Falling in love Essay Example for Free

Falling in love Essay English romantic poet John Keats was born on October 31st 1795 in London. He lost both parents at an early age and became an apprentice at fifteen with his guardian at his surgery. He became professional in the field but chose to write poetry.  He wrote his best poetry between 1818 and 1819 after falling in love. He died of tuberculosis, the romantic disease, in the autumn of 1856.  La Belle Dame Sans Merci is a very beautiful, magical and captivating poem. It is very mysterious and leaves the reader feeling a little bemused. I had to read this ballad several times before understanding fully what it was about but I think this is only because of the more complex language used. The rhythm is slightly abrupt in places and I think the whole romanticism of this poem would put some readers off. This is a exceptionally beautiful story, very much a fairy tale and is surprisingly simple once the language is mastered. Using many comparisons to nature, the poet strongly emphasizes the wildness of the setting to help back up how wild and naturally beautiful this enchanting woman is.  Beginning with a question and a good one too, this captures attention to the poem easily. Why is the Knight loitering around such a desolate and probably wintered place? And the question is then repeated as if the Knight is in a trance. With a pale face, wrinkles on his brow and a sweat of fever dew he begins to explain in the fourth measure, his story of how he came to be here He met a wild, very beautiful, mystifying woman who, with her faery-like charm wooed him under her spell. She cried and he comforted her. Why was she crying? She then allured him into a dream where he saw many people all pale crying out with large starving mouths in the twilight; La Belle Dame Sans Merci hath thee in thrall! The knight woke sitting on the cold hills side never sleeping, lost in his love for that appealing, beautiful woman who captured him.  There are three stages of tone in this poem: the first, curious and cold, while the second is full of life, beauty and love. In the third section the knight telling the story is quickly brought back to the coldness and death of the hillside where he is cursed to roam. The mystery of this tale helps to captivate the audience and the typical saga of love not being appreciated is something people can strongly relate to making this poem a success!  In La Belle Dame even the romantic French title illustrates beauty whereas Miss Gee is the obvious title for a poem about a very dull person like Miss Gee.  La Belle Dame is a very abstract poem using nature and fairy tale to describe love and heartache. Miss Gee uses unpretentious language and very concrete facts. There is little imagination towards it but this is perfect for conveying such a faint character as Edith Gee. The story of La Belle Dame is about a beautiful woman who captures warriors and princesses with her undying beauty. Unfortunately Miss Gee is the complete opposite- certainly not beautiful and not charming anyone, not even a friend. She would appreciate someone who would be interested in her but the beautiful woman only uses the people who fall for her. The fact that the students who cut up and laugh at Miss Gee are men compares well to the next poem where the woman has power over the men.  The beautiful woman feels no guilt almost making her evil, soul less but Miss Gee even feels guilt for her dreams. This really shows that beauty is only skin deep and Miss Gee never got the chance or had the confidence to prove this Yet through La Belle anyone that got to know her and were captured by her beauty then realized that she was not all she appeared to be- La Belle Dame Sans Merci hath thee in thrall! Both poems take in the issue of loneliness- the brave Knight who can only blame his gullible self and the forlorn Miss Edith who wants so badly to have companionship. Both ballads dont have happy endings- Miss Gees unfortunate death with her body being used for gawking students and the Knight who was left palely loitering.  Overall I preferred La Belle Dame Sans Merci because it is an enchanting story leaving you wondering what happened to the Knight because most fairy tales have a happy ending. The person at the start who asked the question might have helped him escape and the Knight said; that is why I sojourn here. Sojourn means to stay temporarily, which means that maybe the Knight was expecting to break the curse. Being a stereotypical fairytale Knight this escape would be probable.  Miss Gee was sad and deplorable yet it was somewhat realistic- not all lives have a happy ending.

Arthur Goldens Memoirs of a Geisha Essay -- Arthur Golden Memoirs of

Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha Memoirs of a Geisha is a wonderful novel and very informative on geisha life. The book is written by Arthur Golden. Golden earned a degree from Harvard College in art history and his M.A. at Columbia University in Japanese history and he also studied Mandarin Chinese. He worked at Beijing University in Tokyo. Golden studies, credentials, and experience all make him an experience all make him an expert on geisha and Japanese culture. The novel takes place in 1929 in a poor fishing village. The main character is Sayuri, who is nine years old. Her mother dies and she is left to live with her father and older sister. Sayuri’s father can not afford to take care of his daughters. He decides to sell his daughters. The girls are examined and Sayuri’s ol...

