was dead instead. And it was. He wrote an account of Caravaggio's 1602 painting The Taking of Christ for the book Lines of Vision, released in 2014 to mark the 150th anniversary of the National Gallery of Ireland.

He contributed to Sons+Fathers, a book published in 2015 to provide funds for the Irish Hospice Foundation's efforts to give care to terminally ill patients within their own homes.

Crime Fiction
Beginning with Christine Falls, published in 2006, Banville has written crime fiction under the pen name Benjamin Black. He writes his Benjamin Black crime fiction much more quickly than he composes his literary novels. He appreciates his work as Black as a craft, while as Banville he is an artist. He considers crime writing, in his own words, as being "cheap fiction".

The main character in Banville's Quirke series is a Dublin pathologist. The first three novels, Christine Falls (2006), The Silver Swan (2007), and Elegy for April (2011) were made into a crime drama television series, Quirke.

Other novels in the Quirke series written under the pen name, Benjamin Black, are A Death in Summer (2011), Vengeance (2012), Holy Orders (2013) and Even the Dead (2016).

Two more Quirke novels written under his name were published: April in Spain (2021) and The Lock-Up (2023). Related books: Snow (2020), featuring Inspector Detective St.John Strafford, who also appears in April In Spain, was also published under his name, as is Drowned (2024).

Other crime novels written under the pen name, Benjamin Black, are The Lemur (2008), The Black-Eyed Blonde (2014), Prague Nights (2017), and The Secret Guests (2020).

Style
Banville is highly scathing of all of his work, stating of his books: "I hate them all ... I loathe them. They're all a standing embarrassment." Instead of dwelling on the past he is continually looking forward, "You have to crank yourself up every morning and think about all the awful stuff you did yesterday, and how you can compensate for that by doing better today." He does not read reviews of his work as he already knows — "better than any reviewer" — the places in which its faults lie.

"'Sometimes, in the middle of the afternoon if I'm feeling a little bit sleepy, Black will sort of lean in over Banville's shoulder and start writing. Or Banville will lean over Black's shoulder and say, 'Oh that's an interesting sentence, let's play with that.' I can see sometimes, revising the work, the points at which one crept in or the two sides seeped into each other'."

His typical writing day begins with a drive from his home in Dublin to his office by the river. He writes from 9 a.m. until lunch. He then dines on bread, cheese and tea and resumes working until 6 p.m., at which time he returns home. He writes on two desks at right angles to each other, one facing a wall and the other facing a window through which he has no view and never cleans. He advises against young writers approaching him for advice: "I remind them as gently as I can, that they are on their own, with no help available anywhere". He has compared writing to the life of an athlete: "It's asking an awful lot of one's self. Every day you have to do your absolute best — it's a bit like being a sportsman. You have to perform at the absolute top of your game, six, seven, eight hours a day — that's very, very wearing".

Themes
Banville is considered by critics as a master stylist of English, and his writing has been described as perfectly crafted, beautiful, and dazzling. He is known for his dark humour, and sharp, wintery wit. He has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov".

Don DeLillo describes Banville's work as "dangerous and clear-running prose", David Mehegan of The Boston Globe calls him "one of the great stylists writing in English today", Val Nolan in The Sunday Business Post calls his style "lyrical, fastidious, and occasionally hilarious"; The Observer described The Book of Evidence as "flawlessly flowing prose whose lyricism, patrician irony and aching sense of loss are reminiscent of Lolita." Gerry Dukes, reviewing The Sea in the Irish Independent, hailed Banville as a "lord of language".

Michael Ross has stated that Banville is "perhaps the only living writer capable of advancing fiction beyond the point reached by Beckett".

Banville has said that he is "trying to blend poetry and fiction into some new form". He writes in the Hiberno-English dialect and dreads this being lost if he were to move abroad as other Irish writers have done.

Literary influences
Banville said in an interview with The Paris Review that he liked Vladimir Nabokov's style; however, he went on, "But I always thought there was something odd about it that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Then I read an interview in which he admitted he was tone deaf." Heinrich von Kleist is influential, Banville having written adaptations of three of his plays (including ), as well as using the myth of Amphitryon as a basis for his novel The Infinities.

Banville has said that he imitated James Joyce as a boy: "After I'd read The [sic] Dubliners, and was struck at the way Joyce wrote about real life, I immediately started writing bad imitations of The [sic] Dubliners." The Guardian reports: "Banville himself has acknowledged that all Irish writers are followers of either Joyce or Beckett — and he places himself in the Beckett camp." He has also acknowledged other influences. During a 2011 interview on the program Charlie Rose, Rose asked, "The guiding light has always been Henry James?" and Banville replied, "I think so, I mean people say, you know, I've been influenced by Beckett or Nabokov but it's always been Henry James ... so I would follow him, I would be a Jamesian." Meanwhile, in a 2012 interview with Noah Charney, Banville cited W. B. Yeats and Henry James as the two real influences on his work. Responding to the suggestion that Fyodor Dostoevsky and Albert Camus were worthy comparisons, Banville said: "Dostoyevsky is such a bad writer it is hard to take him seriously... Ditto Camus".

Philosophy
He considers himself to be "incurably terrified of air travel", fearing "the plane going down amid the terrible shrieking of engines and passengers".

Women
Banville has often spoken and written of his admiration for women.

He is in favour of women's rights and has welcomed the gradual freedom that has come about in his native land during his lifetime, over the course of which Ireland changed from a country dominated by Roman Catholic ideology, where women were trapped in the home with little career opportunities and subject to restrictions on the availability of contraception, to a country where the position of women became more valued and where one woman could succeed another woman as the country's President, a role previously the exclusive preserve of men. On women in his own writing, Banville told Niamh Horan of the Sunday Independent in 2012: "I don't make a distinction between men and women. To me they are just people". Horan herself noted Banville's "special flair for writing about women and delving into the female psyche".

Banville contributed the introduction to the fifty-year retrospective of Edna O'Brien's work, The Love Object: Selected Stories, praising her as "one of the most sophisticated writers now at work" and noting how it was "hard to think of any contemporary writer who could match [O'Brien's] combination of immediacy and sympathetic recall". He noted how "striking" is the figuring of O'Brien's characters and acknowledged that all her characters "are in some way damaged by the world, and specifically by the world of men". Banville concluded by describing O'Brien as "simply one of the finest writers of our time".

Banville dedicated himself to the task of writing the screenplay for an adaptation of Elizabeth Bowen's novel The Last September. Bowen's work was largely neglected at the time; Vintage published new editions of each of Bowen's novels and Hermione Lee's biography of her to coincide with its release. Banville later wrote the introduction for her Collected Stories.

Close to the literary editor Caroline Walsh, Banville spoke of his devastation upon learning of her death. He dedicated Ancient Light to her. Likewise, Banville was close to Eileen Battersby, at whose funeral he was moved to tears whilst reciting a poem in her memory.

Crime and punishment
Speaking to Niamh Horan in 2012, Banville related his thoughts on hurt and responsibility: "To hurt other people is the worst thing you can do. To be hurt oneself is bad enough, but hurting other people is unforgivable... Unforgivable. Literally unforgivable. I think that one has to take responsibility for one's life and one has to take responsibility for one's bad deeds as well as one's good deeds. One has to, as I say, be responsible... Failure in art, or failure in making a living, or a success — none of them compares, everything pales beside hurting other people, because, you know, we are here for such a short time and basic life itself is so hard one has a duty to try to be decent to other people".

Diet and conduct towards animals
Ben, a labrador, lived until the age of 11 before succumbing to cancer at Christmas 1980. Decades later Banville still regarded Ben as "a lost friend, and every few months he ambles into one of my dreams, snuffling and sighing and obviously wondering why there are no more walks. This may sound sentimental, but it does not feel that way".

On 21 August 2017, the RTÉ Radio 1 weekday afternoon show Liveline was discussing a report on Trinity College Dublin's use of 100,000 animals to conduct scientific research over the previous four years when a listener pointed out that Banville had previously raised the matter but been ignored. Banville personally telephoned Liveline to call the practice "absolutely disgraceful" and told the tale of how he had come upon some women protesting: "'I was passing by the front gates of Trinity one day and there was a group of mostly young women protesting and I was interested. I went over and I spoke to them and they said that vivisection experiments were being carried out in the college. This was a great surprise to me and a great shock, so I wrote a letter of protest to The Irish Times. Some lady professor from Trinity wrote back essentially saying Mr. Banville should stick to his books and leave us scientists to our valuable work. After that my late friend, [Lord Gahan,?] [John McGahern, presumably] wrote another letter to The Times and he suggested well, if vivisection is not harmful and painful to animals, why don't the experimenters themselves volunteer to undergo the experiments? Why involve animals? It seemed to me an unanswerable question... I'm no expert on these matters. I claim no expertise but I'm told that vivisection is of no consequence, that you don't really need it, certainly not in this day and age, and I think if, as the vivisectionists assure us, the animals don't suffer, then why don't they volunteer themselves? It would be much better to have a human being to experiment on than an animal. [At this point the presenter questioned whether he really meant this]. No, I'm not being tongue-in-cheek! I'm absolutely serious! I mean why don't they conduct experiments on each other? Why bring animals in? ... We certainly should not be inflicting needless pain on innocent animals... If there's no pain, no distress... ask for human volunteers. Pay them money.'" Asked if he received any other support for his stance in the letter he sent to The Irish Times, he replied: "'No... I became entirely dispirited and I thought, 'Just shut up, John. Stay out of it because I'm not going to do any good'. If I had done any good I would have kept it on. I mean, I got John Coetzee, you know, the famous novelist, J. M. Coetzee, I got him to write a letter to The Irish Times. I asked a lot of people. Oddly, I asked uh, uh, well I won't say who it was, but I asked an international anti-vivisection person, well no, an international animal rights person, to contribute, but he said that he wasn't actually against vivisection, which seems to me a very peculiar stance to take'." This for Banville was a rare intervention of its kind, revealing to the public a different side — as he acknowledged when the presenter asked him if he had a history of objecting to activities such as blood sport: "'I don't use my public voice to make protests. It was just on this one occasion it seemed that something could be done. The only effect it has had, as far as I can see, is that the following year there were about twice as many experiments. So much for the intellectual raising his voice in protest'." When the subject of eating meat was raised, Banville responded: "I don't".

