Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Jazz Music essays

Jazz Music essays Jazz has been an influence in many artist's work, from painting to other forms of music. Jazz is an American music form that was developed from African-American work songs. The white man began to imitate them in the 1920's and the music form caught on and became very popular. Two artists that were influenced by jazz were Jean-Michel Basquiat and Stuart Davis. The influence is quite evident in many of their works, such as Horn Players, by Basquiat, and Swing Landscape, by Davis. Stuart Davis was born in Philadelphia in 1894. He grew up in an artistic environment, his father was art director of a Philadelphia newspaper, who had employed Luks, Glackens, and other members of the Eight. He studied with Robert Henri from 1910 to 1913, made covers and drawings for the social realist periodical The Masses, which was associated with the Ash-can School, and exhibited watercolors in the Armory Show, which made an overwhelming impact on him. After a visit to Paris in 1928 he introduced a new note into U.S. cubism, basing himself on its synthetic rather than its analytical phase. Using natural forms, particularly forms suggesting the characteristic environment of American life, he rearranged them into flat poster-like patterns with precise outlines and sharply contrasting colors. He later went on to pure abstract patterns, into which he often introduced lettering, suggestions of advertisements, and posters. The zest and dynamism of such works as Swing Landscape reflect his interest in jazz, which Davis considered to be the counterpart to abstract art. Davis is often considered to be the outstanding American artist to work in a cubism idiom. He made witty and original use of it and created a distinctive American style, for however abstract his works became he always claimed that every image he used had its source in observed reality. Davis once said " I paint what I see in America, in other words I paint the American scene." ...

Sunday, March 1, 2020

8 Rules About Punctuation and Quotation Marks

8 Rules About Punctuation and Quotation Marks 8 Rules About Punctuation and Quotation Marks 8 Rules About Punctuation and Quotation Marks By Mark Nichol The use of full or partial quotation marks or of paraphrases calls for attention to detail and adherence to a few punctuation rules. Notice that the examples below are deliberately incorrect. 1. â€Å"Most agree the word means something like: This stream meanders through something red.’† The words in the quotation collectively serve the grammatical function of a noun and are not set off from the attribution by a comma or a colon. 2. â€Å"The motto, ‘Might makes right’ applies here.† In this similar case, â€Å"the motto† is an appositive for â€Å"Might makes right,† just as in â€Å"the Web site DailyWritingTips.com,† â€Å"the Web site† is an appositive of the site’s name: â€Å"The motto ‘Might makes right’ applies here.† To insert a comma implies that this is the only existing motto (though there should then be one after right as well to complete the restrictive phrase). 3. â€Å"According to the book, at the first sign of an outbreak, ‘Children were whisked home from summer camps in the middle of the night.’† If an incomplete quotation is completed by a preceding paraphrase, lowercase the first word of the partial quotation unless it is a proper noun. In this case, â€Å"at the first sign of an outbreak† substitutes for the missing introductory phrase: â€Å"According to the book, at the first sign of an outbreak, ‘children were whisked home from summer camps in the middle of the night.’† In scholarly writing, the first letter of children should be bracketed to clarify that it was capitalized in the original source, but that nicety is unnecessary in general. 4. â€Å"He concluded that what America needs most is a â€Å"guiding belief† for citizens, industry, and government.† This sentence is essentially correct, but when a partial quote consists of such a brief phrase, ask yourself whether the quotation marks are justified; why not just paraphrase the entire sentence?: â€Å"He concluded that what America needs most is a guiding belief for citizens, industry, and government.† 5. â€Å"Her response was that she had ‘definitely locked the door on my way out.’† A writer might deem it crucial to retain a partial quote, but if the speaker uses the first person, the quotation won’t fit the reportorial third-person framing, and a paraphrase is necessary: â€Å"Her response was that she had definitely locked the door on her way out.† (Alternatively, you could paraphrase part of the direct quote â€Å"Her response was that she had ‘definitely locked the door’ on her way out† but, again, with diminishing returns.) 6. â€Å"The question is which selection is better?† This is a conjectural question not literally stated, so it is only tangentially related to the other examples here, but it’s important to point out that such constructions should include a comma: â€Å"The question is, which turnoff did she take?† (However, when the sentence is not stated as a question, the comma should be omitted: â€Å"The question is which selection is better.†) 7. When asked to clarify his earlier statement, he said: ‘I have nothing to add.’† Writers frequently introduce a statement with a colon rather than a comma, but this construction is awkward, because a colon invites the reader to put on the brakes, rather than just slow down, a fleeting action the more flexible comma invites: â€Å"When asked to clarify his earlier statement, he said, ‘I have nothing to add.’† (See also the second example, above.) Do retain the colon, however, when the attribution is an independent clause, as here: â€Å"He made this shocking public statement: ‘I think there is a fair chance Perth will be the twenty-first century’s first ghost metropolis.’† 8. â€Å"‘This [the subway bombing] is a minor thing that will develop into something major,’ she added.† When scholarly standards or journalistic integrity demands an exact quotation, but a full statement isn’t available, here’s the conventional but clunky solution: Provide the rest of what the speaker or writer meant to say or the definite noun they didn’t provide in order to fortify your class or reporting assignment within brackets. But note that the bracketed insertion should replace, not supplement, the indefinite subject: â€Å"‘[The subway bombing] is a minor thing that will develop into something major,’ she added.† Alternatively, especially in less-than-formal contexts (or even in newspaper reporting I won’t tell), feel free when you are certain of the intended specifics to employ a handy technique called silent correction. In other words, bail on the brackets: â€Å"The subway bombing is a minor thing that will develop into something major,† she added.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:10 Grammar Mistakes You Should AvoidCapitalization Rules for the Names of GamesDozen: Singular or Plural?