They Changed Their World and Ours 5 Quiz

Answer: Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) was born Frank Lincoln Wright in a small town in Wisconsin--Richland Center. After his father and mother divorced when Wright was fourteen years old, the father left Wisconsin and was never seen by Wright again. Eventually, Wright changed his middle name to "Lloyd" in honor of his mother's family.

Wright was the pioneer of the architectural movement known as the Prairie School, an architectural style of the late nineteenth and early twentietch centuries in the United States but primarily in the Midwest. The characteristic flat roofs, overhanging eaves, and horizontal bands of windows were meant to complement the flatlands of the Midwest. He also established the Usonian home style, a style he developed for his vision of American urban living. These homes would be one-storied and flat roofed with little room for extra storage and parking garages to try to conserve space in the city. They would also be constructed in a manner conducive for using optimal sunlight for heating and light. Overhanging eaves would be used to create carports instead of garages, Wright is given credit with having created the term "carport". "Usonian" comes from the initials of the United States and was created by James Duff Law, who felt the citizens of the United States had little right to refer to themselves as Americans when America was the name of two whole continents of people. Perhaps, his greatest contribution to architecture was his organic architecture philosophy, the idea that human habitation should exist in harmony with the natural environment around it rather than as an invasion of it. Fallingwater is considered the best example of this kind of architecture.

An interesting story concerning Wright involves an encounter he had with novelist Rex Stout. Stout had had a fourteen-room house constructed on a Connecticut hillside and invited Wright over to admire it. Wright, however, took a long look and then announced that the location was "an excellent spot. Someone should build a house here." Ouch! Apparently, Wright had an acerbic wit.

Answer: Masaccio

Masaccio (1401-1428) was born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone in the Tuscany region of Italy. He was called "Masaccio" (or "messy Tom") humorously because he was known for his absent-mindedness and his sloppy appearance.

Masaccio's style moved away from elaborate Gothicism, and his novel emphasis on natural form and a realistic portrayal of human motion and emotion inspired the great painters whose names are most likely more recognizable than his own, artists such as da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Masaccio's use of linear perspective to create a vanishing point, an imaginary point at which parallel lines appear to converge in a painting, and his use of chiaroscuro, the use of light and dark to suggest that the source of light is coming from one source at a point not shown in the painting, helped to establish a greater sense of three-dimensionality in a painting. These techniques were also studied intensely by the great masters to follow him.

Masaccio's greatest work is most likely represented by his contributions to the series of frescoes at the Brancacci Chapel in Florence. There one can see "The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden", which shows Adam and Eve, in utter shame and agony, being driven from Eden by an angel. One can also see there "The Tribute Money", which depicts Christ explaining to Peter that he can find a coin to pay taxes inside the mouth of a fish. Another famous piece of his is "Holy Trinity", which is in the Santa Maria Novella, also in Florence.

Answer: Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853-1890) was born into an upper-middle class family in Zundert, Netherlands. He was named after a brother who died in infancy, and his knowledge of this fact bothered him his entire life. He began his career as an art dealer, but after growing depressed in his work and travels, he turned to becming a minister. He failed a theology entrance exam and eventually began work as a missionary in Belgium coal mines. Because he gave up his comfortable sleeping arrangement to a homeless man and began sleeping on straw in a small hut, the priests pressured him to leave because they thought he was living in an undignified manner. At some point, his brother Theo convinced him to pursue in earnest a career as an artist. He lived from then on mostly in poverty, and he gradually devolved into madness. He lived for a while with Paul Gaugin, but a tempestuous relationship culminated in van Gogh's severing part of his left ear. Ultimately, he was unable to handle his mental illness and shot himself.

Some of the other important works of his include "Sunflowers", "Wheatfield with Crows", "Almond Blossom", "Road with Cypress and Star", "Pink Peach Tree in Blossom", "Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds", "Self-Portrait, 1887", and "Self-Portrait with Straw Hat". He painted over 2,100 works in just over ten years.

Answer: Gavrilo Princip

Gavrillo Princip (1895-1918) was a Bosnian Serb who was involved in revolutionary behavior from a young age. He supported a Bosnia completely free from Austrian control, and in 1912 he was expelled from his school for being one of the leaders of a demonstration against Austro-Hungarian authorities.

He tried to join various paramilitary groups but was consistently denied because of his short stature and weak frame. Angered and humiliated, he finally achieved acceptance by Young Bosnia and began learning how to use firearms and bombs effectively. On June 28, 1914, Princip and six other Bosnian revolutionaries slipped into Sarajevo to kill Archduke Ferdinand. One of the youths missed Archduke Ferdinand, and the revolutionaries scattered. Later, the Archduke and his wife Sophie drove to the hospital to visit aides who had been injured in the blast, but the chauffeur took the wrong street. Merely by coincidence, Princip was walking down the same street.

