Wikipedia Experience

I have done, with my group of work, a Basque version of the Troy (film) article in Wikipedia.

Firstly, it is important to mention that it has been a good experience and, in my opinion, a productive one, because there are not many sources in Wikipedia in Basque. It has been satisfactory to contribute to the labour of introducing Basque in the net

Apart from that, I have realised that there are not many information about some topics that are really interesting. I just could aport information to one article but I am sure I will continue investigating and aporting my knowledge about those topic that are not developed.

Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt has had a very large career as a actor, and he still has it. As it is said in the article of the New York Times, “Mr. Pitt has been a star first and an actor second.” He has done really good films as Troy, Mr and Mrs Smith,  Thelma and Louise or Ocean´s. But, why is Brad Pitt´s case odd?

Pitt is, as we know, an acclaimed actor, but he is also in the celebrities world, what is not well seen anywhere:

His every move — on film sets and red carpets and humanitarian missions, often with a hard-to-miss entourage that includes his partner, Angelina Jolie, and their six children — provides endless fodder for the celebrity media. But the Brad Pitt on screen remains surprisingly elusive

It means that he is a superstar but not as all Hollywood´s superstars: “He has steered clear of action franchises and romantic comedies, the typical cornerstones of a major 21st-century screen career”.

To understand what type of superstar Brad Pitt is and his role in the film´s world, it is too important to know that:

People seldom talk about his range, but he’s equally capable of flamboyance (“12 Monkeys”) and restraint (” The curious case of Benjamin Button”). And while acting, for stars of a certain magnitude, is often a matter of aura, of simply being themselves, Mr. Pitt has shown a sly understanding of the uses of charisma: some of his most intriguing films (“Fight Club”, “The assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”) are self-reflexive comments on his obvious magnetism.

Reference

- The New York Times, Times topics: Brad Pitt. Retrieved on Sunday, March 18, 2012.  URL: http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/p/brad_pitt/index.html?scp=2&sq=brad%20pitt&st=cse

WCPlan: Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Arturo Pérez-Reverte  is a Spanish novelist and jourlalist, appart from been member of the Royal Spanish Academy. He usually uses social networks to promote himself and his own work. There have been analised different webs that Pérez-Reverte uses as promotion as Twitter, Facebook, or his official web.

Regarding Twitter, all people know that Pérez- Reverte posts his own tweets, so his Twitter is not often done by anyone but he. This is a very important point his fans take into account. They know that his tweets are made by him and it is something that they really like. Example:

@perezreverte Lola no tiene tele en el bar. Así que me voy a casa a ver el telediario. Fue un placer, como siempre. Gracias por la compañía

Maya Angelou y el racismo

“The main thing in one’s own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry“. Estas palabras fueron pronunciadas por Maya Angelou con una clara intención: la de concienciar a sus “hermanos” de que, por mucho que haya sufrimiento en sus vidas -en la mayoría de los casos los negros sufren el racismo de la sociedad- siempre deben tratar de ser felices.

Maya Angelou es una de las escritoras afroamericanas más famosas del mundo. Su obra más exitosa es la serie de novelas autobiográficas que se inicia con I know why the caged bird sings (1970), en la que describe las vidas de unos afroamericanos con un lenguaje ingenioso. En casi todas sus obras denuncia el racismo, y exalta el valor, la perseverancia, la supervivencia y la propia estimación. Su infancia en Arkansas fue dura debido a ciertas leyes sobre el racismo vigentes en aquella época, y esta se ve reflejada en todas sus novelas y poemas.

El racismo en Estados Unidos ha sido manifestado por los estadounidenses de antepasados anglosajones contra los afroamericanos. Después de su liberación durante la guerra civil por Abraham Lincoln, los estados del sur (como por ejemplo Arkansas, donde vivía Maya Angelou) crearon una variedad de leyes para discriminar a ciudadanos negros. Este fenómeno se conoce como la “Reconstrucción“. Como los estados no podían eliminar los derechos de los negros (que son garantizados en la constitución), se usó en su reemplazo la “Segregación” que fue legal por muchos años bajo la idea de “Separated but Equal“. La idea era que mientras las oportunidades que eran otorgadas fueran iguales para ambas etnias, esto era legal.

La realidad era que, las oportunidades sociales (educativas, de empleo, de vivienda o económicas) no eran iguales para todos. Las escuelas públicas para blancos, por ejemplo, mostraban ésta separación y discriminación recibiendo más dinero y materiales de la administración pública mientras que las escuelas para negros recibían lo mínimo posible.

Esta ley precisamente, es la que marca uno de los relatos de Maya Angelou en I know why the caged bird sings, llamado “La graduación”. En este relato, la autora narra cómo los centros educativos estaban divididos según la condición étnico-racial. Había dos escuelas para negros (Lafayette Country Training School and Fisk University) y una para blancos (The Central School), lo que conveirte esto en el mayor signo de discriminación que aparece en el relato. Como se explica, la escuela blanca recibía mayor cantidad de dinero de las administraciones además de tener mejores infraestructuras.En su pueblo, la diferenciación entre negros y blancos y los sentimientos de superioridad de unos frente a otros eran frecuentes.