Booker Prize
Banville wrote a letter in 1981 to The Guardian suggesting that the Booker Prize, for which he was "runner-up to the shortlist of contenders", be given to him so that he could use the money to buy every copy of the longlisted books in Ireland and donate them to libraries, "thus ensuring that the books not only are bought but also read – surely a unique occurrence".

When his novel The Book of Evidence was shortlisted for the 1989 Booker Prize, Banville said a friend — whom he described as "a gentleman of the turf" — instructed him "to bet on the other five shortlistees, saying it was a sure thing, since if I won the prize I would have the prize-money, and if I lost one of the others would win ... But the thing baffled me and I never placed the bets. I doubt I'll be visiting Ladbrokes any time soon".

Banville was not shortlisted for the Booker Prize again until 2005 when his novel The Sea was selected. The Sea was in contention alongside novels written by Julian Barnes, Sebastian Barry, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ali Smith and Zadie Smith. The chairman of the judges was John Sutherland. Earlier that year Sutherland had written approvingly of Ian McEwan's novel Saturday. Banville, however, dismissed the work in The New York Review of Books and expressed his dismay that McEwan was increasingly showing "a disturbing tendency toward mellowness". Anne Haverty later described Banville's critique of Saturday as "devastatingly effective". Sutherland sent a letter (signed with the title "Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus") in response to Banville's review, a letter in which he took Banville to task over his misreading of a game of squash in the novel. Banville issued a written reply with the opening line: "Summoned, one shuffles guiltily into the Department of Trivia", before begging Sutherland's pardon for his "sluggish comprehension" after managing to make his way through "all seventeen pages" of the game. Banville later admitted that, upon reading Sutherland's letter, he had thought: "[W]ell, I can kiss the Booker goodbye".

At the award ceremony, BBC Two's Kirsty Wark quizzed Financial Times arts editor Jan Dalley, the Independent on Sunday literary editor Suzi Feay and The Observer literary editor Robert McCrum. Banville, Barry and Ali Smith were dismissed outright and much of the discussion focused on Barnes, Ishiguro and Zadie Smith. In the end, the judges' vote was split between Banville and Ishiguro, with Rick Gekoski one of those favouring Banville. It fell to Sutherland to cast the winning vote; he did so in favour of Banville. Banville later said: "I have not been the most popular person in London literary circles over the past half-year. And I think it was very large of Sutherland to cast the winning vote in my favour".

When the prize rules later changed to allow entries by American writers, Banville welcomed the idea. However, he later expressed regret over the decision: "The prize was unique in its original form, but has lost that uniqueness. It is now just another prize among prizes. I am convinced the administrators should take the bold step of conceding the change was wrong, and revert".

Kafka Prize
In 2011, Banville was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize. Marcel Reich-Ranicki and John Calder featured on the jury. Banville described the award as "one of the ones one really wants to get. It's an old style prize and as an old codger it's perfect for me ... I've been wrestling with Kafka since I was an adolescent" and said his bronze statuette trophy "will glare at me from the mantelpiece".

Nobel Prize in Literature hoax
On the day that the 2019 and 2018 prizes were to be announced, the Swedish Academy's number appeared on Banville's telephone. A man purporting to be Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy Mats Malm told him he had won and even read out the customary citation and asked if he would prefer to be designated the 2018 or 2019 laureate. Banville was attending a physiotherapy appointment at the time and was lying face down on a couch when the call came. He had, however, retained a mobile telephone nearby, should he be contacted to give his view on a possible Irish winner. He informed his daughter; she called her father back while watching the live announcement at midday to tell him his name had not been mentioned. Banville telephoned everyone he had spoken to in the intervening period to tell them: "Don’t buy the champagne, stop throwing your hats in the air".

After the announcement, a voicemail to Banville (from the man posing as Malm) claimed the Swedish Academy had withdrawn his prize due to a disagreement. Banville felt sorry for the man purporting to be Malm: "He certainly sounded upset, he was a very good actor". But he then compared the speaker with a YouTube recording of the real Malm, at which point he realised that the speaker's voice was deeper than Malm, and Malm had a better grasp of English. However, when Banville rang the number back, he found himself in contact with the offices of the Swedish Academy. No sentient being spoke.

Banville called upon the Swedish Academy to investigate the incident "because I don't think the hoax was aimed at me, I think it was aimed at damaging the Academy or one or two members of the Academy". He described himself as "collateral damage". When informed of the incident, the real Malm said: "It sounds like a bad joke". Fellow Academy member Per Wästberg also thought it sounded like a "joke". Banville later elaborated on the experience: "I have the distinct impression that I wasn’t the target of this really. I think he assumed that I would believe him and that I would make a big fuss in the newspapers and say this is another dispute within the jury. I think that's what he expected me to do because that would embarrass the Academy. Specifically, he was talking about some woman on it who was deeply into gender studies. So I suspect it was her that was the target. It wasn't done for fun. It has the hallmarks of a man with a grudge. Not a grudge against me". Banville provided the recording to the Swedish Academy to assist its investigation.

Banville responded well in spite the hoax; he was described in the Sunday Independent as being "as dignified and eloquent as ever in the face of a disappointment that made headlines around the world" and told The Observer: "There is some comedy in it and potential material: 'The man who nearly won the Nobel prize'". Media in Ireland described the trick played on Banville as "cruel", while media in neighbouring England described it as "deceitful". He received numerous sympathetic emails and telephone calls and support from fellow writers.

Works

 * Nightspawn. London: Secker & Warburg, 1971
 * Birchwood. London: Secker & Warburg, 1973
 * The Revolutions Trilogy:
 * Doctor Copernicus. London: Secker & Warburg, 1976
 * Kepler. London: Secker & Warburg, 1981
 * The Newton Letter. London: Secker & Warburg, 1982
 * Mefisto. London: Secker & Warburg, 1986
 * The Frames Trilogy
 * The Book of Evidence. London: Secker & Warburg, 1989
 * Ghosts. London: Secker & Warburg, 1993
 * Athena. London: Secker & Warburg, 1995
 * The Untouchable. London: Picador, 1997
 * The Alexander and Cass Cleave Trilogy
 * Eclipse. London: Picador, 2000
 * Shroud. London: Picador, 2002
 * Ancient Light. London: Viking Penguin, 2012
 * The Sea. London: Picador, 2005
 * The Infinities. London: Picador, 2009
 * The Blue Guitar. London: Viking Penguin, 2015
 * Mrs Osmond. London: Penguin, 2017
 * Snow. London: Faber & Faber, 2020 ISBN 978-1335230003
 * April in Spain. London: Faber & Faber, 2021
 * The Singularities. London: Knopf, 2022
 * The Lock-up. London: Faber & Faber, 2023 ISBN 978-0571370979

title: John Banville


text:
Early western influence in Fujian

Cultural exchanges between western peoples, particularly Arabs and Chinese, have been occurring for centuries. The earliest records go back to 635, with the discovery of the Nestorian Stone, and are then followed by Marco Polo and Ibn Batutta several centuries later.

The Nestorian Stone located in Xi'an records is the earliest known name of a Christian missionary, Alopen, who traveled to China through the Silk Road to Chang'an, which was the then capital of the Tang dynasty in 635. He was sent by the Church of the East. When he arrived in Chang'an, he was welcomed by T'ai Tsung, who brought him to an imperial library and ordered the books that he brought with him to be translated into Hokkien. It is noted that most of the earliest Christian works can be dated back to the period of Alopen. In 638, three years after Alopen's arrival in China, the first Christian church was built in Chang'an, and with it, came the presence of 21 all-Persian Nestorian monks who were recognized to be in the Tang Empire.

Marco Polo
The first tangible record of Westerners in Fuzhou is that of Marco Polo, in about 1285, when he visited Fujiu. He observed that the people were the subjects of Kublai Khan, were ‘idolaters’, and much engaged in commerce and manufacture. Marco Polo remarks that in these parts, Ginger and galangal are produced in quantities, as are other drugs."The people in this part of the country are addicted to eating human flesh, esteeming it more delicate than any other, provided that the person has not been occasioned by disease... They are a most savage race of men, insomuch that when they slay their enemies in battle, they are anxious to drink their blood, and afterwards, they devour their flesh."Marco Polo dictated his book in prison several years after he returned from China. Some suggest that he did not visit this part of China at all. He claims to have visited Quanzhou, which, according to Marco Polo, is fifteen miles from Guangzhou, after leaving Fuzhou and making a detour in Guilin and Guangzhou.

