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Artefacts of more or less rigid construction produced by the interlacing of linear materials. Basketwork is of considerable antiquity (dating from at least 8000 bc in Egypt and Peru) and in one form or other has been practised almost everywhere in the world.

Basketry materials vary according to the environment of the basketmaker: the wood, bark, roots, shoots, stems, leaves and fibre of hundreds of trees and plants can be used. With few exceptions, these materials take time to find, select, gather and prepare. Many require pounding, stripping, splitting, gauging, drying, dyeing, bleaching or soaking before they can be used. The acquisition and preparation of materials often takes longer than the actual making of the basket.

Many of the baskets of northern and western Europe are made from rods of osier or basket willow. In North America splint baskets are made from split ash, oak, maple and hickory in the east; ...

Green variety of Beryl, mined in Upper Egypt and India from antiquity and in Colombia both before and after the Spanish Conquest. Nero is said to have watched gladiatorial contests through an emerald. The two best-known emeralds are the Devonshire Emerald (London, Nat. Hist. Mus.) and the Patricia Emerald (New York, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist.). The most famous historical emeralds are the 453 emeralds (totalling ...

Pre-Columbian culture and art style that flourished in northern coastal Peru during the Early Intermediate Period, between c. 300 bce and c. 200 ce. It was named after the site of Gallinazo (Sp. “turkey buzzard”) in the Virú valley, which was excavated by the American archaeologist Wendell Bennett in 1936. The Gallinazo culture has been shown to have succeeded that of Salinar in the Virú, Moche, and Chicama valleys. Gallinazo architecture in the Virú valley was characterized by a honeycomb dwelling pattern. Some of the walls of the buildings were decorated with cut-out designs in tapia (puddled clay) and adobe mosaics, such as the frieze at El Carmelo. The Gallinazo culture as represented in the Virú valley was subdivided by Bennett into three phases, on the basis of changes in building methods and pottery styles. Gallinazo I is characterized by incised and punch-decorated pottery with some use of negative-painted decoration, which involved covering the design areas in a heat-resistant substance and then firing it. The substance was removed after firing, leaving the negative design. In Gallinazo II most pottery was decorated using negative painting. Small lugs, mainly in bird and animal form, were often added. A basic change took place during Gallinazo III, due to outside influences from the ...

(b Falmouth, Trelawny, Dec 31, 1920; d Jan 31, 2010).

Jamaican painter. He came to the attention of the Institute of Jamaica in the late 1930s, when he also received his early training from the Armenian artist Koren der Harootian (1909–1991). He was assistant to Edna Manley during her art classes at the Junior Centre, Kingston, in the early 1940s. He went on to study at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto, and at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, London. He was founding tutor in painting at the Jamaica School of Art and Crafts, Kingston, in 1950. Huie is best known as a landscape and genre painter. More effectively than any other Jamaican artist he captured the shimmering, atmospheric quality of the Jamaican landscape and the rhythm of life in the rural areas. Some of his works have socio-political overtones and express nationalist sentiments and his sympathy for the working class. He also made his mark as a portrait painter; his earliest major works are portraits, among them a portrait of ...

[Cuba]

Town and regional centre in Azerbaijan. It was founded in the 15th century on the right bank of the Kudial River as a small fortress in the foothills of the Caucasus, and by the 16th century a system of fortifications had developed. The town reached its apogee in the 18th century under the khāns of Kuba who made it the capital of their kingdom (1744–89). The city walls enclosed a higgledy-piggledy mass of streets and buildings stretched out along the river. The palace (destr.) was situated on the river bank, with its façade turned toward the Djuma (Friday) Mosque. From the 1840s the town developed on a more regular plan. The main street, with the district council building, the apothecary and the houses of the nobility, ran east–west from Baku Gate to Gamsar Gate. Bazaar Square near the palace had a caravanserai on the north, the house of Major-General Bakikhanov opposite, and small shops and booths along the east and west sides. The architect ...

Term for the return of lost or looted cultural objects to their country of origin, former owners, or their heirs. The loss of the object may happen in a variety of contexts (armed conflicts, war, colonialism, imperialism, or genocide), and the nature of the looted cultural objects may also vary, ranging from artworks, such as paintings and sculptures, to human remains, books, manuscripts, and religious artefacts. An essential part of the process of restitution is the seemingly unavoidable conflict around the transfer of the objects in question from the current to the former owners. Ownership disputes of this nature raise legal, ethical, and diplomatic issues. The heightened tensions in the process arise because the looting of cultural objects challenges, if not breaks down, relationships between peoples, territories, cultures, and heritages.

The history of plundering and art imperialism may be traced back to ancient times. Looting has been documented in many instances from the sack by the Romans of the Etruscan city of Veii in ...

(b Rio de Janeiro, Aug 5, 1923).

Israeli architect of Brazilian birth. Both his South American background and his student apprenticeship with Oscar Niemeyer (1944–8) influenced his approach to design. Emigrating to Israel in 1949, he worked in the office of Ze’ev Rechter and then as a partner of Heinz Rau until 1958. With Rau he designed two buildings at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem for which he was awarded the Israeli Rechter Prize for Architecture in 1964. In 1958 he opened his own practice in Jerusalem, designing many public buildings including the Engineers’ Institute and Journalists’ Association (both 1966). These buildings, executed in cut stone, represent simple block forms with horizontal openings and show modern influences. The Kennedy Memorial (1966), Soldier’s House (1970) and Jerusalem Centre for Near Eastern Studies (1988–9) are all inspired by local motifs of form and space, using load-bearing stone walls and arched openings....

(b Cajabamba, Cajamarca, Mar 19, 1888; d Lima, Dec 15, 1956).

Peruvian painter, printmaker, and teacher. In 1908 he traveled to Italy, where he spent two years studying at the Escuela Libre de Desnudo and the Acadamia Española de Roma. After leaving Italy, Sabogal traveled to North Africa then to Spain before moving on to Buenos Aires in 1912, where he studied at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes. From 1913 to 1918 he taught art as a drawing professor at the Escuela Normal de Jujuy while exhibiting his paintings at various venues. He returned to Peru in 1918, making connections with local artists while also painting landscapes and scenes of daily life. The works from this period were exhibited in 1919 at the Casa Brandes, Lima, where they caused a considerable stir. He taught at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, Lima, from 1920 until 1922, when he stepped down to embark on a trip throughout various points in Latin America, ending in Mexico. There he met artists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, which engendered in Sabogal a determination to promote Peruvian art internationally....

(b Santiago, Sept 9, 1931; d Santiago, May 18, 1993).

Chilean sculptor. He studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Santiago under the Chilean sculptors Julio Antonio Vásquez (b 1900), Lily Garáfulic (1914–2012), and Marta Colvin. He left Chile in 1958 for Spain, France, and Morocco, settling in Spain in 1961 but returning to Chile in 1974 to produce a number of works, including an important commission for the Parque de las Esculturas in Santiago (Bandaged Torso; stone, h. 1.62 m, installed 1989), before leaving again for Spain.

Valdivieso worked in bronze and in stone (granite, limestone, diorite, and basalt). Much of his work was concerned with natural forms, conveyed with a directness of feeling. Approaching mass through a process of gradual abstraction, Valdivieso sought a balance between the visual and tactile qualities of his materials and the meanings implicit to their forms. He often formulated his sculptures first in easily molded, ductile materials, which he then translated into the final work. He particularly favored chrome-plated bronze for its accentuation of the surface with its brilliant finish....