Al Nakheel Blue Community Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Al Nakheel Blue Community - Essay Example The Blue Community intends to create awareness for the need to develop the coastal waterfront involving in the process along with Nakheel's own experience and expertise, NGOs, think tanks and stakeholders encouraging them to be active instruments of their Blue Community initiatives. The question may arise as to why Nakheel is aiming to promote the Blue Community. According to Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman of the company, "Almost two thirds of the world's population lives in coastal communities and a large amount of development is taking place in these locations" (UAE Press Release, January 20, 2008). The company intends to invest significantly to bring about changes in these environments through research and development with the vision of becoming leaders in sustainable development of coastal communities through its Blue Community initiatives. Formed in 2001, Nakheel can be considered pioneer and frontrunner in the domain of construction of innovative and iconic buildings and landmarks. As regards waterfront development, with the launch of the Blue Community, they have become setters of standards and rules in this field for the others to emulate. The Blue Community launch event held on a dome specially constructed for the purpose on the beachfront by the Palm Jumeirah was attended by prominent figures from government, industry and media. It went with the first ever Tourism Development Project & Investment Market (TDIM) event of Dubai held between January 20-22, 2008. The stand that Nakheel put up for the event, the largest in the company's history, featured two massive domes for displaying all the waterfront development projects undertaken by the company. This included a model of Dubai Promenade allowing the visitors a look at this waterfront community. Dubai Promenade created "a virtual peninsula along the emirate's shor eline, anchored by a spectacular wheel-shaped five-star hotel" (www.nakheel.com). At the TDIM exhibition, a 13-meter long scale model was unveiled by Nakheel demonstrating the company's vision of Dubai's growth through development of waterfront with projects under Blue Community. Before we venture further into the "Blue Project", let us look at the characteristics of the construction industry in the UAE. With the transformation from a buyers' market to a sellers' market, over the last decade there has been a boom in the UAE construction industry. This construction boom is most visible at Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Going by per capita expenditure on construction, UAE is the world leader with presence of close to 6000 construction companies. The total value of the UAE construction industry for 2008 has been assessed at USD15.26 bi as per a Business Monitor International Report which is projected to go up to USD22.44bi by 2012. 3 There are various reasons behind this tremendous growth. Not much entry barrier is there to hinder the UAE construction industry. Rather there exist major driving forces in Dubai like a stable political climate, tax-free status and on the whole a liberal business environment to facilitate expansion of the industry. Further impetus to construction indu

Pharmacy Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Pharmacy - Personal Statement Example I believe taking up the field of Health Science and Medicine Pharmacy shall allow me to make a positive contribution towards health science. Therefore, the significance of Health Science and Medicine Pharmacy cannot be underestimated as we can learn from Louis Pasteur’s work that played a major role to save lives of million people against the infection. I believe as we progress further into the twentieth first century the field of health science will face several challenges and I want to play may part to tackle these challenges. I love to work, understand different types of drugs and their contents that may affect people’s health to transform their lives. In my opinion, the field of medicine is a vast field, and by enrolling in the course I shall be able to enhance my knowledge and apply it to make other’s lives better. I have always dreamt of running my own business for Aurvedic medicines, and I believe that by enrolling in the course, I shall be able to accompl ish my dream. The field of Health Science and Medicine Pharmacy is a tough field, which requires students to work with a higher dedication. Though, I have encountered several difficulties during the course of my A-level, my aspiration and hard work towards the field assessed me to gain good grade in the next round. I believe my determination and interest in the fields of sciences shall persuade me to the course more effectively with good grades. For me, the field of Health Science and Medicine Pharmacy is more a passion to me, since my sixth grade. I was always curious to know how these small pills can actually work to fight diseases. In addition, the dream to work in a place where I can dedicate myself to serve the humanity drove me to work harder to acquire good grades in the second round of A levels. I have worded as HSE Assistant Trainee in a Marine company. It allowed me to enhance my knowledge regarding Health and Safety Environment. In addition, it also provides me

Egon Schiele: Influences on and Impact in Art