They inquired from what source they had received their faith and their rule, and their informants replied, "From our forefathers."

Ibn Battuta
The Rihla documents the world travels of the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta, including his journey and travels in China. Ibn Batutta left for China from the Samudra Pasai Sultanate, located on the Malaysian island of Sumatra, in April 1346, in a junk provided for him by the ruler of Samudra Pasai, Al-Mailk al Zahir. In The Rihla, Ibn Battuta recalls that the trip to China took four months, possibly owing to stops at two ports in either eastern Malaysia, Champa, or Tonkin. The description and the locations of these places remain unknown and are thought to have not existed at all.

Some historians note that Ibn Battuta's travelogue of his visit to China appears superficial, though it did describe Battuta's concern with the dominance of paganism in China and his dislike of most of what he saw in China, with him tending to stay at his home "as often as he could". In the Rihla, it mentions that he first landed in the port city of Quanzhou and later met with a Chinese envoy who was the chief of customs in the city and who had met with Ibn Battuta in his previous travels and arrived in China before Battuta had, and who possibly allowed for Battuta to later visit the capital of the Yuan dynasty to meet the emperor as a diplomat of the Sultanate of India.

He received word that he was to go on to Beijing to meet with the emperor, and Ibn Battuta is thought to have taken the northward route through the canal system, and it is possible that he first stopped at a city he called Qanjanfu, which is now commonly called Fuzhou, and a second stop further up the canal at Hangzhou. He stayed in Hangzhou for a few weeks before returning to Quanzhou, where he would eventually leave from the southern coast in the fall monsoon season of 1346.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Early western influence in Fujian


text:
Petersburg (novel)

Petersburg (Петербург, Peterbúrg) is a novel by Russian writer Andrei Bely. A Symbolist work, it has been compared to other "city novels" like Ulysses and Berlin Alexanderplatz. The first edition was completed in November 1913 and published serially from October 1913 to March 1914 (and later reissued as a book in 1916). It received little attention and was not translated into English until 1959 by John Cournos, over 45 years after it was written.

Today the book is generally considered Bely's masterpiece; Vladimir Nabokov ranked it one of the four greatest "masterpieces of twentieth century prose", after Ulysses and The Metamorphosis, and before "the first half" of In Search of Lost Time.

In 1922 Bely published in Berlin a revised edition which was shorter by a third than the first one. As Bely noted, "the new edition is a completely new book for the readers of the first edition". In the Berlin version Bely changed the foot of his rhythmic prose from anapest to amphibrach, and removed ironical passages related to the revolutionary movement. The second version is usually considered as inferior to the first one.

The novel is the second part of Bely's unfinished trilogy East or West, while The Silver Dove is the first one.

Plot summary
Just after the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukhov is given the task of assassinating his bureaucrat father, Apollon Apollonovich, using a time bomb supplied to him by a fellow radical, Alexander Ivanovich Dudkin. Nikolai Apollonovich spends much of his time dressing himself in a red domino costume with a black domino mask, making a fool of himself in front of Sofya Petrovna Likhutina, a woman who has rebuked his flirtations in the past. Instead of focusing on the immense task he has agreed to undertake he gets himself into the newspaper's gossip columns with his antics and attends a party. His father notices these exploits and decides that his son is a scoundrel. Dudkin himself answers to a higher power, a man named Lippanchenko who is the leader of their radical group. Eventually both Nikolai Apollonovich and Dudkin experience a change of heart about their mission, however there is much to detain Nikolai Apollonovich on his way to throw the bomb into the river.

Characters

 * Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov - a senior official in the Russian Imperial government
 * Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukhov (Nikolenka/Kolenka) - Apollon Apollonovich's son; a student involved in radical politics
 * Anna Petrovna Ableukhova - Apollon Apollonovich's estranged wife and Nikolai's mother; lives in Spain
 * Sofya Petrovna Likhutina (Angel Peri) - a socialite who runs an informal salon from her apartment
 * Mavrushka - Sofya Petrovna's maid
 * Sergei Sergeyevich Likhutin (Seryozhka) - a second lieutenant in the Gregorian Regiment; Sofya's husband; Nikolai Apollonovich's childhood friend
 * Nikolai Stepanovich Lippanchenko (Lipensky) - attends Sofya Petrovna's salon; a provocator and leader of the radical terrorist wing of the party; based on Yevno Azef
 * Varvara Yevgrafovna Solovyova - an intellectual well versed in Marxist theory; friends with Sofya Petrovna; involved with the party
 * Nikolai Petrovich Tsukatov (Coco) - a wealthy man who hosts a ball attended by many of the main characters
 * Lyubov' Alekseyevna Tsukatova - Nikolai Petrovich's wife
 * Leib Hussar Shporyshev - attends Sofya Petrovna's salon
 * Baron Ommau-Ommergau - a "yellow cuirassier"; attends Sofya Petrovna's salon
 * Count Aven - a "blue cuirassier"; attends Sofya Petrovna's salon
 * Herman Hermanovich Verhefden - a clerk in Apollon Apollonovich's office; attends Sofya Petrovna's salon
 * Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin - a former political prisoner and local party operative reporting to Lippanchenko
 * Zoya Zakharovna Fleisch - lives with Lippanchenko; probably a party member
 * Pavel Yakovlevich Morkovin or Voronkov - possibly a secret policeman; possibly also a party member
 * Mindalini (Mantalini) - Sofya Petrovna's Italian lover
 * Matvei Morzhov - a yardkeeper
 * Dmitrich Semyonych - the Ableukhovs' doorkeeper
 * Ivan Ivanych Ivanov - a merchant
 * Bessmertny - a shoe salesman
 * Neintelpfain - a hack journalist
 * Stepan Styopka - a friend of Dudkin's
 * Grishka - a lackey in the Ableukhov household

Analysis
Bely drew many of his characters from historical models: Apollon Apollonovich shares many characteristics with Procurator of the Holy Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev; Dudkin resembles the revolutionary terrorist Boris Savinkov; Lippanchenko shares many characteristics with the infamous double agent Yevno Azef.

There are similarities with James Joyce's Ulysses. The linguistic rhythms, wordplay, Symbolism, politics, and general structure and themes of the novel have all been compared to Joyce's novel, as well as the setting of the action in a capital city (Dublin; St. Petersburg) that is itself a character and the unusual use of humor. However, the differences are also notable; the English translation of Bely remains more accessible than Joyce, for example. Bely's work is based on a complex rhythm of patterns, yet does not use such a wide variety of innovations as Joyce.

The comparison of Petersburg to Ulysses has been made for both its symbolist style and for the centrality of the city within the narrative. There are many allusions within the novel to the city's history going back to its founding by Peter the Great, and it incorporates a number of literary allusions to literature set in Petersburg (especially The Bronze Horseman) as well as Russian literature in general. The characters such as Apollon Apollonovich and Alexander Ivanovich often merge with their environments, while the city itself forms a significant role in the story's unfolding.

The book was informed by many of the philosophies Bely and others of his time were concerned with, both political and spiritual. One of the major influences on the somewhat mystical tone of the book was Bely's experience with Rudolf Steiner and his philosophy of anthroposophy. The characters undergo various transcendent states, and these are generally drawn from Bely's spiritual studies. There are also discussions of Marxism and Friedrich Nietzsche's ideas, and, though the book revolves around a political action, much of it is concerned with spiritual states.

Translations
There have been four major translations of the novel into English:

 * St. Petersburg (or Saint Petersburg), translated by John Cournos (1959, based on the Berlin version)
 * Petersburg, translated and annotated by John E. Malmstad and Robert A. Maguire (Indiana University Press, 1978; based on the Berlin version) ISBN 0-253-20219-1
 * Petersburg, translated by David McDuff (Penguin Books, 1995)
 * Petersburg, translated by John Elsworth (Pushkin Press, 2009); winner of the 2012 Rossica Translation Prize

In a review of all the existing English translations, Professor Michael R. Katz writes that, "if someone wants to read Bely's masterpiece and to understand most of it, then learn Russian and read it in the original; if he/she wants to understand some of it, then read Maguire and Malmstad's magisterial annotated, introduced, and reasonably well-translated scholarly edition; and if someone wants just to say that he/she has read Bely's Petersburg for the sake of adding one notch to his cultural gun [then] go read Elsworth's version." In the Times Literary Supplement, Thomas Karshan noted that "Elsworth's version conveys little of Bely's sonic patterning" but that "McDuff's distinguished 1995 version does a good job of approximating the music of Bely's Symbolist prose poetry".

