Latest news with #17thCentury
Times
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
The best children's books of 2025
The good news for Ann Storer is that she has just discovered the elixir of life. The bad news is that it's the 17th century, there's a witchfinder skulking round town and young women with special powers are not exactly celebrated in her part of Lincolnshire. I am already a big fan of Barrington Stoke, the publisher that invites the best authors of contemporary children's fiction to 'guest write' short, snappy novellas in its signature dyslexia-friendly format. The idea is to make stories for as wide an audience as possible without making any compromise on literary quality and this latest example fulfils that mission brilliantly. It is also probably one of the few books inspired by the fact that Isaac Newton spent some time as a young man boarding above an apothecary's shop in Grantham. Lindsay Galvin has taken that tiny nugget and polished it into an intriguing, unconventional story that manages to span themes of science, alchemy and witch trials all within just 120 pages.
Forbes
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Breastfeeding Welcome At Yale Center For British Art
Lady Mary Boyle Nursing her Son Charles, 1690 Health is rarely discussed at art museums. The Yale Center for British Art, which reopened last month, made no mention in the press for the new Tracey Emin show about her battles with alcoholism, smoking, and subsequent bladder cancer. The beautiful brutality architecture of Louis Kahn that defines the building is not discussed in tandem with his unglamorous death at the Penn Station bathroom. Rather, art is often an escape from the ugly realities of life, or perhaps a macabre study of them without reverence. Breastfeeding in art is hardly a major element of either category. Depictions of breastfeeding in Western art are usually associated with the baby Jesus and Mary, apart from others in gilded deification. Portraits of upper class women with their children are often straight and even a bit stern. But Yale Center for British Art made a bold choice with their reopening, to dedicate a full wall to the hyperrealistic portrait of Irish noblewoman Lady Mary Boyle with a child at her breast. Lady Boyle gazes bravely at the viewer, unashamed. Sir Godfrey Kneller painted Lady Mary and the infant Charles in defiance. Culturally, the gallery label explains, upper class women in Britain were discouraged from nursing their own children in the 17th century. Instead, hiring an appropriate wet nurse with both cleanliness of hygiene and character was the norm. That Lady Mary chose not only to nurse her three children, but be depicted facing the frame with sincere exhaustion, is a powerful commentary on womanhood. Historians argue that perhaps it was Boyle's mixed Irish-English origins that encouraged variant iconography of Catholicism and Protestantism in the image. Other imagery of breastfeeding at the Yale Center for British Art is namely Joseph Wright of Derby's The Dead Soldier, on view in the Long Gallery. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder The far right corner of the Long gallery features a dramatic scene with a nursing woman, all but ... More obfuscated by the surrounding scenes. In a contemporary context, intense pressure on breastfeeding in the United States is coupled with equal cultural pressure to avoid breastfeeding in public. American pediatricians count the number of ounces of milk and feeds per day, discourage night feedings and push to wean mainly to infant formula by the first birthday, even as the World Health Organization recommends two years or beyond. La Leche League, in contrast, is adamantly pro-breastfeeding. Everything from mood regulation, antibodies, and even dental care is attributed to the practice, with some women often eluding cultural norms to maintain nursing well past age four. Perhaps Mary Boyle would be one of those women today. As this 17th century work suggests, women's and infant health are ever-evolving realms. Infant mortality is still at nearly nine percent in Mississippi, for instance, believed to be linked to a variety of factors such as birth defects and maternal health complications. The museum does not use this work as a discussion point per se, but welcomes children and mothers to the space with its hanging. For all the treasures on campus, this one reminds us of the artwork most priceless: life itself.
BBC News
03-07-2025
- BBC News
Replica 17th Century Spanish galleon visits Douglas Bay
A replica 17th Century Spanish ship has arrived in Manx waters. Operated by Fundación Nato Victoria, Galéon Andalucía is 160ft (48m) long and weighs about 500 tonnes and serves as a floating on ships that were primarily Spanish and used in long trade routes or maritime discovery expeditions during the period, the replica galleon was built in vessel arrived on Tuesday evening and is set to be in Douglas Harbour until Monday, however Wednesday's booked visits had to be postponed after tidal conditions made it unsafe to access the vessel. The armed trade ships journeyed between Spain, America and the Philippines in fleets between the 15th and 17th centuriesThe full size replica vessel, which tours the globe, took four years and 10 months to create, including a 16-month construct period. The vessel has a number of interactive exhibits, videos and projections on ship is next due to set sail for Whitehaven. Read more stories from the Isle of Man on the BBC, watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer and follow BBC Isle of Man on Facebook and X.
BBC News
02-07-2025
- General
- BBC News
Gloucester Cathedral organ's 'hybrid' sound during £3m refurb
An organ that had its 3,600 pipes removed after a technical failure can be heard thanks to speakers playing the sound from a different organ when the organist plays the 17th Century organ at Gloucester Cathedral can be heard via "a sort of hybrid virtual sound using sampled sound from Hereford Cathedral", said Jonathan Hope, assistant director of Hope said it is "probably the only time that will ever happen", adding that new pipes are being fitted, with the organ expected to be ready for Easter service next replacement is part of a £3m project called In Tune which will also see a singing and organ academy set up. Mr Hope said: "Half of the campaign is to fund the new cathedral organ and get new pipes into this historic case which dates from 1666."It's been changed four or five times [in 360 years], so this is the latest incarnation and sort of like changing your car engine." The pipes are made at a specialist company in Leeds and then sent to Nicholson and Co in Malvern, who are making the new organ, where they are Atherton, head voicer at Nicholson and Co, who has tuned more than 3,000 of the pipes by hand, used to be a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral. "It takes a lot of love, a lot of time and a lot of effort to do this. Some of these pipes have spoken for 200 years," he said the cathedral is one of the most beautiful liturgical buildings in the world, with the most beautiful acoustics, but actually having sung with the organ, it is a "privilege and massive honour" to build a new one."This will be one of the projects that will be a sort of career-making one for me," he added. Speaking on the new academy, the Dean of Gloucester, The Very Reverend Andrew Zihni, said he hopes it will give an opportunity for young people of all sorts of different traditions and backgrounds to have "access to the wonderful music that is here".Work to install the new organ starts later this year.
Reuters
20-06-2025
- Science
- Reuters
Wreck of 17th century Swedish warship found off Finland
Researchers have identified a shipwreck off Porkkala, in southern Finland, as the Swedish warship 'Falken,' a 17th-century vessel built in Stockholm and considered the 'little sister' of the iconic Vasa ship.