Egon Schiele: Influences on and Impact in Art Was Egon Schiele ahead of his time or just in touch with it? A master of expressionism or practising pornographer and paedophile? What was the driving force behind his most memorable images; those being his nudes and self portraits? Looking at economic, social, personal influences, was he milking the times and environment for self gain or was he a hormone raging self absorbed youngster finding himself? Introduction Expressionism is described in typically polemic terms in the preface for the 1912 exhibition in Cologne, featuring new artists of this genre. In it, it says: â€Å"the exhibition is intended to offer a general view of the newest movement in painting, which has succeeded atmospheric naturalism and the impressionist rendering of motion, and which strives to offer a simplification and intensification in the mode of expression, after new rhythms and new uses of colour and a decorative or monumental configuration – a general view of that movement which has been described as expressionism.† Schiele certainly fulfilled the loose terminologies expressed above, as a great deal of the subject matter he explored, primarily his nudes and his self-portraits, were concerned with the constant need to redefine and explore different ways of expressing these themes; a simplification and intensification in the mode of expression. At times, Schiele reduces the broad sentiments of Impressionism to a single streak; he cuts out all that is unnecessary, reducing his backgrounds to a simple wash of colour, and thus focuses on his primary interest, that of the human subject. Schiele was also extremely concerned with the notion of self in his work; he is frequently cited in critical work as a narcissist and, with over 100 self portraits to his name, each of which appear to be concerned with showing himself in various, often contradictory ways, this would appear to be true. But, beyond simple glorification of the self, Schiele seems to be doing something else in his self-portraiture. By picturing himself in such a varied and at times contradictory way, Schiele in turn questions his own authenticity, and attempts to align himself with that great canon of artist in society, as a contemporary Promethean or Christ-like figure. â€Å"Allegory, unmasking, the presentation of a personable image, and close scrutiny of body language as influenced by the psyche, all met most palpably where Schieles eye looked most searchingly – in his self-portraits, his odyssey through the vast lands of the self. His reflections on and of himself filled a great hall of mirrors where he performed a pantomime of the self unparalleled in twentieth century art.† Indeed, the ambiguity of Schiele as regards himself is a dense and complex subject, which regards both â€Å"truth†, and a more subjective appraisal of art in Viennese society during the time in which Schiele was painting. Schiele was also concerned with breaking down and fundamentally opposing the traditions of Viennese culture and art which, at the time, were largely very conservative in opinion. In his art, Schiele would strike out at the culture that celebrated Biedermeier art and the slavish reproduction of classical works that he was taught at Viennas Academie der Bildunden Kunste (Viennas Academy of Fine Art), which he was admitted to on the grounds of his exceptional talent as a draughtsman. Most prominently, he would break these rules, and was thus ahead of his times with his extremely controversial oeuvre, which broke from these schools almost completely, both stylistically and in terms of the subject matter that they conveyed. But it is extremely difficult, if not impossible when considering any artist to extricate him / her from the times in which he / she was born. An artist is inevitably bound to the world around him / her, and thus, it is important to consider the economic, social and cultural trends that were prevalent at the time. Schiele was part of the expressionist movement – which immediately set itself up against the heralded principals of art in Vienna, by setting up its own artist-led business entities, using the work and the life of Klimt as an example. I will expand upon the layered history that led up to Viennese expressionism, and hope to extrapolate the extent to which Schiele was paving the way for a new generation of artists. Schieles art was especially controversial in its subject matter. In his early work especially, unflinching portraits were painted that not only showed Schiele in uncompromising positions, but also subjects such as proletariat children, who were invariably portrayed naked, and painted with a grotesque and sickly eroticism that draws you unerringly into these taboo areas. Whether Schiele was deliberately trying to shock and provoke the modesties of the Viennese public, or whether he was trying to uncover a more universal, spiritual or sexual truth is subject to debate. Overall, in this essay, I will discuss how the history of Vienna impacted upon the work of Schiele, looking at the cultural, social and economic impact of Schiele. I will also look at how Schiele uses the self-portrait, especially how he chooses to either promote, or at least define the prevalent role of expressionist artist in his work. Then I will look at how the abundance of these controversial self-portraits, along with innumerable photographs of Schiele posing, in turn makes Schieles identity in his work more ambiguous. Then I will look at the more pornographic side of Schiele, and question how Schiele, deeply embedded in the cultural and moral codes of the time, reacted entirely against them and established his own, art of â€Å"ugliness†. History Of Viennese Expressionism Fredrick Raphael, in his preface to Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler, suggests something about the Viennese psyche; he says that: â€Å"In 1866, Bismarcks Prussia destroyed Austro-Hungarys bravely incompetent army at Sadowa. The effect of that defeat on the Viennese psyche cannot be exactly assessed. Austria had already suffered preliminary humiliation by the French, under Louis-Napoleon, but Sadowa confirmed that she would never again be a major player in the worlds game. Yet conscious acceptance of Austrias vanished supremacy was repressed by the brilliance and brio of its social and artistic life. Who can be surprised that Adlers discovery of the inferiority complex, and of compensating assertiveness, was made in a society traumatized by dazzling decline? It was as if the city which spawned Arthur Schinitzler and Sigmund Freud feared to awake from its tuneful dreams to prosaic reality.† Indeed, the times in which Egon Schiele was making his mark on the Viennese establishment was a time where the Viennese art community were at their most conservative, or most susceptible to lapsing into these â€Å"tuneful dreams†. Schieles self-imposed mission, it seemed, was to violently shake these people into a state of consciousness. But that isnt to say that Schiele existed entirely in a vacuum, living entirely by his own rules. Comini stresses that: â€Å"The content of Schieles Expressionism then was a heightened sense of pathos and impending doom, and an acute awareness of the self. Schieles Expressionist form drew from the great European reservoir of Symbolist evocativeness.