title: Petersburg (novel)


text:
Talk:Table setting

Image
I will be uploading an image tonight of a single place setting, please feel free to critique and make suggestions. KillerChihuahua?!? 14:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Dessert fork and spoon can be set above the plate, fork pointing right, to match the other forks, spoon pointing left. never ever ever do the spoon and fork go at the top at a form al dinner, they go on the inside of the setting fork on left spoon on right, but if at all possible only the fork is used (in the right hand), as only babies put spoons on their mouths Giano | talk 15:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * That's how I have them set for my pciture, the "less formal" setting. If you want me to move them let me know. I also set a place for a casual dinner, with Salad fork, Dinner fork, Plate, Knife, spoon (tea); one glass and coffee cup and saucer. For the formal picture I have salad fork, dinner fork, charger/plate/underplate/cream soup, knife, soup spoon. At upper left, bread plate and knife, and salt cellar and spoon. At upper right, water, red wine, champagne glasses. Tell me now what changes are desired. Ask questions. KillerChihuahua?!? 16:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh and I have seafood forks... I was thinking of including them. I have no place spoons, no ice tea spoons, no ice cream forks, etc. in the sterling. Ask if you want something in the setting picture and I'll see what I can do. KillerChihuahua?!? 16:36, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Why don't you do it exactly as it is done in The States, and I'll do one exactly as it's done formally in Britain - informally is probably about the same. The British are split 50/50 on fish knives some think them smart others less smart so no one is ever going to completely agree. Giano | talk 17:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Because a) I don't have all the pieces, and b) it varies. KillerChihuahua?!? 17:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Well just do whatever you do, according to my book (published 2003) the Iced tea spoons are only used in southern US, my book also says it is not correct to use an ice cream spoon at a formal diner you must use a spoon and fork, and I was always taught to use the spoon only if the ice-cteam was melted! So take your pick, that's why I think we need a formal one of both sides of the Atlantic Giano | talk 17:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Well I'll do what I can with what I have, but as there are variations I am more than willing to move pieces around and add and subtract depending upon the pieces I have available. Out of curiousity, you are planning to post an image or two also? KillerChihuahua?!? 17:46, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Didn't come out as well as I'd hoped, here 'tis:. KillerChihuahua?!? 15:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * And darnit just noticed forgot to move the seafood fork... ah well. KillerChihuahua?!? 15:16, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Hello? I want to know if I should bother taking another pic without the oyster fork, or if other changes are desired. Changing image link to image to gain attention. KillerChihuahua?!? 12:40, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

 * KillerChihuahua, I think we should do one semi-formal that is basic. One semi-formal that is loaded. One formal that is basic and one that is loaded. I'm busy trying to calm down content dispute so I cannot be more specific now. You need to go ahead with out me if you're in a hurry. FloNight   talk  12:55, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Nope no problem, have fun with your content dispute, and when you have time let me know exactly what you want and I will attempt to provide it. KillerChihuahua?!? 13:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Different for breakfast, luncheon, and dinner
Different table setting based on different times of the day. Also different if the meal is served or placed on the table by the host/hostess. I'll start with the most formal (served dinner) and then the most common (informal dinner). FloNight  talk  15:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Do we need the section "Handy Mnemonics"?You would need to be a complete moron to need that, and they are not that easy to remember either. Giano | talk 17:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Put the Mnemonics back! Call me "a moron" all you want: sums up how much you know about etiquette. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.153.173.55 (talk • contribs).

Removed unsourced opinion and insult
I removed the unsourced opinion and insult. The way the article is written now, the reference I added appears to support text introduce by other editors. --FloNight 13:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I reverted back to a version that is well sourced. FloNight 13:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Please add where a knife rest goes
If anyone knows, please add information about the placement of a knife rest. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.100.139.207 (talk) 19:08, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Western Bias
Why does the article begin with a neutral tone but actually is TOTALLY western culture biased? I don't mind if the article only focuses on western culture's table settings but that needs to be made known. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.146.10.166 (talk) 21:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

 * Feel free to add information regarding other cultures table settings. Gmcbjames (talk) 16:10, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Etiquette for proper table setting image
Here is a great explanation of a / formal table setting —Preceding unsigned comment added by Forkman2 (talk • contribs) 00:18, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Image gallery
Thank you for the addition of multiple images Hopefulromntic. I have rolled back to the gallery format rather than having the images line the right side of the article - as the image clutter is beyond the WP:MOS for images - especially since at this point the article is a stub article and the images overwhelm the article. Please don't rollback the image gallery Hopefulromntic prior to a discussion on this issue on this talk page.

I have enlarged the images in the gallery as this may be a concern and have titled the gallery section Formal dining. This will allow for images for informal dining to be used. If the other images on the page should be in the gallery, feel free to move them, especially the "Victorian image at the top of the page." I would suggest a more colorful image for the first image of the article in the future when one becomes available.

For image guidelines see: Image use policy. Multiple images are discouraged as this is the purpose of Wikipedia Commons. However, since the images illustrate the article, I believe the use of a gallery is appropriate - see WP:Galleries. Gmcbjames (talk) 16:59, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Laying a Table
The common English/British term is "Laying a Table", which I am adding to help searchers. The Article should certainly be largely divided into sections for different cultures; for example, if I recall aright, American practice differs from that found in Europe. 94.30.84.71 (talk) 07:23, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Lobster pick?
In the first image lobster picks and formal dinners are coupled. At a formal dinner a lobster pick would never be used. The lobster would either be served with the meat ready scooped, or as a mousse. It's doubtful at a formal dinner that a lobster in its shell would ever be served anyway as it would be far too filling for a fish course and never be served as the entree. Giano   (talk) 11:32, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * According to the Wikimedia Commons page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Silbertafel_Reiss_3_rem.jpg, the photo was taken by User:AndreasPraefcke. I am notifying him about your concern and hope that he will respond here. Sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 13:18, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

 * Sorry, since I am not an expert in 19th-century table manners, I really cannot say anything about that. If Giano is indeed right, I guess the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen Mannheim just got it wrong in their display. It's probably no use asking the museum, however, since they are surely too busy sueing me and Wikimedia for uploading/hosting these photos (see the latest news about this museum). --AndreasPraefcke (talk) 18:47, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, indeed they got it wrong! Nothing to do with the 19th century - some of us at least once a year still dine properly. Where shall I start? Those horrible silvery wine goblets would never be seen at a formal dinner. One has a wine glass, one for every course, placed just above the point of the knife for that course. The wine bottle should not be on the table at all; and we won't even speculate as to what the things like miniature wine coolers are used for; although, anyone who's ever dined in an officers' mess, with long speeches, will have a suggestion. The only time such a place setting may be acceptable is in a Germanic hunting lodge, but then lobster would not be served or ice on the table required. Regarding their law suit - Good Luck with that, I would ditch their photos.   Giano    (talk) 19:30, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, I forgot, if you using silver salvers to denote places, there should be a surtout de table in the center of the table with flowers, fruit and (only if evening) candles. Candles and there sticks should only be on the table in the evening - never, ever, ever at luncheon. Here endeth the lesson on etiquette by Giano.

title: Talk:Table setting


text:
Britvic

Britvic plc is a British producer of soft drinks based in Hemel Hempstead, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. It produces soft drinks under its own name, and several other brands.

History
The company was founded in the 1930s in Chelmsford as the British Vitamin Products Company. It started producing fruit juices in 1938 and started marketing them under the Britvic name in 1949. Acquired by Showerings of Shepton Mallet, and subsequently a division of Allied Breweries from 1968, the company changed its name to Britvic in 1971. In 1986, it merged with Canada Dry Rawlings and acquired the R. White's Lemonade brand. It acquired Tango and the Corona brand from Beechams in 1987 and since that year it has also owned the UK franchise for Pepsi and 7 Up. In 1995, it bought Robinson's from Reckitt & Colman.

In December 2005, the company underwent an initial public offering (IPO) allowing its main shareholders (InterContinental Hotels Group, Whitbread, Pernod Ricard) to realise their investments. In May 2007, the Company bought the soft drinks and distribution businesses of Ireland's Cantrell & Cochrane (C&C) for £169.5m.

On 14 November 2012, the company announced plans to merge with Scotland's soft drink's producer A.G. Barr, whose brands include Irn-Bru, Tizer and D'n'B, which would have created one of Europe's largest soft drinks companies. The merger was put into serious doubt after the Office of Fair Trading referred the merger to the Competition Commission. On 11 July 2013, A.G. Barr Chairman Ronnie Hanna announced that the proposed merger of Britvic and A.G. Barr had been abandoned.

In May 2017, PepsiCo announced that it had decided to sell up to all of its long-held 4.5 per cent stake in Britvic.

On 8 July 2024, it was announced that the Danish Carlsberg Group would buy Britvic. Upon completion Britvic will rebrand under the Carlsberg umbrella, with the brewery company becoming the biggest PepsiCo drink licenser in the world. The acquisition will be complete by 2025. It is expected once the sale is complete Britvic will be combined with the operations of the Carlsberg Marston's Brewing Company (CMBC) a review of the business will then take place and employees and stakeholders will be notified of the future of the business when appropriate.

Operations
Most of the company's operations are concentrated in the United Kingdom and Ireland and the company exports to over 50 countries. Its corporate headquarters moved from Chelmsford, Essex to Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, in March 2012.

United Kingdom
The drink brands the company owns in the UK include Britvic mixers, R. White's Lemonade, Tango, Robinson's and J2O – as well as being the licensed bottler for PepsiCo products within the UK. In 2008, Britvic launched Gatorade in the UK, after securing the rights to do so from PepsiCo. In May 2010, Britvic launched a UK specific version of the popular drink, Mountain Dew Energy. It tastes similar to its American counterpart, but has a lower caffeine and sugar content.