Pero además de las cuestiones económicas, en  “La Graduación” también se recoge la idea de las oportunidades que tenían los negros de la época para su futuro:

“Los muchachos blancos iban a tener la oportunidad de llegar a ser Galileos, Madame Curies, y Gauguins y nuestros chicos (con las chicas ni siquiera se contaba para esto) intentarían ser Jesse Owenses (atleta de origen afroamericano y ganador de cuatro medallas de oro en los Juegos Olímpicos de Berlin 1936) y Joe Louises (boxeador estadounidense negro y campeón del mundo de peso pesado). (…)Donleavy nos lo negó todo. Sólo éramos sirvientas y granjeros, chicos de los recados y lavanderas”

La distinción entre blancos-científicos y negros-deportistas era un estereotipo muy extendido. La autora muestra un claro enfado ante este discurso, cuando se da cuenta de lo que la sociedad espera de ella y de sus compañeros. Explica cómo no había pensado antes y que le produce una enorme tristeza, el hecho de no poder elegir su propio futuro por la mera condición de ser negra.

Referencias

• “Entre dos mundos”, Aitor Ibarrola, 2004
• WorldLingo, “Era de la reconstrucción de estados Unidos” http://www.multilingualarchive.com/ma/enwiki/es/Reconstruction_era_of_the_United_States

The brilliant movement of the 12th centuty: Gothic art

“¿Quién no queda fascinado al contemplar las maravillosas catedrales góticas españolas como la de Toledo, Burgos, León, Sevilla, Palma de Mallorca o las extranjeras como Notre Dame (Francia), la de Colonia (Alemania), o la de Salesbury (Inglaterra)?” This quiestion is made by the historian professor Ricardo Murillo in the magazine “Entre colegas”. But, appart from been captivated by the  Gothic Art, do we really know what is it about? By what type of art is influenced? Or, what are its features?

The Gothic Art is related to the Early Middle Ages, after the Romantic art. It is an European artistic style with a chronology that fluctuates approximately between 1140 and the last decades of the XVI century, depending on the place. It is considerated one of the most important moments from the artistic point of view. This art was used in architecture, paintings and sculptures. But, do you know the characteristics of this movement?

The term “gothic” was put on use by rich people from the Renaissance in a pejorative sense, to refer the Middle Ages art, what they considered inferior and barbarian.

Despite it is a continuation of the Romantic, in the Gothic there are many different and opposite attitudes. While the Romantic style is kown thanks to its darkness and meditation, the Gothic involves the opposite: light, colour, expressiveness and naturalism. But it has differences depending on the place where it is made. For example, there are many differences between the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris (from the French school) and the Cathedral of León, Spain (from the Spanish school). Appart from these schools (French and Spanish) there are others very important such as Portuguese or Italian school. Those schools created Gothic style in three main types of art: sculpture, painting and architecture.

The Gothic sculpture is characterized by the interest in nature. It still has the monumental and hug character of the romantic art but figures have more expressivity and they are more “humans”. These sculptures express more feelings such as happiness, sadness, pain… In the sculptures of this style portraits make a comeback. The exterior of the temples is progressively filled with decoration that, as has been said, is foccused on plants, humans and feellings.

What more radically changes in the Gothic style is the painting. It lose its “natural” place and it starts to be in stained glass windows. That explains the limited development of Gothic painting. There are three different phases in the gothic painting. The first one is the Lineal Gothic. This is the first phase and appears in the 1200 when the painting has an special attraction to the lines that defines the outlines. This type of gothig painting persist during all the 13^th century and the early moments og the 14^th century. The second one is the Italian Gothic. This is the next style and it is developed mostly in Sienna and Florence. In this style, the black line disappears. They want to inprove their technique, the study of space, the lineal perspective, the light and the degradation of colours. And the third is the International Gothic. This is the last phase and takes place in the 11^th century. In that period the Italian influences were mixed with the French influences, giving rise to excellent results.

As has been said in ArteLista, “if there is anything that characterices the gothic spirit is the architecture“. Gothic architectures typical expression is the cathedral, where we find all the elements of this style. This type of architecture has three distinct characteristics which set it apart from Romanesque architecture:

• Pointed arches: The use of them was an important innovation. During the Gothic era, builders discovered that pointed arches would give structures amazing strength and stability. Before it, during the Romanesque, they were used but builders didn’t capitalize on the shape.
• Ribbed vault: Gothic builders introduced the echnique of ribbed vaulting. Firstly it was used the barrel vaulting (it carried weight on continuous solid walls) but in the Gothic era the ribbed started to be used (they used columns to support the weight)
• Flying buttresses. In order to prevent the outward collapse of the arches, Gothic architects began using this revolutionary system. Freestanding brick or stone supports were attached to the exterior walls by an arch or a half-arch.

References

• Isabel in “Geografía e historia”, Caracteres generales de la escultura Gótica. Published 2011.02.12. Retrieved 2011.11.26 http://geografiahistoriamontesorientales.blogspot.com/2011/02/caracteres-generales-de-la-escultura.html
• Jesús A. Manzaneque Casero in “Historia del arte”, La escultura gótica. Retreived 2011.11.27 http://almez.pntic.mec.es/~jmac0005/Bach_Arte/gotico/escultura_gotica1.htm
• Jesús A. Manzaneque Casero in “Historia del arte”, La pintura gótica. Retrieved 2011.11.27 http://almez.pntic.mec.es/~jmac0005/Bach_Arte/gotico/pintura_gotica1.htm
• La pintura gótica, características generales y la escuela de los primitivos flamencos. Retrieved 2011.11.27 http://www.alu.ua.es/l/lrr9/pintura_gotica.htm
• In “History Link 101″, Gothic Architecture Retrieved 2011.11.27 http://www.historylink101.com/lessons/art_history_lessons/ma/gothic_architecture.htm