† So, from a veritable melange of varying influences, Schiele managed to get his form, which combined that of exceptional draughtsman, with an inescapable desire for portraying the artistry of â€Å"ugliness†, something of which Schiele was something of a pioneer. In 1897, Schiele joined the painting class of Christian Griepenkerl; who was a deeply conservative artist devoted to neoclassicism, or the slavish devotion and replication of classic works of art. This involved long hours copying the works of the Old Masters at Viennas Academy of Fine Art. Schiele was enrolled for his superior draughtsmanship, but he was eventually alienated from it because he didnt see the relevance or the importance in neoclassicism. Thus, he became something of a troublemaker to the establishment, and was eventually forced out. This was echoed 100 years hence by the Romantics; an art group who pursued a loose programme intended to reinvest art with emotional impact. The Romantics, however, proved too unpalatable to the Viennese citizenry, who instead preferred the work of Biedermeier artists. Kallir says: â€Å"On the whole, Germans proved more receptive to Romanticism than Austrians who shied away from such intense expressions of feeling and took refuge in the mundane cheer of the Biedermeier.† She goes on to say: â€Å"Biedermeier [†¦] was geared more to the applied than to the fine arts, though in all its myriad incarnations it promoted the personal comforts of the middle class Burger. Biedermeier painting revolved around idealized renditions of everyday life, scenes of domestic bliss, genre pictures portraying ruddy-cheeked peasants, and picturesque views of the native countryside.† Being born into this highly stringent, conservative environment must have shaped Schieles defiance somewhat, as Schiele not only seems to break with what was established in Vienna as profitable art, but he almost seems to occupy exactly the opposite role. Even in works by Klimt, who was deemed controversial at the time, there are still elements of decorative palatability that makes his work visually and aesthetically appealing. Schiele seems to be deliberately working against this formula; which was brave considering that art, at the time, depended on patronage and buyers to actually sustain a profit. Schiele didnt seem concerned in the slightest that his work wouldnt get a buyer. In fact, the market is abandoned almost completely. In Schieles early work, art becomes â€Å"ugly†; his figures are pallid and atrophied; the composition of the pieces are unconventional and thus attack the sensibilities of the audience. Upon his break from Viennas Academy, and much akin to Klimt, whom he admired and painted on a number of occasions, Schiele set up his own group, entitled simply, â€Å"The New Art Group.† This was similar to Klimts route, as he set up the Viennese Secession, of which Schiele would play a part, which came from and used the tried and tested formula of the Genossenschaft betdender Kunster Wiens (Vienna Society of Visual Artists), a project financed by Emperor Franz Josef as a means of promoting art in the city. However, this system was not without its drawbacks. â€Å"Its progressive potential was [†¦] undermined by a policy of majority rule, which generally granted victory to the conservative faction. Within this context, the societys role as dealer was particularly disturbing to the younger, more forward-thinking minority, from whom exclusion from major exhibitions could have adverse financial consequences.† Similarly, the capitalist nature of art, coupled with the conservatism of the market made for a very difficult time for the progressive artist, and perhaps was a reason behind why Schiele opposed the artistic community with such fervency and vitriol, and often resorted to shock tactics and self-publicity to get himself heard. Klimts Secession operated on similar principles to the Vienna society: â€Å"†¦the Secession [†¦] was principally a marketing agent for its members work.† Thus, again it proved difficult for the younger, more radical artists to break through, despite Klimts support. Later, funds from patronage dwindled, so it was necessary for artists to seek out new markets. â€Å"The withdrawal of official patronage pre-empted the Secessionists to seek new ways of generating the sales and commissions necessary to keep them in business.† Ultimately, this meant that socialist, and personal art became more prominent a theme. The monumental, allegorical themes that Klimt and Schiele tended to attack (although Schieles work was deeply personal, it was also very monumental and took a number of influences from Klimt and symbolist art), no longer had a substantial market. Klimts decorative style, coupled with his established name, could still sell work to his established clients. Schiele, however, had no such luck, and it was only in 1918, the last year of his life, that Schiele managed to break even with his work. Although Schiele did not seem overly concerned with the economic potential of his works; in fact, he even seemed to equate poverty and suffering to the role of an artist in general, and Schiele was probably one of the most uncompromising artists of the twentieth century in terms of pandering to a particular audience; it is nevertheless important to consider economics, social and cultural conditions because, Schiele, by setting himself and his role as an artist in direct opposition to the establishment, also put himself in the long-standing tradition of artist in opposition to mainstream society. Kallir points out that: â€Å"The Secession, the Galerie Muethke, and the Wiener Werkstatte [, the latter two being establishments set up in the wake of the gradual reduction of patronage funds and a need to find and establish new markets for art], in the formative first decade of this century were peculiar products of their times that shared common aspirations and limitations. It was important to all concerned that these entities, although ostensibly committed to marketing art, were artist-run.