Ireland
After their failed IPO C&C's sold their soft drink brands to Britvic, resulting in the company now owning a number of brands in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, including, Ballygowan Water, Britvic, Cidona, MiWadi, and Energise Sport as well as the rights to the Pepsi and 7 Up brands in the territory through its bottling agreements with PepsiCo.

France
Britvic bought Fruité Entreprises in May 2010 for £298 million. It has since renamed the business Britvic France. It is mainly a fruit juice business, unlike the GB&I businesses that focus on soft drinks.

Brazil
In 2015, Britvic acquired ebba (Empresa Brasileira de Bebidas e Alimentos SA), located in São Paulo, and in 2017 Bela Ischia, located in Rio de Janeiro.

Current brands
Current brands are as follows:

Dilutes Water Carbonated soft drinks Other Licensed from PepsiCo
 * Robinsons
 * BritviC
 * MiWadi (Ireland)
 * Ebba (Brazil)
 * Dafruta (Brazil)
 * Maguary (Brazil)
 * Aqua Libra
 * Arto LifeWTR
 * Ballygowan
 * Drench
 * Tango
 * Club (Ireland)
 * Purdey's
 * Britvic 55
 * London Essence Company
 * R. White's Lemonade
 * TK (Taylor Keith) Lemonade (Republic of Ireland)
 * C&C Lemonade (Northern Ireland)
 * Energise (Ireland)
 * Cidona
 * Bela Ischia (Brazil)
 * Energise Sport (Ireland)
 * Amé
 * J2O
 * J2O Spritz
 * Fruité (France)
 * Maguary (Brazil)
 * Maguary Fruit Shoot (Brazil)
 * Moulin De Valdonne (France)
 * Natural Tea (Brazil)
 * Pressade (France)
 * Puro Coco (Brazil)
 * Robinsons Fruit Shoot
 * Robinsons Fruit Shoot Hydro
 * Robinsons Fruit Shoot Juiced
 * Robinsons Refresh’d
 * Robinsons Fruit Creations
 * Robinsons Squash’d
 * Teisseire (France)
 * Teisseire Fruit Shoot (France)
 * Teisseire Fruit Shoot Au Jus (France)
 * 7 UP
 * Pepsi
 * Lipton Ice Tea
 * Sobe V Water
 * Mountain Dew Energy
 * Gatorade (Great Britain)
 * Rockstar Energy

title: Britvic


text:
Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan have played a role in developing Kiefer's themes of German history and the horrors of the Holocaust, as have the spiritual concepts of Kabbalah.

In his entire body of work, Kiefer argues with the past and addresses taboo and controversial issues from recent history. Themes from Nazi rule are particularly reflected in his work; for instance, the painting Margarete (oil and straw on canvas) was inspired by Celan's well-known poem "Todesfuge" ("Death Fugue").

His works are characterised by an unflinching willingness to confront his culture's dark past, and unrealised potential, in works that are often done on a large, confrontational scale well suited to the subjects. It is also characteristic of his work to find signatures and names of people of historical importance, legendary figures or historical places. All of these are encoded sigils through which Kiefer seeks to process the past; this has resulted in his work being linked with the movements New Symbolism and Neo–Expressionism.

Kiefer has lived and worked in France since 1992. Since 2008, he has lived and worked primarily in Paris. In 2018, he was awarded Austrian citizenship.

Personal life and career
The son of a German art teacher, Kiefer was born in Donaueschingen a few months before the end of World War II. His city having been heavily bombed, Kiefer grew up surrounded by the devastation of the war. In 1951, his family moved to Ottersdorf, and he attended public school in Rastatt, graduating high school in 1965. He studied at the University of Freiburg, studying pre-law and Romance languages. However, after three semesters he switched to art, studying at art academies in Freiburg and Karlsruhe. In Karlsruhe, he studied under Peter Dreher, a realist and figurative painter. He received an art degree in 1969.

In 1971 Kiefer moved to Hornbach (Walldürn) and established a studio. He remained in the Neckar-Odenwald-Kreis until 1992; his output during this first creative time is known as The German Years. In 1992 he relocated to France.

Kiefer left his first wife and children in Germany on his move to Barjac in 1992. From 2008 he lived in Paris, in a large house in the Marais district, with his second wife, the Austrian photographer Renate Graf, and their two children. Kiefer and Graf divorced in 2014.

In 2017, Kiefer was ranked one of the richest 1,001 individuals and families in Germany by the monthly business publication Manager Magazin.

Kiefer is the subject of the 3D documentary film Anselm (2023), directed by Wim Wenders.

Artistic process
Generally, Kiefer attributes traditional mythology, books, and libraries as his main subjects and sources of inspiration. In his middle years, his inspiration came from literary figures, namely Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann. His later works incorporate themes from Judeo-Christian, ancient Egyptian, and Oriental cultures, which he combines with other motifs. Cosmogony is also a large focus in his works. In all, Kiefer searches for the meaning of existence and "representation of the incomprehensible and the non-representational."

Philosophy
Kiefer values a "spiritual connection" with the materials he works with, "extracting the spirit that already lives within [them]." In doing so, he transforms his materials with acid baths and physical blows with sticks and axes, among other processes.

He often chooses materials for their alchemical properties—lead in particular. Kiefer's initial attraction to lead arose when he had to repair aging pipes in the first house he owned. Eventually, he came to admire its physical and sensory qualities and began to discover more about its connection to alchemy. Physically, Kiefer specifically likes how the metal looks during the heating and melting process when he sees many colors, especially gold, which he associates to the symbolic gold sought by alchemists.

Kiefer's use of straw in his work represents energy. He claims this is due to straw's physical qualities, including the color gold and its release of energy and heat when burned. The resulting ash makes way for new creation, thus echoing the motifs of transformation and the cycle of life.

Kiefer also values the balance between order and chaos in his work, stating, "[I]f there is too much order, [the piece] is dead; or if there is much chaos, it doesn't cohere." In addition, he cares deeply about the space in which his works reside. He states that his works "lose their power completely" if put in the wrong spaces.

Photography
Kiefer began his career creating performances and documenting them in photographs titled Occupations and Heroische Sinnbilder (Heroic Symbols). Dressed in his father's Wehrmacht uniform, Kiefer mimicked the Nazi salute in various locations in France, Switzerland and Italy. He asked Germans to remember and to acknowledge the loss to their culture through the mad xenophobia of the Third Reich. In 1969, at Galerie am Kaiserplatz, Karlsruhe, he presented his first single exhibition "Besetzungen (Occupations)" with a series of photographs of controversial political actions.

Painting and sculpture
Kiefer is best known for his paintings, which have grown increasingly large in scale with additions of lead, broken glass, and dried flowers or plants. This results in encrusted surfaces and thick layers of impasto.

By 1970, while studying informally under Joseph Beuys at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, his stylistic leanings resembled Georg Baselitz's approach. He worked with glass, straw, wood and plant parts. The use of these materials meant that his art works became temporary and fragile, as Kiefer himself was well aware; he also wanted to showcase the materials in such a way that they were not disguised and could be represented in their natural form. The fragility of his work contrasts with the stark subject matter in his paintings. This use of familiar materials to express ideas was influenced by Beuys, who used fat and carpet felt in his works. It is also typical of the Neo-Expressionist style.

Kiefer returned to the area of his birthplace in 1971. In the years that followed, he incorporated German mythology in particular in his work, and in the next decade he studied the Kabbalah, as well as Qabalists like Robert Fludd. He went on extended journeys throughout Europe, the US and the Middle East; the latter two journeys further influenced his work. Besides paintings, Kiefer created sculptures, watercolors, photographs, and woodcuts, using woodcuts in particular to create a repertoire of figures he could reuse repeatedly in all media over the next decades, lending his work its knotty thematic coherence.

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Kiefer made numerous paintings, watercolors, woodcuts, and books on themes interpreted by Richard Wagner in his four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung).

In the early 1980s, he created more than thirty paintings, painted photographs, and watercolors that refer in their titles and inscriptions to the Romanian Jewish writer Paul Celan's poem "Todesfuge" ("Death Fugue").

A series of paintings which Kiefer executed between 1980 and 1983 depict looming stone edifices, referring to famous examples of National Socialist architecture, particularly buildings designed by Albert Speer and Wilhelm Kreis. The grand plaza in To the Unknown Painter (1983) specifically refers to the outdoor courtyard of Hitler's Chancellery in Berlin, designed by Speer in 1938 in honor of the Unknown Soldier. In 1984–85, he made a series of works on paper incorporating manipulated black-and-white photographs of desolate landscapes with utility poles and power lines. Such works, like Heavy Cloud (1985), were an indirect response to the controversy in West Germany in the early 1980s about NATO's stationing of tactical nuclear missiles on German soil and the placement of nuclear fuel processing facilities.

By the mid-1980s, Kiefer's themes widened from a focus on Germany's role in civilization to the fate of art and culture in general. His work became more sculptural and involved not only national identity and collective memory, but also occult symbolism, theology and mysticism. The theme of all the work is the trauma experienced by entire societies, and the continual rebirth and renewal in life. During the 1980s his paintings became more physical, and featured unusual textures and materials. The range of his themes broadened to include references to ancient Hebrew and Egyptian history, as in the large painting Osiris and Isis (1985–87). His paintings of the 1990s, in particular, explore the universal myths of existence and meaning rather than those of national identity. From 1995 to 2001, he produced a cycle of large paintings of the cosmos.