Filipino Women Writers and Jose Garcia Villa Essay

Estrella D. Alfon (July 18, 1917 – December 28, 1983) was a well-known prolific Filipina author who wrote in English. Because of continued poor health, she could manage only an A. A. degree from the University of the Philippines. She then became a member of the U. P. writers club and earned and was given the privileged post of National Fellowship in Fiction post at the U. P. Creative Writing Center. She died in the year 1983 at the age of 66. Estrella Alfon was born in Cebu City in 1917. Unlike other writers of her time, she did not come from the intelligentsia. Her parents were shopkeepers in Cebu. [1] She attended college, and studied medicine. When she was mistakenly diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to a sanitarium, she resigned from her pre-medical education, and left with an Associate of Arts degree. Alfon has several children: Alan Rivera, Esmeralda â€Å"Mimi† Rivera, Brian Alfon, Estrella â€Å"Twinkie† Alfon, and Rita â€Å"Daday† Alfon (deceased). She has 10 grandchildren. Her youngest daughter, was a stewardess for Saudi Arabian Airlines, and was part of the Flight 163 crew on August 19, 1980, when an in-flight fire forced the aircraft to land in Riyadh. A delayed evacuation resulted in the death of everyone aboard the flight. Alfon died on December 28, 1983, following a heart attack suffered on-stage during Awards night of the Manila Film Festival. Professional She was a student in Cebu when she first published her short stories, in periodicals such as Graphic Weekly Magazine, Philippine Magazine, and the Sunday Tribune. She was a storywriter, playwright, and journalist. In spite of being a proud Cebuana, she wrote almost exclusively in English. She published her first story, â€Å"Grey Confetti†, in the Graphic in 1935. She was the only female member of the Veronicans, an avant garde group of writers in the 1930s led by Francisco Arcellana and H. R. Ocampo, she was also regarded as their muse. The Veronicans are recognized as the first group of Filipino writers to write almost exclusively in English and were formed prior to the World War II. She is also reportedly the most prolific Filipina writer prior to World War II. She was a regular contributor to Manila-based national magazines, she had several stories cited in Jose Garcia Villa’s annual honor rolls. Alfon was one writer who unashamedly drew from her own real-life experiences. In some stories, the first-person narrator is â€Å"Estrella† or â€Å"Esther. † She is not just a writer, but one who consciously refers to her act of writing the stories. In other stories, Alfon is still easily identifiable in her first-person reminiscences of the past: evacuation during the Japanese occupation; estrangement from a husband; life after the war. In the Espeleta stories, Alfon uses the editorial â€Å"we† to indicate that as a member of that community, she shares their feelings and responses towards the incidents in the story. But she sometimes slips back to being a first-person narrator. The impression is that although she shares the sentiments of her neighbors, she is still a distinct personality who detaches herself from the scene in order to understand it better. This device of separating herself as narrator from the other characters is contained within the larger strategy of ? distantiation? that of the writer from her strongly autobiographical material. – Thelma E. Arambulo| †| In the 1950s, her short story, â€Å"Fairy Tale for the City†, was condemned by the Catholic League of the Philippines as being â€Å"obscene†. [3] She was even brought to court on these charges. While many of her fellow writers did stand by her, many did not. These events hurt her deeply. [1] In spite of having only an A. A. degree, she was eventually appointed as a professor of Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines, Manila. She was a member of the U. P. Writers Club, she held the National Fellowship in Fiction post at the U. P. Creative Writing Center in 1979. [5] She would also serve on the Philippine Board of Tourism in the 1970s. Stories * Magnificence and Other Stories (1960) * Stories of Estrella Alfon (1994) (published posthumously) * Servant Girl (short story) * English Jose Garcia Villa Jose Garcia Villa (August 5, 1908 – February 7, 1997) was a Filipino poet, literary critic, short story writer, and painter. He was awarded the National Artist of the Philippines title for literature in 1973 as well as the Guggenheim Fellowship in creative writing by Conrad Aiken. He is known to have introduced the â€Å"reversed consonance rime scheme† in writing poetry, as well as the extensive use of punctuation marks—especiallycommas, which made him known as the Comma Poet. He used the penname Doveglion (derived from â€Å"Dove, Eagle, Lion†), based on the characters he derived from himself. These animals were also explored by another poet e. e. cummings in Doveglion, Adventures in Value, a poem dedicated to Villa. Villa was born on August 5, 1908, in Manila’s Singalong district. His parents were Simeon Villa (a personal physician of Emilio Aguinaldo, the founding President of the First Philippine Republic) and Guia Garcia (a wealthy landowner). He graduated from the University of the Philippines Integrated School and the University of the Philippines High School in 1925. Villa enrolled on a Pre-Medical course in the University of the Philippines, but then switched to Pre-Law course. However, he realized that his true passion was in the arts. Villa first tried painting, but then turned into creative writing after reading Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Writing career Villa’s tart poetic style was considered too aggressive at that time. In 1929 he published Man Songs, a series of erotic poems, which the administrators in UP found too bold and was even fined Philippine peso for obscenity by the Manila Court of First Instance. In that same year, Villa won Best Story of the Year from Philippine Free Press magazine for Mir-I-Nisa. He also received P1,000 prize money, which he used to migrate to the United States. He enrolled at the University of New Mexico, wherein he was one of the founders of Clay, a mimeograph literary magazine. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, and pursued post-graduate work at Columbia University. Villa had gradually caught the attention of the country’s literary circles, one of the few Asians to do so at that time. After the publication of Footnote to Youth in 1933, Villa switched from writing prose to poetry, and published only a handful of works until 1942. During the release of Have Come, Am Here in 1942, he introduced a new rhyming scheme called â€Å"reversed consonance† wherein, according to Villa: â€Å"The last sounded consonants of the last syllable, or the last principal consonant of a word, are reversed for the corresponding rhyme. Thus, a rhyme for near would be run; or rain, green, reign. † In 1949, Villa presented a poetic style he called â€Å"comma poems†, wherein commas are placed after every word. In the preface of Volume Two, he wrote: â€Å"The commas are an integral and essential part of the medium: regulating the poem’s verbal density and time movement: enabling each word to attain a fuller tonal value, and the line movement to become more measures. Villa worked as an associate editor for New Directions Publishing in New York City between 1949 to 1951, and then became director of poetry workshop at City College of New York from 1952 to 1960. He then left the literary scene and concentrated on teaching, first lecturing in The New School. The New School for Social Research from 1964 to 1973, as well as conducting poetry workshops in his apartment. Villa was also a cultural attache to the Philippine Mission to the United Nations from 1952 to 1963, and an adviser on cultural affairs to the President of the Philippines beginning 1968. Death On February 5, 1997, at the age of 88, Jose was found in a coma in his New York apartment and was rushed to St. Vincent Hospital in the Greenwich area. His death two days later was attributed to â€Å"cerebral stroke and multilobar pneumonia†. He was buried on February 10 in St. John’s Cemetery in New York, wearing a Barong Tagalog. Personal In 1946 Villa married Rosemarie Lamb, with whom he has two sons, Randy and Lance. They annulled ten years later. He also has three grandchildren. Works As an editor, Villa first published Philippine Short Stories: Best 25 Short Stories of 1928 in 1929, an anthology of Filipino short stories written in English literature English that were mostly published in the literary magazine Philippine Free Press for that year. It is the second anthology to have been published in the Philippines, after Philippine Love Stories by editor Paz Marquez-Benitez in 1927. His first collection of short stories that he has written were published under the title Footnote to Youth: Tales of the Philippines and Others in 1933; while in 1939, Villa publishedMany Voices, his first collection poems, followed by Poems by Doveglion in 1941. Other collections of poems include Have Come, Am Here (1942), Volume Two (194 in that year when he edited. The Doveglion Book of Philippine Poetry in English from 1910. Three years later, he released a follow-up for The Portable Villa entitled The Essential Villa. Villa, however, went under â€Å"self-exile† after the 1960s, even though he was nominated for several major literary awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. This was perhaps because of oppositions between his formalism (literature)formalist style and the advocates of proletarian literature who misjudged him as a petty bourgeois. Villa only â€Å"resurfaced† in 1993 with an anthology entitled Charlie Chan Is Dead, which was edited by Jessica Hagedorn Several reprints of Villa’s past works were done, including Appasionata: Poems in Praise of Love in 1979, A Parliament of Giraffes (a collection of Villa’s poems for young readers, with Tagalog language Tagalog translation provided by Larry Francia), and The Anchored Angel: Selected Writings by Villa that was edited by Eileen Tabios with a foreword provided by Hagedorn (both in 1999). Among his popular poems include When I Was No Bigger Than A Huge, an example of his â€Å"comma poems†, and The Emperor’s New Sonnet (a part of Have Come, Am Here) which is basically a blank sheet of paper. Paz Marquez Benitez She was Born in 1894 in Lucena City, Quezon. Marquez – Benitez authored the first Filipino modern English language short story, Dead Stars, published in the Philippine Herald in 1925. Born into the prominent Marquez family of Quezon province, she was among the first generation of Filipino people trained in the American education system which used English as the medium of instruction. She graduated high school in Tayabas High School now, Quezon National High School and college from the University of the Philippines with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1912. â€Å"Marquez†Benitez. She was a member of the first freshman class of the University of the Philippines, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1912. Two years after graduation, she married UP College of Education Dean Francisco Benitez with whom she had four children. Marquez-Benitez later became a teacher at the University of the Philippines, who taught short-story writing and had become an influential figure to many Filipino writers in the English language, such as Loreto Paras-Sulit, Paz M. Latorena Arturo Belleza Rotor,Bienvenido N. Santos and Francisco Arcellana. The annually held Paz Marquez-Benitez Lectures in the Philippines honors her memory by focusing on the contribution of Filipino women writers to Philippine Literature in the English language. Though she only had one more published short story after â€Å"Dead Stars† entitled â€Å"A Night In The Hills†, she made her mark in Philippine literature because her work is considered the first modern Philippine short story. For Marquez-Benitez, writing was a lifelong occupation. In 1919 she founded â€Å"Woman’s Home Journal†, the first women’s magazine in the country. Also in the same year, she and other six women who were prominent members of Manila’s social elites, namely Clara Aragon, Concepcion Aragon, Francisca Tirona Benitez, Carolina Ocampo Palma, Mercedes Rivera, and Socorro Marquez Zaballero, founded the Philippine Women’s College now Philippine Women’s University. â€Å"Filipino Love Stories†, reportedly the first anthology of Philippine stories in English by Filipinos, was compiled in 1928 by Marquez-Benitez from the works of her students. When her husband died in 1951, she took over as editor of the Philippine Journal of Education at UP. She held the editorial post for over two decades. In 1995, her daughter, Virginia Benitez-Licuanan wrote her biography, â€Å"Paz Marquez-Benitez: One Woman’s Life, Letters, and Writings. â€Å"