† So, although economics were a concern in art, they were not necessarily, as dictated previously with the majority run Vienna Society of Visual Artists, primarily about making money and transforming the Viennese art scene into a profitable industry. Economics was an incidental concern, only foisted upon the establishment by chronic necessity: â€Å"The artists evinced a tacitly accepted loathing for art-as-business (Schiele could be particularly eloquent on this point) and a determination to place aesthetic considerations above economic ones.† So, as is fairly obvious from the art that he made, Schiele was against the motive of making money from art. But this reveals an interesting contradiction that plagued expressionist and other, later artists seeking to make a living from art at the same time as challenging the social and economic processes that ultimately fund its creation: â€Å"[I]f the primary goal [of these entities] was to serve the artistic community, these organisations could not entirely ignore their secondary purpose: to sell art.† So, Schiele, like many other artists, was cut between a requirement for money (which was especially apparent now that the former staple of patronage monies had all but dried up), and a requirement to express uncompromisingly his artistic expression. Schiele would not settle for the former, and instead pursued the latter with a vigour and an intensity that, at the time, was quite extraordinary. Schiele and Self-Portraiture. Of all the artists in the 20th century, or indeed any century, Egon Schiele was probably one of the most self-conscious. But, in Schiele, the self is a very problematic subject. Schoeder suggests: â€Å"In his self-portraits, Schiele shows himself as wrathful, with a look of spiritual vacancy, or as if racked by a severe spasm of hysteria; or arrogantly looking down his nose, with head tossed back; or apprehensively or naively peering out of the picture. Which Schiele is the real Schiele?† Schiele seems to instinctively divide himself into differing components, but also, he uses art to singularly pursue his own political views of the role of artist, in many ways using self-portraiture to assert, rather than fragment his own personality. The ambiguity with which Schiele regards himself can be looked at in a number of ways. 1. The Artist-as-Martyr It could be argued that Schiele was simply posing, or playing the varying roles of artist to gratify his ego. This is interesting because Schiele was definitely working toward a specific identity as artist. In 1912, Schiele was arrested for three days for publishing obscene works where they could be displayed to children. An item of his work was subsequently burned in the courtroom. In prison, he creates a number of interesting works of art, that are especially interesting because their titles read like manifestoes. Titles such as Hindering the Artist is a Crime, It Is Murdering Life in the Bud! (1912), For Art and for My Loved Ones I Will Gladly Endure to the End! (1912), and Art Cannot Be Modern: Art Is Primordially Eternal (1912). Certainly, judging from these titles, Schiele definitely has a number of ideas regarding the artist, his specific role, and what separates a true artist from a charlatan. Schiele, in his highly polemical, hyperbolic painting titles, equates the artist with suffering and martyrdom, suggesting that he will â€Å"endure†, and immediately glorifying the artist as a giver of life and eternal well being to the masses. Schroeder goes on to say: â€Å"Behind these works lies the idealization of suffering in the Romantic cull of genius, as updated in the last years of the nineteenth century through the writing of Friedrich Nietzsche and through the posthumous response to Arthur Schopenhauer. [†¦] The turn of the century saw the apogee of the Artist-as-Martyr legend, in which the relationship between suffering and greatness draws so close that the pose of suffering may in itself constitute a claim to the higher grades of artistic initiation.† So, the implication here is that Schiele was indeed acting a specific role of artist, that he was assuming a specific â€Å"pose of suffering† that was in many ways an act of fulfilling his societal role as an artist. Certainly these roles of suffering were explicit in his work. In Self-Portrait Standing (1910), Schiele portrays himself as contorted and thin; his face is twisted into an ugly grimace, and the colours used are mottled, pale and rotten. His arms are deformed and his positioning is unnatural and forced. His eyes are hollow and there is no context to the portrait; the background is a simple cream colouring. To exaggerate his alienation yet further, Schiele highlights his body with a shock of white. This has the effect of drawing the subject even further out of his environmental world, and, along with the forced hand gestures, serves to make us see the subject as an exhibit, rather than as part of a natural world. As Schroeder points out: â€Å"On the white expanse of paper, they do not exist: they are exhibited.† In his principal work, Hermits (1912), he paints himself with Gustav Klimt, whose own break with neoclassicism and ornate style of expressionism was a major influence on Schieles early work. Klimt is seen as asleep, or else resting on the shoulders of Schiele, who stands in front of him in a large black cloak. Mitsch suggests that in Hermits, â€Å"[s]eldom has the human body been visualised so exclusively as a materialization of spiritual forces [†¦].† But the painting is called Hermits, which suggests something about the role of artist that Schiele observed, although the painting certainly displays elements of the spiritual; as Steiner suggests, â€Å"he presents the master and himself in a picture where two male figures in monklike garb and with aureoles about their heads are seen on a monumental plinth.† In Hermits, Schiele and Klimt both look glum; Schiele stares defiantly back through the painting. The vast black cloak serves to homogenize the body of Klimt and Schiele, and thus portrays the role of the artist in general as one of blackness, of a biblical darkness. But, the title is more secular: Steiner goes on to say that: â€Å"We see Hermits (as the painting is called) and not saints, and the tone is no longer mystical and remote but one of delicate equilibrium between the two men – the elder, Klimt, deathlike, and the younger, Schiele, looking grim, doubtless because the artist leads a solitary life, condemned by society to suffer.