Over the years Kiefer has made many unusual works, but one work stands out among the rest as particularly bizarre—that work being his 20 Years of Solitude piece. Taking over 20 years to create (1971–1991), 20 Years of Solitude is a ceiling-high stack of hundreds of white-painted ledgers and handmade books, strewn with dirt and dried vegetation, whose pages are stained with the artist's semen. The word solitude in the title references the artists frequent masturbation onto paper during the 20 years it took to create. He asked American art critic Peter Schjeldahl to write a text for a catalog of the masturbation books. Schjeldahl attempted to oblige but ultimately failed in his endeavor. No other critic would take on the task, so the work has largely faded into obscurity.

He would shock the art world yet again at a dinner party in May 1993. Kiefer and his second wife, Renate Graf, decorated a candlelit commercial loft in New York with white muslin, carpeted the floor with white sand, and staffed it with waiters dressed as mimes with white-face. A handful of art world elite, such as the likes of Sherrie Levine, were served several courses of arcane organ meats, such as pancreas, that were mostly white in color. Not surprisingly, the guests did not find the meal to be particularly appetizing.

Since 2002, Kiefer has worked with concrete, creating the towers destined for the Pirelli warehouses in Milan, the series of tributes to Velimir Khlebnikov (paintings of the sea, with boats and an array of leaden objects, 2004–5), a return to the work of Paul Celan with a series of paintings featuring rune motifs (2004–06), and other sculptures. In 2003, he held his first solo show at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg Villa Katz, Anselm Kiefer: Am Anfang dedicated to a series of new works, centered on the recurring themes of history and myths. In 2005, he held his second exhibition in Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac's Salzburg location, Für Paul Celan which focused on Kiefer's preoccupation with the book, linking references to Germanic mythology with the poetry of Paul Celan, a German-speaking Jew from Czernowitz. The exhibition featured eleven works on canvas, a series of bound books shown in display cases, and five sculptures, including one powerful, monumental outdoor sculpture of reinforced concrete and lead elements, two leaden piles of books combined with bronze sunflowers, lead ships and wedges, and two monumental leaden books from the series The Secret Life of Plants. The exhibition toured to Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris and Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris, the following year.

In 2006, Kiefer's exhibition, Velimir Chlebnikov, was first shown in a small studio near Barjac, then moved to White Cube in London, then finishing in the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut. The work consists of 30 large (2 × 3 meters) paintings, hanging in two banks of 15 on facing walls of an expressly constructed corrugated steel building that mimics the studio in which they were created. The work refers to the eccentric theories of the Russian futurist philosopher/poet Velimir Chlebnikov, who invented a "language of the future" called "Zaum", and who postulated that cataclysmic sea battles shift the course of history once every 317 years. In his paintings, Kiefer's toy-like battleships—misshapen, battered, rusted and hanging by twisted wires—are cast about by paint and plaster waves. The work's recurrent color notes are black, white, gray, and rust; and their surfaces are rough and slathered with paint, plaster, mud and clay.

In 2007, he became the first artist to be commissioned to install a permanent work at the Louvre, Paris, since Georges Braque some 50 years earlier. The same year, he inaugurated the Monumenta exhibitions series at the Grand Palais in Paris, with works paying special tribute to the poets Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann.

In 2009 Kiefer mounted two exhibitions at the White Cube gallery in London. A series of forest diptychs and triptychs enclosed in glass vitrines, many filled with dense Moroccan thorns, was titled Karfunkelfee, a term from German Romanticism stemming from a poem by the post-war Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann. In The Fertile Crescent, Kiefer presented a group of epic paintings inspired by a trip to India fifteen years earlier where he first encountered rural brick factories. Over the past decade, the photographs that Kiefer took in India "reverberated" in his mind to suggest a vast array of cultural and historical references, reaching from the first human civilization of Mesopotamia to the ruins of Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War, where he played as a boy. "Anyone in search of a resonant meditation on the instability of built grandeur", wrote the historian Simon Schama in his catalogue essay, "would do well to look hard at Kiefer's The Fertile Crescent".

In Morgenthau Plan (2012), the gallery is filled with a sculpture of a golden wheat field, enclosed in a five-meter-high steel cage. That same year, Kiefer inaugurated Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac's gallery space in Pantin, with an exhibition of monumental new works, Die Ungeborenen. The exhibition was accompanied by a publication with a letter by Anselm Kiefer and essays by Alexander Kluge and Emmanuel Daydé. He continues to be represented by the gallery and participates in group and solo exhibitions at their various locations.

Books
In 1969 Kiefer began to design books. Early examples are typically worked-over photographs; his more recent books consist of sheets of lead layered with paint, minerals, or dried plant matter. For example, he assembled numerous lead books on steel shelves in libraries, as symbols of the stored, discarded knowledge of history. The book Rhine (1981) comprises a sequence of 25 woodcuts that suggest a journey along the Rhine River; the river is central to Germany's geographical and historical development, acquiring an almost mythic significance in works such as Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungs. Scenes of the unspoiled river are interrupted by dark, swirling pages that represent the sinking of the battleship Bismarck in 1941, during an Atlantic sortie codenamed Rhine Exercise.

Studios
Kiefer's first large studio was in the attic of his home, a former schoolhouse in Hornbach. Years later he installed his studio in a factory building in Buchen, near Hornbach. In 1988, Kiefer transformed a former brick factory in Höpfingen (also near Buchen) into an extensive artwork including numerous installations and sculptures. In 1991, after twenty years of working in the Odenwald, the artist left Germany to travel around the world—to India, Mexico, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, and the United States. In 1992 he established himself in Barjac, France, where he transformed his 35-hectare studio compound La Ribaute into a Gesamtkunstwerk. A derelict silk factory, his studio is enormous and in many ways is a comment on industrialization. He created an extensive system of glass buildings, archives, installations, storerooms for materials and paintings, subterranean chambers and corridors.

Sophie Fiennes filmed Kiefer's studio complex in Barjac for her documentary study Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (2010), which recorded both the environment and the artist at work. One critic wrote of the film: "Building almost from the ground up in a derelict silk factory, Kiefer devised an artistic project extending over acres: miles of corridors, huge studio spaces with ambitious landscape paintings and sculptures that correspond to monumental constructions in the surrounding woodland, and serpentine excavated labyrinths with great earthy columns that resemble stalagmites or termite mounds. Nowhere is it clear where the finished product definitively stands; perhaps it is all work in progress, a monumental concept-art organism."

During 2008, Kiefer left his studio complex at Barjac and moved to Paris. A fleet of 110 lorries transported his work to a 35000 sqft warehouse in Croissy-Beaubourg, outside of Paris, that had once been the depository for the La Samaritaine department store. A journalist wrote of Kiefer's abandoned studio complex: "He left behind the great work of Barjac – the art and buildings. A caretaker looks after it. Uninhabited, it quietly waits for nature to take over, because, as we know, over our cities grass will grow. Kiefer spent the summer of 2019 living and working at Barjac."