Interoffice Memo Essay

Yesterday, July 1, 1976, the ruling in the case of Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California was decided. The Supreme Court of California imposed a legal duty to psychotherapists, enforceable by a civil suit, to warn a person who may become a victim of a violent act by a patient or if the patient threatens to harm themselves. As professionals in the Human Service field it is necessary that we adhere to this when a client may threaten to hurt themselves or another person. With this ruling, and before any action is taken, we are reminded of our code of ethics. Human Service Professionals have guidelines in their responsibility to the client. The ruling of this case has affected our ethical decision making, in that, we also acknowledge that we need to not only assist our client but also, if threat is made, to assist and protect a potential victim. Once this threat is made, ethically, we have no option but to report it and to not do so, we break our code of ethics and the law. This case has made us aware of the fact that threats can and possibly will be carried out, therefore, threats should not and will not be taken lightly. Our Code of Ethics has changed slightly since this ruling was imposed and while we still protect our client’s confidentiality and privacy, there is now an exception. â€Å"If it is suspected that danger or harm may occur to the  client or to others as a result of a client’s behavior, the human service professional acts in an appropriate and professional manner to protect the safety of those individuals. This may involve seeking consultation, supervision, and/or breaking the confidentiality of the relationship.† (Woodside and McClam, 2011) References: Woodside, M., & McClam, T. (2011). An introduction to human services (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning.