† So, Schiele, in a very modernist way, is simultaneously divorcing himself from the establishment of the religious school of Neoclassicism, but is also contemporising it. In similar ways that Freud brought scientific rigour, and secular practice into studies of the human psyche, Schiele was in turn taking religion out of mystical, allegorical artwork, and instead putting himself into it. This artistic position, as forerunner to Klimt, in a sense, emerging from the body of Klimt, but staring out defiantly and uniquely, epitomizes Schieles position. Steiner suggests that: â€Å"At the time that he painted Hermits, Schiele was already seeing himself as a kind of priest of art, more the visionary than the academician, seeing and revealing things that remain concealed from normal people.† 2. The Artist-As-Protean The ambiguity with which Schiele forges his own identity can also be seen in a different way. The variance between different forms of self-portrait merely represent different sides of the Schiele character. This would certainly fit into the Freudian notion of self – as a stigmatized, fragmentary and anarchic collection of different preconceived notions. For instance; Freuds basic notions of Id, Ego and Super-Ego serve to fragment the self – psychoanalysis in general serves to this effect, and, in a number of Schiele self-portraits, he uses the quite unusual system of the double portrait to encapsulate this fragmentation. Fischer makes the point that â€Å"[t]he familiar repertoire of Freudian psychology with its ego and super-ego, conscious and unconscious realms, might equally be applied to these dual self-portraits.† A great deal of photography of Egon Schiele (of which a great deal exists) utilizes the effect of double exposure, thus, a doubling of the self. In one untitled photograph of Egon Schiele , he is seen firstly staring into the distance, while another image of himself looks back, observing himself intently. Steiner says that: â€Å"Schiele countered the sensory fragmentation of the self by means of a multiple self which came little by little to form a visual concept which reconstituted his unity with the world in a visionary way.† Indeed, during the time when expressionism was most active, a serious redefinition was underway, on the secular, theoretical grounds of Nietzsche and Freud, and also due to the cataclysmic human and social catastrophe of the Great War. In Hermann Bahrs 1916 book, simply entitled Expressionism, he says: â€Å"Never was there a time so shaken with so much terror, such a fear of death. Never was the world so deathly silent. Never was man so small. Never had he been so alarmed. Never was joy so far away and liberty so dead.† But he rallies against this bleakness, which is encapsulated in other modernist and expressionist works; works such as Eliots Wasteland and the paintings of Munsch and the German school of expressionism: â€Å"Now necessity cries out. Man cries after his soul, and the whole age becomes a single cry of need. Art, too, cries with it, into the depths of darkness; it cries for help; it cries after the spiritual: that is expressionism.† So, by ploughing the ambiguities of the self, this reading would assume that Schiele was, in many respects, crying â€Å"after his soul†, so to speak; searching among the myriad of different identities available to him, a concrete or at least a compatible sense of self that had eluded him, along with an entire generation of artists dispossessed by the Viennese establishment. The various parts of Schieles meticulous, and almost surgical self-analysis falls into a number of distinct camps, but also seems to, in a more generalised sense, work against the pattern of self-portrait or nudity established by other artists. Up until that time, generally speaking, the nude was seen in a grandiose sense: the painted nude women, such as those in Degas, were painted as Goddesses, resplendently beautiful, radiant, often placed in scenarios that depicted frolicking jollity or natural equilibrium; and the men, who were much rarer in contemporary art, were generally seen as heroic, muscular and noble. Schiele breaks entirely with this long-established tradition. Firstly, the school of nude self-portraiture at the time only comprised of a single person; Richard Gerstl, whose painting Self-Portrait, Naked stood on its own at the time as the only painting to be done of the nude artist. Schroeder points out: â€Å"Just how uncommon is was to depict oneself naked is revealed by the fact that before 1910 only one precedent existed in the whole of Austrian art.† Thus, Schiele was already putting himself in the position of pioneer of a particularly exhibitionist genre. But, in unsheathing the artist of the attire that would previously assign to him his identity, Schiele places a whole new dynamic in the art: the dynamic of the self itself. One of Schieles most important works Seated Male Nude (1910), Schiele portrays himself covering up his own face. Indeed, in most of his self-portraits, especially his early ones, his posture is contorted and manufactured; he is posing and the background again is simply a plain, unembellished white. In Seated Male Nude, Schiele is grossly emaciated, his feet have been cut off, and his nipples and eyes glow red, suggesting that there is a deep demonism within him. He is seen as grotesquely, disturbingly ectomorphic; â€Å"the figure looks as though it has been taken down from a gothic crucifix: it is angular, and looks carved: Schiele was seeing himself as Christ without a loin-cloth. The red highlights of his eyes, nipples, navel and genitals make the body look as if it were glowing from within.