List of Works
Source:
 * The Second Sinful Fall of Parmenides (Der zweite Sündenfall des Parmenides), 1969. Oil on canvas, 82 5/8 x 98 3/8" (210x250 cm), Private Collection.
 * You're a Painter (Du bist Maler), 1969. Bound book, 9 7/8 × 7 1/2 x 3/8" (25 x 19 x 1 cm), Private Collection.
 * Plate I, German Line of Spiritual Salvation, 1975, Deutsche Heilsline, Watercolor on paper, 9 7/16 x 13 3/8" (24 X 34 cm), Private Collection.
 * Pages from "Occupations" ("Besetzungen"), 1969. From Interfunktionen (Cologne), no. 12 (1975).
 * Plate 2, Every Human Being Stands beneath His Own Dome of Heaven (Jeder Mensch steht unter seinem Himmelskugel), 1970, Watercolor and pencil on paper, 15 3/4 x 18 7/8", (40 x 48 cm), Private Collection.
 * Double-page photographic image with foldout from The Flooding of Heidelberg (Die Überschwemmung Heidelbergs), 1969, 11 7/8 × 8 1/2 x 7/8" (30.2 x 21.7 x 2.3 cm) (bound volume), Private Collection.
 * Double-page photographic images from The Flooding of Heidelberg (Die Überschwemmung Heidelbergs), 1969.
 * Untitled (Ohne Titel), 1971, Oil on canvas (in two parts), each 86 5/8 x 39 3/8" (220 x 100 cm), Collection of Dr. Gunther Gercken, Lutjensee, West Germany.
 * Plate 3, Winter Landscape (Winterlandschaft), 1970, Watercolor on paper, 16 15/16 x 14 3/16" (43 x 36 cm), Private Collection.
 * Plate 4, Reclining Man with Branch (Liegender Mann mit Zweig), 1971, Watercolor on paper, 9 7/16 x 11" (24 x 28 cm), Private Collection.
 * Plate 5, Fulia, 1971, Watercolor and pencil on paper, 18 11/16 x 14 3/16" (47.5 x 36 cm), Private Collection.
 * Quaternity (Quaternität), 1973, Charcoal and oil on burlap, 118 1/8 x 171 1/4" (300 x 435 cm), Collection of George Baselitz, Derneburg, West Germany.
 * Father, Son, Holy Ghost (Vater, Sohn, heiliger Geist), 1973, Oil on burlap, 65 x 61 1/2" (165 x 156 cm), Collection of Dr. Gunther Gerken, Lutjensee, West Germany.
 * Faith, Hope, Love (Glaube, Hoffnung, Liebe), 1973, Charcoal on burlap, with cardboard, 117 3/8 x 110 5/8" (298 x 281 cm). Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.
 * Plate 6, Man in the Forest (Mann im Wald), 1971, Oil on muslin, 68 1/2 x 74 7/16" (174 x 189 cm), Private Collection.
 * Plate 7, Resurrexit, 1973, oil, acrylic and charcoal on burlap, 114 3/16 x 70 7/8" (290 x 180 cm). Collection Sanders, Amsterdam.
 * Plate 8, Nothung (Notung), 1973, oil and charcoal on burlap, with oil and charcoal on cardboard, 118 1/8 x 170" (300 x 432 cm). Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
 * Plate 10, Germany's Spiritual Heroes (Deutschlands Geisteshelden), 1973, oil and charcoal on burlap, mounted on canvas, 120 7/8 x 268 1/2" (307 x 682 cm). Collection of Barbara and Eugene Schwartz, New York.
 * Double-page from Heroic Allegories (Heroische Sinnbilder), 1969, photography on cardboard, with pastel and pencil, 26 x 19 5/8 x 4" ( 66 x 50 x 10 cm), Private Collection.
 * Operation Winter Storm (Unternehmen "Wintergewitter"), 1975, oil on burlap, 47 1/4 x 59" (120 x 150 cm), Private Collection.
 * The Lake of Gennesaret (See Genezareth), 1974, oil emulsion, and shellac on burlap, 41 1/4 x 67" (105 x 170 cm), Private Collection.
 * Plate 11, Landscape with Head (Landschaft mit Kopf), 1973, oil, distemper, and charcoal on cardboard, 82 11/16 x 94 1/2" (210 x 240 cm), Private Collection.
 * Plate 12, Cockchafer Fly (Maikäfer flieg), 1974, oil on burlap, 86 5/8 x 118 1/8" (220 x 300 cm), Saatchi Collection, London.
 * Plate 13, March Heath (Märkische Heide), oil, acrylic and shellac on burlap, 46 1/2 x 100" (118 x 254 cm), Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
 * There is Peace upon Every Mountain Peak (Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh!), 1973, watercolor on paper, 12 3/8 x 18 7/8" (31.5 x 48 cm), Private Collection.
 * Plate 14, Operation Sea Lion I (Unternehmen "Seelöwe"), 1975, oil on canvas, 86 5/8 x 118 1/8" (220 x 300 cm), Collection of Norman and Irma Braman, Miami Beach.
 * Plate 15, Piet Mondrian- Operation Sea Lion (Piet Mondrian- Unternehmen "Seelöwe"), 1975, thirty-four double-page photographic images, mounted on cardboard and bound, 22 7/16 x 16 1/2 x 2" (57 x 42 5 cm) (bound volume), Collection of Marian Goodman, New York.
 * Plate 16, March Sand V (Märkischer Sand V), 1977, twenty-five double page photographic images, with sand, oil, and glue, mounted on cardboard and bound, 24 3/8 x 16 5/8 × 3 3/8" (62 x 42 x 8.5 cm) (bound volume), Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Saul, New York.
 * Double-page photographic images from Hoffmann von Fallersleben auf Helgoland, 1978 (Groningen, 1980), 11 7/8 × 8 1/2 x 1/2" (30.2 x 21.6 x 1.3 cm) (bound volume), Private Collection.
 * Plate 17, Varus, 1976, oil and acrylic on burlap, 78 3/4 x 106 5/16" (200 x 270 cm), Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
 * Double-page from Germany's Facial Type (Charcoal for 2000 Years) (Das deutsche Volksgesicht [Kohle fur 2000 Jahre]), 1974, charcoal on paper, with woodcut, 22 7/16 x 17 3/4 × 2 3/8" (57 x 45 x 6 cm) (bound volume), Private Collection.
 * Heliogabalus (Heliogabal), 1974, watercolor on paper, 11 3/4 x 15 3/4" (30 x 40 cm), Collection of Fredrik Roos, Switzerland.
 * Plate 18, Ways of Worldly Wisdom (Wege der Weltweisheit), 1976–77, oil, acrylic, and shellac on burlap, mounted on canvas, 120 x 196 7/8" (305 x 500 cm), Collection Sanders, Amsterdam.
 * Plate 19, Ways of Worldly Wisdom- Arminius's Battle (Wege der Weltweisheit-die Hermanns-Schlacht), 1978–80, woodcut, with acrylic and shellac, mounted on canvas, 126 x 196 7/8" (320 x 500 cm), The Art Institute of Chicago.
 * Plate 20, Stefan!, 1975, watercolor and ball point pen on paper, 8 1/16 x 11 1/4" (20.5 x 28.5 cm), Collection of Johannes Gachenang, Bern.
 * Siegfried Forgets Brunhilde (Siegfried vergisst Brunhilde), 1975, oil on canvas, 51 1/8 x 67" (130 x 170 cm), Family H. de Groot Collection, Groningen, The Netherlands.

Exhibitions
In 1969, Kiefer had his first solo exhibition, at Galerie am Kaiserplatz in Karlsruhe. Along with Georg Baselitz, he represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1980. He was also featured in the 1997 Venice Biennale with a one-man show held at the Museo Correr, concentrating on paintings and books.

Comprehensive solo exhibitions of Kiefer's work have been organized by the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (1984); Art Institute of Chicago (1987); Sezon Museum of Art in Tokyo (1993); Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin (1991); Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (1998); Fondation Beyeler in Basel (2001); the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (2005); the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. (2006); the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2007). In 2007, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presented an extensive survey of recent work. Several of his works were exhibited in 2009 for the first time in the Balearic Islands, in the museum Es Baluard in Palma de Mallorca. In 2012, the Art Gallery of Hamilton presented some of his paintings. London's Royal Academy of Arts mounted the first British retrospective of the artist's work in September 2014.

In 2007 Kiefer was commissioned to create a huge site-specific installation of sculptures and paintings for the inaugural "Monumenta" at the Grand Palais, Paris. With the unveiling of a triptych – the mural Athanor and the two sculptures Danae and Hortus Conclusus – at the Louvre in 2007, Kiefer became the first living artist to create a permanent site-specific installation in the museum since Georges Braque in 1953.

In 2008, Kiefer installed Palmsonntag (Palm Sunday) (2006), a monumental palm tree and 36 steel-and-glass reliquary tablets in the auditorium-gym of the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles, an enormous Spanish Gothic edifice built in 1927. The room was reconfigured to accommodate the work. Floors were sanded to remove the basketball court's markings, and the wall for the reliquary paintings was constructed inside the space. In 2010 the piece was installed at the Art Gallery of Ontario museum in Toronto, where Kiefer created eight new panels specifically for the AGO's exhibition of this work.

In Next Year in Jerusalem (2010) at Gagosian Gallery, Kiefer explained that each of the works was a reaction to a personal "shock" initiated by something he had recently heard of.

In September 2013, The Hall Art Foundation, in partnership with the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, opened a long-term installation of sculpture and paintings in a specifically repurposed, 10,000 square-foot building on the MASS MoCA campus. In 2014, the Foundation landscaped the area surrounding this building in order to present long-term installations of outdoor sculpture. The long-term exhibition—includes Étroits sont les Vaisseaux (Narrow are the Vessels) (2002), an 82-foot long, undulating wave-like sculpture made of cast concrete, exposed rebar, and lead; The Women of the Revolution (Les Femmes de la Revolution) (1992), composed of more than twenty lead beds with photographs and wall text; Velimir Chlebnikov (2004), a steel pavilion containing 30 paintings dealing with nautical warfare and inspired by the quixotic theories of the Russian mathematical experimentalist Velimir Chlebnikov; and a new, large-format photograph on lead created by the artist for the installation at MASS MoCA.

In 2015, the Centre Pompidou, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and the Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig hosted a retrospective exhibition in honor of Kiefer's 70th birthday.

In 2016 the Albertina in Vienna dedicated an exhibition to his woodcuts, showing 35 made between 1977 and 2015, with an accompanying catalogue.

He unveiled his first public art commission in the United States in May 2018, at Rockefeller Center. The Uraeus sculpture was inspired in part by the religious symbols of Egypt and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It was put on view until 22 July.

Recognitions
In 1990, Kiefer was awarded the Wolf Prize. In 1999 the Japan Art Association awarded him the Praemium Imperiale for his lifetime achievements. In the explanatory statement it reads:

"A complex critical engagement with history runs through Anselm Kiefer's work. His paintings as well as the sculptures of Georg Baselitz created an uproar at the 1980 Venice Biennale: the viewers had to decide whether the apparent Nazi motifs were meant ironically or whether the works were meant to convey actual fascist ideas. Kiefer worked with the conviction that art could heal a traumatized nation and a vexed, divided world. He created epic paintings on giant canvases that called up the history of German culture with the help of depictions of figures such as Richard Wagner or Goethe, thus continuing the historical tradition of painting as a medium of addressing the world. Only a few contemporary artists have such a pronounced sense of art's duty to engage the past and the ethical questions of the present, and are in the position to express the possibility of the absolution of guilt through human effort."