He noticed the royals, fired into the car, and killed both Ferdinand and his wife. Later, Princip was arrested, but because of a law against the execution of teenagers, Princip's life was spared.

While in prison, he lived in squalor. He lost an arm because of an infection and eventually died of tuberculosis.

Answer: Louis Daguerre

Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre (1789-1851) was apprenticed to Pierre Prevost, the first French painter of panorama, and became skilled in the areas of architecture, theatre design, and panoramic painting. He became a noted painter, and his accomplishments in theatrical illusion culminated in his invention of the diorama, a mobile theater device that gradually but dramatically altered one painted scene so that it became another. However, he is mostly remembered for his invention of a process that produced an image that came to be known as the "daguerreotype". He had earlier partnered with Nicephore Niepce, who had produced the first heliograph in 1822. When he died in 1833, Daguerre continued experimenting until he created the daguerreotype. He showcased his invention at a combined meeting between the French Academy of Sciences and the Académie des Beaux Arts in January of 1839. Daguerre is one of only seventy-two names etched into the Eiffel Tower.

Daguerre's process required a great amount of patience. First, the camera was an unwieldy one. Furthermore, pictures had to be made outside on a sunny day, and the result of the process was only one "positive" plate. However, the most troublesome requirement was that people posing had to sit perfectly still with their heads in clamps for thirty minutes so that the resulting images were fixed ones. Still, the phenomenon became a popular sensation, and by 1850, there were around ten thousand daguerreotypists in just the United States alone. The daguerreotype remained popular for around twenty-five years. Then a quicker process that created "negatives" that could be copied to paper replaced it.

Answer: Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier (1887-1965) had an impact on the architecture of three continents--Europe, South America, and North America--and two countries in Asia--India and Japan. Remarkably, he was a self-taught architect for the most part; he read about architecture and philosophy in libraries, visited museums, and began sketching and constructing buildings. Eventually, he became convinced that "A house is a machine for living in" (his own words) and began to create functional structures marked by bold expression. His quintessential design evolved into a box with strips of horizontal windows, open living spaces, and rooftop gardens. He seemed to derive pleasure from shocking the traditionalists; however, this often caused him to fail to gather favor in certain circles of artists and critics. His innovative design for the League of Nations Building in Geneva, one that relied on walls and windows designed to produce and insulate heat, lost the competition held in 1927 to determine who would have the honor of the building's construction. This loss embittered Corbusier; however, as images and models of his plans for the League of Nations Building circulated, he began to rise in fame among the younger, more open-minded architects.

Le Corbusier's ideas ushered in the wave of modernism in the field of architecture. He insisted that that which was decorative had to be also useful and practical, an idea which caused him to split with the cubists (whom he considered to be too romantic) and embrace a new movement he co-created--purism. One can see this style represented perfectly in his Villa Savoye. The huge flat square house is raised upon stilts he referred to as pylons and is surrounded by rows of long horizontal windows. It looks more like a modern office building than a home. Le Corbusier expanded upon his ideas for individual structures to ideas for entire blocks of cities and whole cities themselves. He dreamed of a future with living arrangements that enabled greater self-sufficiency.

Answer: Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) became a legend during her own lifetime. She began as the child born to an unwed Dutch courtesan and had decided to become a nun until one of her mother's lovers grew convinced that Bernhardt should be an actress. Her willfulness was an obstacle at first, for she was dismissed from one of her first acting careers after she slapped a more prominent actress. However, she gradually established a reputation through performances that were more and more lauded by critics and the common viewer alike. She performed in roles not only created by such writers as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Jean Racine, but she also performed roles from Shakespeare's plays, such as Desdemona in "Othello". She even played the strarring role of Hamlet himself and embarked on a career that often called upon her to play the role of a man. She became celebrated for her wide emotional range as well as her knack for subtlety in her interpretations of characters and their motivations. Of course, her unique voice coupled with her use of perfect diction and then mixed with her natural beauty and grace made her a commanding stage presence.

As was mentioned in the question, she was highly dedicated to her career, and not even having her leg amputated nearly at her hip caused her to stop. She had suffered an injury during a performance and gangrene settled into her leg. She continued for a few years after this operation until she collapsed during a dress rehearsal. She was growing interested in film, and "The Clairvoyant" was being produced in her own home in Paris when she died.