† But, also, the red â€Å"glowing from within† also exposes another central tenet of Schieles work – namely, that it gives the appearance that he is hollow inside. Schiele preserved his more allegorical, symbolic works for the medium of oil; paintings such as Hermits discussed earlier, and thus, this hollowness cannot be overlooked as having greater metaphorical meaning, and would suggest the reasons behind why Schieles self-portraiture varied to such a large degree; namely, that the inner self which Schiele was desperate to uncover, was absent, or simply defined as a mad, glowing redness. â€Å"[S]pastic and hunch-backed, or with a rachitic deformation of the ribcage: this was the artist as an image of abject misery – a cripple [†¦] the dirty colouring, with its shrill accents, makes the flesh tones ugly and aberrant. In Seated Male Nude, a self-portrait, the artist mutates into an insect. The absence of feet [†¦] [is] an amputation. This is a mangled soul in a mangled body. We see through the body into the soul.† Indeed, the mangled soul is non-existent, the inside is hollow and empty. So, insomuch as this is similarly affected by social and cultural developments at the time, Schiele is moreover offering a more detailed and theoretically astute reading of the self and warring and dissolute factions. Schroeder says that: â€Å"If all of these self-dramatizations reveal the true nucleus of the painters psyche, then he must have been a fragmented personality, unlikely to escape the diagnostic attentions of the genius Sigmund Freud. The question is just how much of his psyche is conveyed by his self-portraits, either those with grimaces or those that express a frozen resignation? What and whom does Egon Schiele really see in his studio mirror? [†¦] It makes all the difference in the world whether he is observing his own body as an act of direct, emotional self-knowledge or whether in his imagination he is slipping into someone elses role and experiencing his own self as that of another person.† So, that Schiele depicts himself as a variety of different people doesnt necessarily mean that he is living up to a certain artistic function; in a sense, glamorizing the role of the artist as a suffering person. Art As Pornography Schiele has been regarded by many critics as a pornographer. Looking at his paintings, which often draw attention to the genitals, to eroticized regions of the human body, as well as the contorted and mechanistic quality to the nude portraits, which appear twisted and exploited. Schiele was eventually put in prison for his indecency, although this was due to his eccentric practice of showing his work to the friends of the children who were painted, often nude. Schroder suggests that â€Å"[i]n Schieles early pictures of children the objective embarrassment of the models lowly social origins is reinforced by the embarrassment of their obscene nakedness.† This would suggest that the portraits themselves are designed to be as exploitative and as pornographic as possible. The children portrayed are certainly seen in an especially lurid light; and their embarrassment is portrayed by their forced poses, the absence of environment, etc. However, it is often difficult, at the time and later, to extrapolate eroticism from pornography, and in Schiele, this is particularly difficult. Schiele himself denied accusations of pornography, and certainly, the nudes have greater substance and meaning in terms of formulating an Expressionist identity of the self. Mitsch suggests that Schiele â€Å"expresses [in his eroticism] human bondage and is to be understood as a burden that is painful to bear. Aimed, from the beginning, at outspokenness and truthfulness, it assumes almost inevitably a daring form.† So, here difficulty with regarding Schieles output is highlighted. The work is about expressing human bondage, but it is also exaggerated and mutilated and â€Å"outspoken†. So Schiele acts as both pornographer and eroticist, and also strikes out more clearly at exposing the truth behind the body. Schiele himself commented on accusations that his work is pornographic made by his Uncle, by replying in a letter, saying that â€Å"the erotic work of art is scared too.† The painting Reclining Girl In A Blue Dress (1910), establishes this difficulty. In it, a girl is portrayed, leaning back and revealing her genitals. Her genitals are high-lighted in white, and draw the eye to the girls genitals using both composition and colour. The brush-strokes are strikingly crude, almost sketchy. Fischer says that â€Å"[i]t is impossible to defend this picture against the charge of pornography. Even so, Schieles radicalism of form places him beyond too simplistic a categorisation.† He goes on to say: â€Å"He was not merely out to satisfy a shallow voyeuristic impulse. Pubescent lust and delight in discovery, the naà ¯ve symbolism of distinguishing sexual features, and boyish stratagems for looking up girls skirts are combined in the twenty-year-old artists way of viewing the world with the invention of ingenious new forms, which took the Schiele of 1910 a step forward, out of the world of teachers and uncles and into the radical world view of the Expressionist avant-garde. In the years ahead, Schiele pursued this distinctive combination obsessively.† So, according to Fischer, even though his work was pornographic, the forms in which this pornography took and the means by which Schiele painted these pornographic images, allowed us to question the nature of the images and thus elevate them to something beyond pornography. Schiele was certainly obsessed with portraying the self: his images, despite being, at times, shamelessly provocative and deliberately controversial to the conservative Viennese public (the pre-conceived role of an artist to challenge the perception of the ordinary people would stress this, and was a certain depiction of the artist that Schiele would live by), would also put stress on the techniques and the principles applied to the painting in order to elevate it beyond mere titillation or voyeurism. In his nudes, Schiele was definitely looking to get closer to his, and societies view of the human condition in the confusing wake of secularism, the transmogrification of belief toward the self (in Freud and Nietzsche, for instance), and the selfs role in society. Naturally his view is not a particularly optimistic one, and he is frequently out to establish the pain in the heart of the self – his cut-off, mutilated and distorted figures serve to expose the more desultory aspects of the self, and thus his images appear less as pornographic, and more as pieces that actually challenge and oppose the traditionally porno