In 2008, Kiefer was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, given for the first time to a visual artist. Art historian Werner Spies said in his speech that Kiefer is a passionate reader who takes impulses from literature for his work. In 2011 Kiefer was appointed to the chair of creativity in art at the Collège de France.

 * 1983 – Hans-Thoma-Preis of Baden-Württemberg
 * 1985 – Carnegie Prize
 * 1990 – Wolf Prize in Arts
 * 1990 – Goslarer Kaiserring

 * 1999 – Praemium Imperiale
 * 2002 – Officer of Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
 * 2004 – Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
 * 2005 – Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
 * 2008 – Peace Prize of the German Book Trade
 * 2009 – Adenauer-de Gaulle Prize (Paris, France/Berlin, Germany)
 * 2010 – Chair of Artistic Creation at the Collège de France
 * 2011 – Berliner Bär (B.Z.-Kulturpreis)
 * 2011 – Leo Baeck Medal, Leo Baeck Institut of New York
 * 2014 – honorary doctorate in Philosophy, University of Turin
 * 2015 – Honorary doctorate in letters, University of St Andrews
 * 2015 – Honorary doctorate for general merit, University of Antwerp
 * 2017 – J. Paul Getty Medal Award
 * 2017 – Honorary doctorate University of Freiburg
 * 2019 – Prize for Understanding and Tolerance, awarded by the Jewish Museum Berlin
 * 2020 – Honorary Doctorate in the Communication and Teaching of Art, Brera Academy (Milan, Italy)
 * 2023 – Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
 * 2023 – German National Prize

Materials
Due to the spontaneous nature of his creative process, many of his works have issues regarding stability—a concern shared by collectors, dealers, and curators alike. He acknowledges the issue, but says change is part of the process and that their essence will ultimately stay the same. This idea of transformation has a kind of appeal for Kiefer and thus is featured in many of his works. This fascination for the process may have stemmed from the artist's keen interest in alchemy. He often chooses materials for their alchemical properties—lead in particular being chief among them. In the case of lead, he specifically likes how the metal looks during the heating and melting process when he would see many colors—especially that of gold—which he thought of in a symbolic sense as the gold sought by alchemists. He is also particularly fond of the oxidation of white on lead. He would often try to induce oxidation artificially with the use of acid to speed up the process. Lead was also associated with the alchemical concepts of magic numbers and represented the planet Saturn.

Shellac, another material popular in his work, corresponded to lead in terms of how he felt about its color and energy possibilities. He also liked that while being polished it takes on energy and becomes warm to the touch.

The use of straw in his work is also in part the result of this common theme of energy. Straw again features the color gold and gives off energy, heat, and warmth when burned. This would make way for new creation thus continuing the cycle of life through the transformation process.

Art market
A new worldwide record was set for the artist when the painting To the Unknown Painter (1983) sold by $3,554,500 at Christie's New York, on 11 May 2011, to an American private collector. The previous record was held by Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom (1999), who had sold by $3,549,350 at Christie's London, on 8 February 2007.

Collections
Kiefer's works are included in numerous public collections, including the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit; the Tate Modern, London; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; and the Albertina, Vienna. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York owns 20 of the artist's rare watercolors. Notable private collectors include Eli Broad and Andrew J. Hall.

title: Anselm Kiefer


text:
User talk:Raul654/proof

Before I commit myself to an answer, I am pretty sure the error is in the penultimate step (subtracting the integrals). Am I right here? If I am, I'll give you the full justification on why that step is probably incorrect. Dysprosia 07:47, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * You are correct. Subtracting the integrals is the flaw in the proof. →Raul654 08:00, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)

May I be so bold then, to provide my conclusion:
 * Assume $$\int \tan x = F(x) + C_1$$

Then, in the final step:
 * $$\int \tan x = -1 + \int \tan x $$ (this is fine - if you differentiate both sides you get the desired result)

Now substitute the above - the key thing is we need to use different constants since we don't have assurances that they are the same:
 * $$ F(x) + C_1 = -1 + F(x) + C_2$$

Now we can subtract off F(x) fine:
 * $$ C_1 = -1 + C_2 $$
 * $$ C_1 - C_2= -1 $$

which leads to a consistency - the arbitrary constants can be anything (as they should be), as there are an infinity of solutions to that last equation. Dysprosia 08:11, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You are correct. The constants of integration for the two sides are different. Or, as a friend of mine (who is getting PhD in mathematics) phrased it - the integral of tanget is a set of functions. You can't subtract one set from another like that - algebric manipulation doesn't work on sets. →Raul654 08:39, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)

 * Yay :) I'm feeling pretty good about myself right now... Dysprosia 08:57, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I can't believe it!
For about 3 hours during sophomore year of HS, I came up with a very similar proof to this one (albeit simpler) and was convinced I had disproved math until a friend finally pointed out what I had done wrong. Amazing to see that I'm not the only one. Jairuscobb 09:51, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Another flaw
I believe there's another flaw in this proof. UV substitution is only applicable on continuously differentiable functions. Therefore, you cannot apply this method to this problem. Therefore, $$ \int_ {} \tan (x)\, dx \neq \sec (x) * (- \cos (x)) - \int_ {} - \cos (x) * \sec(x) * \tan(x) \, dx $$ Serpent_Guard 07:24, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

 * Why isn't tan x continuously differentiable? I thought integration by parts could be applied to tan x just as much as it can be applied to tan^2 x anyway. Deamon138 (talk) 21:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

 * It's not continuously differentiable because you can't find the derivative of $$\tan(.5*pi)$$.Serpent_Guard 07:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.99.191.196 (talk)

 * Ah gotcha, I see what you mean by continuously differentiable now. Deamon138 (talk) 19:07, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

title: User talk:Raul654/proof


text:
Category talk:Emo

the word "emo" is a highly disputed thing, and its not NPOV to use it. sad, but true. --Tothebarricades.tk 07:56, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

title: Category talk:Emo


text:
Baal Hammon

Baal Hammon, properly Baʿal Ḥamon (Phoenician and ), meaning "Lord Hammon", was the chief god of Carthage. He was a weather god considered responsible for the fertility of vegetation and esteemed as King of the Gods. He was depicted as a bearded older man with curling ram's horns. Baʿal Ḥammon's female cult partner was Tanit.

Etymology
He is clearly identified as one of the Phoenician deities covered under the name of Baal. However, the meaning of his second name is unclear. Frank Moore Cross argued for a connection to Hamōn, the Ugaritic name for Mount Amanus, a peak in the Nur Mountains which separate Syria from Cilicia. In the 19th century, when Ernest Renan excavated the ruins of Hammon (Ḥammon), the modern Umm al-‘Awamid between Tyre and Acre, he found two Phoenician inscriptions dedicated to El-Hammon.

Others have proposed Hammon as a syncretic association with the Egyptian god Amun, while a last current has called instead for a connection with the Northwest Semitic word ḥammān ("brazier"), suggesting the sense "Lord of the Brazier".

Cult and attributes
The worship of Baʿal Hammon flourished in the Phoenician colony of Carthage. His supremacy among the Carthaginian gods is believed to date to the fifth century BC, after relations between Carthage and Tyre were broken off at the time of the Battle of Himera (480 BC). Baal Hammon was known as the Chief of the pantheon of Carthage and the deity that made vegetation grow; as with most deities of Carthage, he was seemingly propitiated with child sacrifice, likely in times of strife or crisis, or only by elites, perhaps for the good of the whole community. This practice was recorded by Greeks and Romans, but dismissed as propaganda by modern scholars, until archeologists unearthed urns containing the cremated remains of infants in places of ritual sacrifice. Some scholars believe this confirms the accounts of child sacrifice, while others insist these are the remains of children who died young.

He has been identified with a solar deity, although Yigael Yadin thought him to be a moon god. Edward Lipinski identifies him with the god Dagon. In Carthage and North Africa Baʿal Hammon was especially associated with the ram and was worshiped also as Baʿal Qarnaim ("Lord of Two Horns") in an open-air sanctuary at Jebel Boukornine ("the two-horned hill") across the bay from Carthage, in Tunisia.

The interpretatio graeca identified him with the Titan Cronus. In ancient Rome, he was identified with Saturn, and the cultural exchange between Rome and Carthage as a result of the Second Punic War may have influenced the development of the festival of Saturnalia.

. Attributes of his Romanized form as an African Saturn indicate that Hammon (Amunus in Philo's work) was a fertility god.

Legacy
There is a survival in modern times in onomastics with some first names in use particularly in Tunisia grafted onto the name of the god. Algerian, Tunisian and many other spoken forms of Arabic refer to "Baali farming" to refer to non-irrigated agriculture. Such usage is attested in Hebrew, a Canaanite language sister to Phoenician, already in the 2nd century CE Mishnah.

A street in modern Carthage, located near the Punic Ports, bears the name of Baal Hammon.

The city of Carmona (Andalusia, Spain) is believed to derive its name from Kar-Hammon, "city of Hammon."

title: Baal Hammon