The following piece Essays

The following piece Essays The following piece Paper The following piece Paper Essay Topic: Leviathan In this essay, I intend to analyse the following piece of Leviathan: The Obligation of subjects to the Sovereign, is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth, by which he is able to protect them. For the right men have by Nature to protect themselves, when none else can protect them, can by no Covenant be relinquished. The Soveraignty is the Soul of the Common-wealth; which once departed from the Body, the members doe no more receive their motion from it. The end of Obedience is Protection; which, wheresoever a man seeth it, either in his own, or in anothers sword, Nature applyeth his obedience to it, and his endeavour to maintaine it. And though Soveraignty, in the intention of them that make it, be imortall, yet is it in its own nature, not only subject to violent death, by foreign war; but also through the ignorance, and passions of men, in hath in it, from the very institution, many seeds of a naturall mortality, by Intestine Discord. (chap. 21, p.153). This extract can be found in Leviathans Part 2, Of Common-wealth. It is preceded by Of Man, in which after having described men, their defining features, (such as the use of words, reason, judgement), Hobbes concludes that because men are born equal, but at the same time differ immensely in their opinions, and in the objects of their passions, no man can assume that his own judgement is better than that of one other, and, in dubious situations, men cannot come to any kind of agreement on what is good or bad; right or wrong. The solution Hobbes provides for this ethical relativism constitutes his political theory, and is developed in Part 2: because in the state of nature the only rule for mens actions is The Right of Nature i.e., the Liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himselfe, for the preservation of his own Nature; that is to say, of his own Life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own Judgement, and Reason, hee shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto. (Chap. 14, p. 91), this state of nature can only be one of permanent war of all against all, for peoples independent judgements on what is good for them will inevitably lead to clashes among them. Thus, Hobbess conclusion is that clearly, such natural right to seek self-preservation is self-defeating, and men in the state of nature will come to realise that only rational thing to do in order to escape such a state of permanent fear and diffidence is to renounce their right of private judgement over what is to count as dangerous, and accept for themselves the judgement of a common authority and because no man can pretend to be a better judge than one other, than the choices made by that sovereign on behalf of the people are not likely to be worse than the ones one would take for oneself, their value relies on the fact that they bring agreement and peace: the main role of the sovereign, therefore, and his only obligation, is to guarantee that people are out of danger. The Obligation of subjects to the Sovereign, is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth, by which he is able to protect them. From this obligation to make sure that his people are safe, it follows that the sovereign should be, according to Hobbes, fully empowered to maintain peace by whatever means, and, for instance, it is directly annexed to the Soveraignty, to be Judge of what Opinions and Doctrines are averse, and what conducing to Peace; and consequently, on what occasions, how farre, and what, men are to be trusted withall, in speaking to Multitudes of people; and who shall examine the Doctrines of all bookes before they be published. For the Actions of men proceed from their Opinions; and in the well governing of Opinions, consisteth the well government of mens Actions, in order to their Peace, and Concord. And though in matter of Doctrine, nothing ought to be regarded but the Truth; yet this is not repugnant to regulating of the same by Peace []. (ch ap. 18) Such a restriction of ones liberty of thought, for the sake of peace might seem shocking to us nowadays, and remind us of totalitarian regimes. However, one should not forget that Hobbes was writing in the seventeenth-century, and by writing this he intended to make sure that the sovereigns power would be above that of churches, since religion was the cause of most civil wars across Europe, and the only means to control the power of such institutions was to fully allow the sovereign to determine a public doctrine. However, as Tuck notes, this was mainly a negative role: to align opinions, not to work hard in order to secure the acceptance of any particular point of view. (R. Tuck, Hobbes, 1989 p.75) Thus, one can see that there are limitations to the sovereigns power: he should only restrict peoples liberty of choice to that extent he judges necessary in order to prevent civil war, and not any beyond that. However, these limitations are rather moral duties upon the sovereign than rights which his subjects can enforce against him: not until he threatens their lives can they legitimately break his rule: For the right men have by Nature to protect themselves, when none else can protect them, can by no Covenant be relinquished. Nonetheless, Hobbes does recognise that a sovereign who neglects his duties to such extent that he no more satisfies peoples basic needs, though not directly threatening their lives, will probably be unable to keep his authority for a long time: The Soveraignty is the Soul of the Common-wealth; which once departed from the Body, the members doe no more receive their motion from it. It is, however, clear in Hobbess account that in the relationship of representation the sovereign embodies the people, and they are to accept his decisions as if they were their own: thus there is no interaction between subjects and sovereign, and indeed, the people can only act through the person of the sovereign; in the state of nature, they are but a ghost, incapable of acting because incapable of finding any ground for agreement. Paradoxically enough, Hobbes, in the above quote, seems to recognise that the people have indeed some power: but it is only the power of agreeing on overthrowing the ruler on extreme situations, when temporary factors bring agreement among them (for instance, if the sovereign is so neglectful as to let a majority of people suffer from hunger). However all they can do after overthrowing the ruler is return to state of nature, in which they will see the necessity of establishing a new contract and a new ruler: The narrowness of the rights of the right which the citizen possesses against the sovereign [] is thus a function of the general narrowness of the rights which people possess under any circumstances; and that in turn, as we have seen, is a function of the impossibility of finding an agreed, coherent, and compelling moral theory of any elaborateness or complexity. (R. Tuck, Hobbes, 1989 p. 75)