Linguistic Communication Barriers Essay -- Argumentative Persuasive Es

Communication Barriers Hispanic immigrants living in American are regularly faced with communication problems. When one’s native culture varies from the norm they are often the one expected to eliminate the disparity. Language barriers present for the Hispanic population living in America and their physical therapists can cause significant problems, not only for communication in general but also for diagnosis and treatment. In order to overcome communication barriers in the field of physical therapy, providers need to become more linguistically and culturally competent. When asked what was a problem that regularly frustrated her while working, Karen Hobbs, PT of Erwin NC, immediately responded, â€Å"not being able to talk to my own patients† (Hobbs). Mrs. Hobbs is a physical therapist who works in a rural farming community that is largely populated by Hispanics. Her frustration is shared by many physical therapists who struggle to communicate with their patients. Language barriers are a problem that physical therapist are faced with across the nation. In American, over two-fifths of the Spanish-speaking Hispanics report that they experience difficulty understanding their medical provider because of a language barrier. In many cases the weight of this problem that physical therapists are faced with is handed over to the patients. Only half of the patients that report a difficulty understanding and needing an interpreter present are regularly provided one (Uninsured). One study found that only one percent of Hispanics received help from a trained medical interpreter. Most patients relied on the help of family and friends (Bustos). Family members and friends that are used as translators often have a limited under... .... (March 2002): Joyner Library, City of Greenville, NC. February 2004. â€Å"Safety Pros Share Proven Tricks for Training Spanish-Speaking Workers.† LexisNexis. IOMA Safety Directors Report. (July 2003): Joyner Library, City of Greenville, NC. February 2004. Taylor, Curtis. â€Å"A Language Barrier; Mayor, HRA Oppose Bill Requiring Interpreters.† NexisLexis. Queens Edition. (November 2003): Joyner Library, City of Greenville, NC. February 2004. â€Å"Tips on How to Increase Cultural Competency.† American Physical Therapy Association. Foundation for Physical Therapy. 20 February 2004. . â€Å"Uninsured Hispanics With Limited English Face Formidable Barriers To Health Care Finds Commonwealth Fund Report.† LexisNexis, U.S. Newswire. (February 2003): Joyner Library, City of Greenville, NC. February 2004.

Human Resources: Training and Development Essay

First, training programs that serve employees are beneficial because they have a proven value and added significance to companies. Employee orientation is one type of training. It is absolutely necessary for new employees in any organization. Without the orientation/training process many things can and do take place that are a risk and have negative impact to a company and to the new hire employee as well. In orientation type training, employees learn of benefit entitlements and the expectations that the company and departments set for their position. It gives the new hire employee a sense of pride in their work and in the organization as a whole. Informing an employee of the expectations in performance allows the employee to be successful in their position. There are various state and federal regulations that all companies must adhere to and remain in compliance with in order to remain lawsuit free. Sexual harassment is one negative behavior that is currently costing companies a lot of money in lost lawsuits. Training programs annually keep a constant reminder of the ways that this type of harassment can be avoided. Hiring discrimination is another form of training that can reduce lawsuits from a State and Federal level. Government contracted companies must maintain a documented Affirmative Action Program that ensures their hiring practices are equal and fair to all applicants. All managers within a company should receive this training in order to prevent and avoid the wrongdoing and negligence that could cause good companies to lose creditability and be sued. Skill based training or Developmental training is another form of training that a company provides to their employees. Training increases employee productivity. They learn different ways to complete tasks take on more responsibility and eventually grow as leaders within the company. Employees who do not receive guidance or have difficulty learning the ropes are much more likely to leave the company. Investing time and money in employees’ skills makes them feel valued and appreciated, and it also challenges them to learn more and get involved in their job. How does this benefit the company? Training reduces the need for employees’ supervision. Not only does skill-based training teach employees to do their jobs better, but it also helps them work more independently and develop a can-do attitude. A famous saying is, â€Å"People quit people and not companies. † – Author Unknown. To me this quote means that if your supervisor has been trained to show appreciation, develop his work force, motivate employees and are fair and just in their treatment of all employees, most employees will find job satisfaction on that team. Successful employee training delivers improvements in employee performance which, in turn, creates a better performing business and improves the bottom line product. Good training programs improved quality and productivity, accuracy and efficiency, good work and safety practices. The result of these benefits is in reducing costs by decreasing wasted time and materials. Maintenance costs of machinery and equipment and by reducing workplace injuries help to manage overhead expenses for the organization. In closing, it is clear to see that training people in the culture of the company through a sound orientation process can earn huge results through employee motivation and satisfaction. Furthermore, using a skill-based training program can reduce costs to the company in compliance issues, quality and cost of scrap and repairs, as well as increasing productivity through having a skilled work force.

