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Tag Archives: Francis Drake

Hendrick Avercamp, Comments & the News

02 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, History

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Balthasar van der Ast, Francis Drake, Hendrick Avercamp, Martin Frobisher, Netherlands, Still-life Paintings, Walter Raleigh

Winter Landscape, Hendrick Avercamp (Photo credit: Wikimedia)
Winter Landscape, Hendrick Avercamp
(Photo credit: Wikimedia)
 

Looking at the Past Week

It was not an easy week for this author. If there is any way to avoid bunions, use it. The only possible cause I can think of, in my case, is being made to look feminine by wearing shoes that had high heels and a pointed front. However, the cause could be genetic. At any rate, try to avoid the surgery. Your doctor will supply you with morphine and codeine, but if you kill the pain entirely, you may not notice that there is infection.

The week was otherwise rather pleasant and informative.  We saw that:

  • Sir Walter Raleigh was instrumental in spreading the love of tobacco in Europe.
  • We were introduced to Queen Elizabeth I’s four “sea dogs:” Sir Francis Drake, Sir Martin Frobisher, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Walter Raleigh. All four participated in repelling the Spanish Armada (1588).
  • We noted that there was “legitimate” piracy. These legitimate pirates were called privateers and made a fortune on their own, but they were also in the service of the Crown: Elizabeth the first’s England. Although they were privateers in England, they were pirates in the eyes of the enemy du jour, Spain.
  • Furthermore, we have associated the rise of capitalism with explorations.  I did not know about the Muscovy Trading Company.  But as a Canadian, I was familiar with the Hudson’s Bay Company.
  • We saw that still-life painting in the seventeenth-century Netherlands were Vanitas. They reminded human beings of their mortality.
  • We met Balthasar van der Ast, his brother-in-law Ambrosius Bosschaert, his three Bosschaert nephews and Roelandt Savery, an artist but also a scientist.
  • I nearly forgot the unfortunate dodo. Savery made paintings of the now extinct dodo.

Hendrick Avercamp: Winter and Playing Golf on Ice

And now that winter is here, we are being introduced to Hendrick Avercamp, a seventeenth-century Dutch artist who painted many lovely winter scenes. Thanks to the internet, we can see that in the Netherlands of the seventeenth century, people played golf on ice wearing skates and looked very much as though they were playing hockey. Moreover, in the Netherlands one could commute quickly by skating down frozen waterways. As well, notice the shape of the roofs.

(click on picture to enlarge) 
Winter Landscape with Skaters, by  Henrick Avercamp

Winter Landscape with Skaters, by Hendrick Avercamp

The News

English
The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/
The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The Montreal Gazette: http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html
Le Monde diplomatique: http://mondediplo.com/ EN
 
CBC News: http://www.cbc.ca/news/
CTV News: http://www.ctvnews.ca/
CNN News: http://www.cnn.com/
 
French:
Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/
Le Monde diplomatique: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/
Le Devoir: http://www.ledevoir.com/
La Presse: http://www.lapresse.ca/
 
German:
Die Welt: http://www.welt.de/
 
composer: Antonio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741),
piece:  The Seasons, Winter, 2nd movement, piano arrangement
performers: Apollo Chamber Ensemble 
 
 
 
Related articles
  • Sir Martin Frobisher as Privateer and Hero to his Queen (michelinewalker.com)
  • Comments on Simon Frobisher as Privateer (michelinewalker.com)
  • Still-life Paintings: Vanitas Vanitatum (michelinewalker.com)
  • Roelandt Savery: from Flowers to the Dodo (michelinewalker.com)
  • The Bosschaert “Dynasty,” Jan Davidsz de Heem & Bartholomeus Assteyn (michelinewalker.com)

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Comments on Simon Frobisher as Privateer

28 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in History

≈ Comments Off on Comments on Simon Frobisher as Privateer

Tags

Alexandre Dumas, Francis Drake, John Hawkins, Martin Frobisher, Muscovy Company, Spanish Armada, Tower of London, Walter Raleigh

The Spanish Armada[i]

Some posts require more tags than one would suspect.  Frobisher was an explorer, a gold digger, a privateer, one of the men who repelled the “invincible” Spanish Armada, and the sort of character one expects to find in novels written by Robert Louis Stevenson or Alexandre Dumas père. Moreover, although Martin Frobisher explored a new world, his own native world was entering a new age.

