British author , (1835 - 1902) Samuel Butler was born on Dec. 4, 1835, in Langar, near Bingham, Nottinghamshire, the son of the local vicar. In a time of common paternal absolutism, his childhood seems to have been bleak and graceless. After taking a degree at Cambridge, he came into open conflict with his father over the question of his future profession, and at last he emigrated to New Zealand to become a sheep farmer. But though free of his father, he was not free of revolt, and the spirit of resentful rebelliousness marked much of his later life. In New Zealand he read Charles Darwin's Origin of Species and wrote a series of newspaper articles setting forth Darwin's ideas and ingeniously applying the evolutionary hypothesis to machines. Having made a modest fortune, he returned to England in 1864. Erewhon (1872), Butler's first book, is a mixture of satire, utopian theories, and serious speculation masked as whimsy. Set in the frame of a trip to an unknown land (Erewhon is an anagram of "no-where"), it has no real plot but is rather a description and discussion of the customs and institutions of Erewhon. In this land moral failings are treated as mental illness and cured by a "straightener," but physical illness and misfortune are considered crimes and severely punished. Children sign certificates absolving their parents of responsibility for their birth, and education is carried on in the College of Unreason. Butler's reflections on orthodox religion, begun in New Zealand, issued in The Fair Haven (1873), an ironic attempt to reconcile the New Testament with rationalistic criticism. In Life and Habit he returned to the question of evolution. In Evolution Old and New (1879), Unconscious Memory (1880), and Luck, or Cunning? (1887), he developed his ideas with an increasingly self-righteous resentment of what he conceived to be the Darwinians' deliberate concealment of the truth. Butler hoped to be able to restore will, intelligence, and design to a universe apparently made meaningless by the blind process of natural selection. The novel The Way of All Flesh, Butler's most famous work, was written between 1872 and 1885. It is the supposed biography of Ernest Pontifex, narrated by an older friend with an unrelenting candor deliberately affronting conventional pieties.   Related Paintings of Samuel Butler :. | Entering the Woods A Hunt | Votive panel from St. Lambrecht Abbey, The Virgin of Mercy | Meadow with farmer and grazing goats | life-boat and manby apparatus going off to a stranded vessel | View of the River Tosno |
Related Artists:
Sir William Beechey
1753-1839 British English painter. He was trained as a lawyer before entering the Royal Academy Schools, London, in 1772. He is thought to have studied under Johan Zoffany, and his earliest surviving portraits are small-scale full-lengths and conversation pieces in Zoffanys manner (e.g. The Custance Conversation Piece, c. 1786; priv. col.). Beechey first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1776. In 1782 he moved to Norwich, where he gained several commissions, but he was back in London by 1787. In 1789 he exhibited a portrait of John Douglas, Bishop of Carlisle (London, Lambeth Pal.) that is remarkable for its facility of handling. Beechey would occasionally paint similarly inspired works, but his career is marked by a succession of unflamboyant but competent portraits in the tradition of Joshua Reynolds.
George French Angas
(1844-1932), was a portrait painter. was an English explorer, naturalist and painter. He was the eldest son of George Fife Angas, prominent in the establishment of the new colony of South Australia. Despite showing remarkable talent in drawing, he was placed in a London business house by his father. He left on a tour of Europe and in 1842 published his first book, "Rambles in Malta and Sicily". As a result of this experience, he turned his back on the world of commerce, and directed his training towards a study of natural history, anatomical drawing and lithography. Embarking on his travels, he was soon to find his acquired skills extremely useful. Angas painted some of the earliest views of South Australia. Arriving in Adelaide in January 1844, he joined Sir George Grey on an expedition into the interior. He soon began an extensive series of journeys to the Murray River lakes, Barossa Valley, Fleurieu Peninsula and the South East, presenting his impressions of the newly established colony ?C its inhabitants, landscape, and its flora and fauna. Following a trip to New Zealand he returned to South Australia in 1845 and travelled to Port Lincoln. In the following year he returned for a short while to England. His next journey in 1846 was to South Africa, where he spent two years in Natal and the Cape, working on a series of drawings and watercolours which were published in 1849 as The Kafirs Illustrated. In this book were views of Cape Town, Durban, Wynberg, Genadendal, Paarl and Somerset West and plates depicting the local ethnic groups such as Hottentots, Malays and Zulus. He married Alicia Mary Moran in 1849, the marriage producing four daughters. In 1853 he was appointed to a position at the Australian Museum in Sydney, eventually becoming Director and staying a total of seven years. He was in Sydney when gold was first discovered near Bathurst, New South Wales. Travelling there to record the gold diggings he executed a number of drawings of the scenes that he found. These were published in Sydney and subsequently in London. Angas returned to South Australia in 1860, and finally went back to England in 1863.
Nicolas Vleughels
French , Paris 1668/69-Rome 1737