M3 Interpret the contents of a trading and profit and loss account performance of the organisation Essay

Interpret the contents of a trading and profit and loss account and balance sheet for a selected company explaining how accounting ratios can be used to monitor the financial performance of the organisation . Profit and Loss account. The P&L will not tell you about the underlying health of the business, such as how much money it owes or is owed and what the value of its assets are. It shows how much money did business made in a year. It records two things sales and cost/turnover. The trading account shows the income from sales and the direct costs of making those sales. It includes the balance of stocks at the start and end of the year. There are different sections of P&L which include: 1. Sales- it is the total value of what you’ve sold during the period of time. The formula for it is price time’s quantity. 2. Cost of sales- these are the costs that are directly related to the sales you have made. It includes raw materials or stock you have purchased to resell. It may also include the cost of creating the items that you sold, including the cost of staff time if you are selling service. 3. Gross Profit – This is the sum of sales revenue minus cost of sales. It tells you how much profit you are making directly from your sales. 4. Operating Costs – These are all the other costs associated with running a business, such as the rent and rates on your premises, accountancy and legal fees, and depreciation. These costs cannot be directly linked to your sales and may not change very much even if your sales figures were to change significantly. 5. Net Profit – This is the gross profit minus the operating costs. This is almost the true profit of your business because it’s made up of all the income and all the costs. The net profit is transferred over to balance sheet. Balance sheet A balance sheet shows the value of a business on a particular date. A balance sheet shows what the business owns and owes. It is also used as a guide for solvency of the company. Anything in your business that has financial value is included in the balance sheet. Everything is split into four groups. 1. In first group is included everything that can be liquidated (sold for cash) including stock, cash, and money owed by customers, are current assets. These are usually short term. 2. Second group is more long-term; including property, machinery, patents and long-term investments these are called fixed assets, which are long term liquidation. 3. Third part of balance sheet is current liabilities and they are what the business owes in the short-term: money owed to suppliers, taxes due, short-term loans and overdrafts. 4. The last group is long-term liabilities they are what the business owes in the long-term – to be paid after one year, as well as capital and reserves. Gross Profit Margin This ratio examines the relation between the gross profit and sales revenue. It also measures the % of gross profit that is made from a given amount of sales. It shows how efficiently a business is using its materials and labours in the production process and gives an indication of the pricing, cost structure, and production efficiency of your business. The higher the gross profit margin ratio the better it is for business. The higher the percentage, the more the business retains of each pound of sales, which means more money is left over for other operating expenses and net profit. A low gross profit margin ratio means that the business generates a low level of revenue to pay for operating expenses and net profit. It indicates that either the business is unable to control production or inventory costs or  those prices are set too low. Acid Test Ratio This method excludes stock as stock is not a very liquid asset. Acid-Test ratio provides a more rigorous assessment of a company’s ability to pay its current liabilities. A higher acid-test ratio indicates greater short-term financial health. The acid-test ratio is more conservative than the current ratio, which measures much the same thing, because the current ratio excludes the value of inventory. Net Profit Margin Net profit margin measures how much of each pound earned from sales of good and service the company is translated into profits. It also provides clues to the company’s pricing, cost structure and production efficiency. Net profit is used to pay for interest, tax and distribution to the owners. The higher the net profit margin ratio the better it is for the business. It indicates whether a firm has enough short-term assets to cover its immediate liabilities without selling inventory. A low net profit margin ratio may mean that you are not generating enough sales, the gross profit margin is too low, or that you are not keeping your operating expenses under control to leave an acceptable profit. A business with a low ratio might need to take on debt to pay its expenses. Return On Capital Employed It shows the return for money that is spent and it also says how well you do with the money. ROCE should always be higher than the rate at which the company borrows otherwise any increase in borrowing will reduce shareholders’ earnings and it indicates that the company is not employing its capital effectively and is not generating shareholder value. For a company, the ROCE trend over the years is also an important indicator of performance. In general, investors tend to favour companies with stable and rising ROCE numbers over companies where ROCE is volatile and bounces around from one year to the next. Debtors Days It shows how long it takes debtors to pay you money back. Increases in debtor days may be a sign that the quality of a company’s debtors is decreasing. This could also mean a greater risk of defaults. It could similarly be an indicator that cash flow is likely to weaken or that more working capital will be required. Investors should be aware of why changes in debtor days are happening, especially if there is a very large increase or a clear long term increasing trend. It may reflect a change in how the business operates, or its environment. This is not necessarily bad, but it can be an indication of a potentially serious problem.