Operation information system management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Operation information system management - Essay Example The telecommunication component constitute of information technology that helps to channel information to all the departments within an organization. In addition, information technology encourages creativity and innovativeness because of dynamism experienced in business environment. The major types of information systems include; functional system and organization information systems. Functional information systems provide support to specific departments within an organization (Encyclopedia Britanic pp.1-3). An example of functional information systems include; production system, marketing systems and cross functional systems. Those systems helps in ensuring that there efficient and effective logistics operations (Encyclopedia Britanic p.3). On the other hand, organization information systems are those systems that enhance effectiveness and efficiency in organization operations. Among the organization systems include; those that provide support to the organization operations, organiz ation knowledge and managerial support. Operation support encompasses three major areas of operations namely; supply chain management, transactional systems and management of customer’s relationships (Encyclopedia Britanic pp.2-3). Knowledge support system facilitates flow of knowledge through out the organization. Among the knowledge systems include; collaboration support systems, professional knowledge support systems and knowledge management systems. A collaboration management system helps to ensure proper coordination among all departments within an organization. On the contrary, a professional knowledge management system helps to promote cohesiveness among different professionals working together in a company. Connectively, management support system entails decision support models such as executive support systems and managerial reporting systems (Encyclopedia Britanic p.3-7). Therefore, this study will provide a comprehensive report and an analysis of the role and acqui sition of information systems for TGL senior management as well as line management. Role and acquisition of IS for TGL for its senior management and line management Information system involves three major roles namely; providing support to business operations, making managerial decisions and providing support to achieve strategic competitive advantage (Bagad p.2). Business operation role involves applying information systems in recording inventories, billing of vendors and customers, management of cash flows to mention just but a few. For example, it can be scrutinized that TGL Company has an account department that takes part in executing business operation role. For example, it was reported that TGL account department makes purchase orders as well as make payment for goods and services on behalf of the entire organization. In addition, TGL marketing department conduct marketing research to determine popularity of their company products and design marketing strategies that can be e mployed to market their company products. Whereby, marketing managers provides managers with necessary information that can help them make sound decisions on the most appropriate design that can be employed. On the other hand, information system plays decision role, this involves providing information that may help TGL managers to decide whether to invest, divest or not to invest on a particular product (Bagad p.2-3). Finally, information syst

20th-CENTURY ART, MUSEUM PAPER Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

20th-CENTURY ART, MUSEUM PAPER - Essay Example Then the two works will be examined individually, seeking similarities and differences. Lastly, a summarizing conclusion will include this student’s impressions. Since the two paintings here were painted only three years apart, a look into the locations of their origin and influences is merited. The lives and works of both these artists changed when they gained new insights on the use of color: Matisse when he met John Peter Russell1, and Severini when he met Boccioni 2. Both lived and worked at a time when the world was making new relationships with scientific progress. Invention of new modes of transport kicked up speed; technology was increasing, and an industrial explosion made employment, and affordability of consumer items, available to all (or almost all). There was conflict in world politics that would soon lead to two world wars. Established traditions, and the depiction of nature and natural things, started to be replaced by a general interest in mechanization and synthetic substance3. Until then, art was sentimental and - with the exception of some expressionists’ work - largely representational: that is, it depicted persons, places, and things more or less as they were seen by a normal eye. With the advent of photography in the late 1800s, the need for pa inters to portray people, objects and places precisely was gone.4 In 1909, Futurism was introduced in Europe. It was a movement, started in Italy, that attacked the general fear of technology in everyday life. It had a written manifesto about an ‘exciting new world’ that could be represented in art.5 Severini was one of the first artists to sign the manifesto.6 He had an ear to the ground and felt what was coming. Matisse, on the other hand, was a friend of Picasso’s, an artist who greatly influenced modern art. They both moved in Parisian circles that questioned existing philosophy and established attitudes and beliefs: their art