She was also very dedicated to those who served in the military and perhaps served as a forerunner to individuals like Bob Hope who also possessed an equal devotion to soldiers. During the Franco-Prussian War, she organized a miliary hospital in the Odeon Theater. During World War I and after the amputation of her leg, she insisted on being carried to the front on a litter chair to visit soldiers.

She was also a writer. She wrote a novel--"Petite Idole", an autobiography, and a treatise on acting--"L'Art du Theatre".

Answer: Henry the Navigator

Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) or Infante D. Henrique of Portugal, Duke of Viseu, was the third child of King John I of Portugal. His sponsored expedition that rounded the northwest coast of Africa all the way to what would be the present-day nation of Liberia was a giant leap for European exploration, despite the short trip it may seem to us today. Many considered that traveling too far south into the Atlantic was traveling into what they referred to as the "Sea of Darkness", a place occupied by sea monsters. They also believed that sailing closer to the Equator would be sailing into boiling waters. Henry's expeditions, if they did not outright disprove such superstition, certainly contributed to Europe's overcoming its fears of southern waters. Of course, he contributed to much more, whether for better or for worse. Portugal created some of the most accurate maps of West Africa at that time, began the spread of Christianity throughout that part of Africa, led to the defeat of Muslim societies, and led to the creation of new trade routes. Most importantly, because of these expeditions, Portugal jumped quickly to the lead in the Age of Exploration or Age of Discovery, and its native son Vasco da Gama would be the first to sail around the Cape of Good Hope to find a sea route to India.

Prince Henry the Navigator also founded what is probably the first school of navigation at Sagres, Portugal, and he spurred the creation of a lighter and thus faster, more maneuverable sea-going vessel referred to as the "caravel".

Answer: Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi

Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi (1149-1209) had a very long name: Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Umar ibn al-Husayn at-Taymi al-Bakri at-Tabaristani Fakhr al-Din al-Razi. He was a great lover of debate and quite a master of the art. In fact, he so enjoyed it, that he would often play devil's advocate. He so successfully defended what he considered heretical doctrines that many who didn't understand him or his strategies and often believed him to be a heretic himself. However, his ultimate goal was to present the opposition's point-of-view as strongly as possible so that when he skewered it with logic and rationality, his victory would appear even the more complete. His skill, often coupled with confidence if not arrogance, often made enemies for him, particularly when others felt their lifelong beliefs were threatened or ridiculed. Famously, one individual who failed to provide evidence for his claims once posed as a student so that he could get close to Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi and press a knife at his chest while declaring, "Here is my proof".

Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi could be quite temperamental and merciless himself toward his enemies and rivals. In fact, he orchestrated his jealous elder brother's being thrown into prison, where he died.

One of his greatest works is called "The Great Commentary", which exists in thirty-two volumes. His primary focus is the defence of the self-sufficiency of the intellect and the rejection of tradition as unquestionable truth. He also helped to establish the Kalam, which is Islamic scholastic theology meant to unify the different sects of Islam and provided them with a defense against doubters of the faith. Furthermore, he was quite ahead of his time in his refutation of the idea that the earth or any world was at the center of the universe; in fact, he argued for the existence of a multiverse.

Answer: Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes (1618-1679) argued that human beings in their natural state were essentially animals or savages, and if they were not controlled by an authoritarian power but were allowed to live as freely as the animals, they would exist in a continuous war with one another because of their greed and desire for power. They would freely lie, cheat, steal, and kill to obtain not only the necessities of life but also the objects of their desire. In his own words, because of their "restless desire for power", human beings would live lives that were "nasty, brutish, and short". To prevent such a situation, human beings frequently surrendered their freedom to a sovereign power that existed to protect them all from one another. This was the basis of his "social contract"--a quid pro quo situation. Humans give an institution power, and that institution gives those humans security. Of course, Hobbes saw a monarchy with an authoritarian head of state as the only viable system of government. Nevertheless, it is this idea of the contract that paved the way for modern democracies and republics. He argued that governments derived their power and legitimacy not from God or a supernatural power but rather from the consent of the people themselves, and he argued that governments must fulfill their end of the bargain and function for the benefit of the governed people. He also believed in the equality of all human beings, the existence of individual rights, and the freedom of individuals to do whatever is not explicitly set forth by their society's laws.

Hobbes's philosophy, as was stated in the question, was based on the idea that human beings were material creatures completely ruled by the laws of physics. Such a view certainly paved the way for agnostic and atheistic views of existence. However, Hobbes always defended himself against any claims that he himself was an atheist; rather, he seems to have been an individual who believed in a god but disagreed with the mainstream Christian understanding of this god.

His famous book "Leviathan" was published in 1651.