Privateers & loyal servants to their Queen

Queen Elizabeth had four trusted seamen who were destined to belong to legend, if only for their role in defeating the Spanish Armada. Hawkins was an admiral and Drake, a vice-admiral, but they were also privateers, not pirates, and it is mainly as privateers that they could be protagonists in novels written by Stevenson or Alexandre Dumas père. As the list below indicates, Frobisher was in excellent company and all four Sea Dogs fought to repel the Spanish Armada. Here are their names and dates:

  • Sir Francis Drake (1540 – 27 January 1596);
  • Sir Martin Frobisher (c. 1535 or 1539 – 15 November 1594);
  • Sir John Hawkins (Plymouth 1532 – 12 November 1595);
  • Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1554 – 29 October 1618).

Of the four, Sir Walter Raleigh is the more legendary. He married secretly which angered Elizabeth. She had him and his wife thrown into the Tower of London, but Sir Walter Raleigh bought his release. He was nevertheless beheaded, unjustly, for his alleged involvement in a plot to kill King James I.[ii]

Explorers

Our four Sea Dogs were explorers.

  • Sir Francis Drake was the second seaman to circumnavigate the globe, a feat carried out from 1577 to 1580.
  • Between 1584 and 1589, Sir Walter Raleigh tried to establish a colony near Roanoke Island (the present North Carolina) but failed. He made tobacco popular in England, and he fought against Spain in her colonies.
  • Sir John Hawkins was a slave-trader and he built her Majesty’s navy.
  • As for Sir Martin Frobisher, although he did so inadvertently, he nevertheless discovered the Hudson Strait which led to the Hudson Bay and, therefore, to North America’s gold: beaver pelts. He is a Canadian explorer.
(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

Ivan IV of Russia Shows His Treasury to Jerome Horsey (Alexander Litovchenko, 1875)

Capitalism

My post on Frobisher also allowed a brief peak at capitalism. Michael Lok of the Muscovy Company found investors who made it possible for Frobisher to embark on his three expeditions.

According to Wikipedia,[iii] the Muscovy Company, or Московская компания, was the first major chartered joint stock company. Europeans had learned to pool their money and enter into ventures that could fail but could also be extremely profitable. For instance, Prince Rupert invited individuals to buy shares that would allow the establishment of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Hudson’s Bay Company was established in 1670 and remains active.

Music

I chose a piece by Henry Purcell (10 September 1659 (?)– 21 November 1695), a seventeenth-century composer. I love Purcell. But John Dowland (1563 – buried 20 February 1626) may have been a better choice. He was a Renaissance composer of lute songs and Lachrimae, a genre epitomized by his own “Flow my Tears.”

RELATED ARTICLES:
“Flow my Tears,” by John Dowland
Sir Martin Frobisher as Privateer and Hero to his Queen (November 26, 2012)
Sir Martin Frobisher: the First Thanksgiving (November 25, 2012) 

_________________________

[i] Armada, Spanish: Spanish Armada off the coast England. Photograph. Britannica Online for Kids. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. 
<http://kids.britannica.com/elementary/art-76585>.
 
[ii] “Sir Walter Raleigh.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 27 Nov. 2012
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/490271/Sir-Walter-Raleigh>.
 
[iii] “The Muscovy Company had a monopoly on trade between England and Muscovy until 1698 and it survived as a trading company until the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Muscovy Company traces its roots to the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands [long title], founded in 1551 by Richard Chancellor, Sebastian Cabot and Sir Hugh Willoughby, who decided to look for the Northeast Passage to China.” (The Muscovy Company, Wikipedia)
 
composer: John Dowland (1563 – buried 20 February 1626)
piece: Lachrimae Antiquae 
performers: Jordi Savall, Hespérion XX

 
© Micheline Walker
November 27th, 2012
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