title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Vicksburg was the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River; therefore, capturing it completed the second part of the Northern strategy, the Anaconda Plan. When two major assaults against the Confederate fortifications, on May 19 and 22, were repulsed with heavy casualties, Grant decided to besiege the city beginning on May 25. After holding out for more than forty days, with their supplies nearly gone, the garrison surrendered on July 4. The successful ending of the Vicksburg campaign significantly degraded the ability of the Confederacy to maintain its war effort. This action, combined with the surrender of the down-river Port Hudson to Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks on July 9, yielded command of the Mississippi River to the Union forces, who would hold it for the rest of the conflict.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: The Confederate surrender on July 4, 1863, is sometimes considered, when combined with Gen. Robert E. Lee's defeat at Gettysburg by Maj. Gen. George Meade the previous day, the turning point of the war. It cut off the Trans-Mississippi Department (containing the states of Arkansas, Texas and part of Louisiana) from the rest of the Confederate States, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two for the rest of the war. Lincoln called Vicksburg "the key to the war."


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: After crossing the Mississippi River south of Vicksburg at Bruinsburg and driving northeast, Grant won battles at Port Gibson and Raymond and captured Jackson, the Mississippi state capital, on May 14, 1863, forcing Pemberton to withdraw westward. Attempts to stop the Union advance at Champion Hill and Big Black River Bridge were unsuccessful. Pemberton knew that the corps under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman was preparing to flank him from the north, and so had no choice but to withdraw or be outflanked. Pemberton burned the bridges over the Big Black River and devastated the countryside as he retreated to the well-fortified city of Vicksburg.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: The Confederates evacuated Hayne's Bluff, which was subsequently occupied by Sherman's cavalry on May 19, and Union steamboats no longer had to run the guns of Vicksburg, now being able to dock by the dozens up the Yazoo River. Grant could now receive supplies more directly than by the previous route, which ran through Louisiana, over the river crossing at Grand Gulf and Bruinsburg, then back up north.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Over half of Pemberton's army had been lost in the two preceding battles and many in Vicksburg expected General Joseph E. Johnston, in command of the Confederate Department of the West, to relieve the city—which he never did. Large numbers of Union troops were on the march to invest the city. They repaired the bridges over the Big Black River and crossed on May 18. Johnston sent a note to his general, Pemberton, asking him to sacrifice the city and save his troops, something Pemberton would not do. Pemberton, a Northerner by birth, was probably influenced by his fear of public condemnation if he abandoned Vicksburg.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: As the Union forces approached Vicksburg, Pemberton could put only 18,500 troops in his lines. Grant had over 35,000, with more on the way. However, Pemberton had the advantage of terrain and fortifications that made his defense nearly impregnable. The defensive line around Vicksburg ran for approximately , based on terrain of varying elevations that included hills and knobs with steep slopes which would require an attacker to ascend them under fire. The perimeter included many gun pits, forts, trenches, redoubts, and lunettes. The major fortifications of the line included: Fort Hill, on a high bluff north of the city; the Stockade Redan, dominating the approach to the city on Graveyard Road from the northeast; the 3rd Louisiana Redan; the Great Redoubt; the Railroad Redoubt, protecting the gap for the railroad line entering the city; the Square Fort (Fort Garrott); a salient along the Hall's Ferry Road; and the South Fort.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton's Confederate Army of Mississippi inside the Vicksburg line consisted of four divisions, under Maj. Gens.:


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Grant wanted to overwhelm the Confederates before they could fully organize their defenses and ordered an assault against the Stockade Redan for May 19. Troops from Sherman's corps had a difficult time approaching the position under rifle and artillery fire from the 36th Mississippi Infantry, Brig. Gen. Louis Hébert's brigade. They had to negotiate a steep ravine protected by abatis and cross a , ditch before attacking the walls of the redan. This first attempt was easily repulsed. Grant ordered an artillery bombardment to soften the defenses and at about 2 pm, Sherman's division under Maj. Gen. Francis P. Blair tried again, but only a small number of men were able to advance even as far as the ditch below the redan. The assault collapsed in an exchange of rifle fire and hand grenades lobbing back and forth.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: The failed Union assaults of May 19 damaged troop morale, deflating the confidence the soldiers had felt after their string of victories across Mississippi. They were also costly, with 157 killed, 777 wounded, and eight missing, versus Confederate casualties of eight killed and 62 wounded. The Confederates, assumed to be demoralized, had regained their fighting edge.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Grant planned another assault for May 22, but this time with greater care; his troops would first reconnoiter thoroughly and soften up the defenses with artillery and naval gunfire. The lead units were supplied with ladders to ascend the fortification walls. Grant did not want a long siege, and this attack was to be by the entire army across a wide front.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Despite their bloody repulse on May 19, Union troops were in high spirits, now well-fed with provisions they had foraged. On seeing Grant pass by, a soldier commented, "Hardtack". Soon all Union troops in the vicinity were yelling, "Hardtack! Hardtack!" The Union served hardtack, beans, and coffee the night of May 21. Everyone expected that Vicksburg would fall the next day.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Union forces bombarded the city all night, from 220 artillery pieces and with naval gunfire from Rear Adm. David D. Porter's fleet in the river. While causing little property damage, they damaged Confederate civilian morale. On the morning of May 22, the defenders were bombarded again for four hours before the Union attacked once more along a front at 10 am.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Sherman attacked once again down the Graveyard Road, with 150 volunteers (nicknamed the forlorn hope detachment) leading the way with ladders and planks, followed by the divisions of Blair and Brig. Gen. James M. Tuttle, arranged in a long column of regiments. They hoped to achieve a breakthrough by concentrating their mass on a narrow front. They were driven back in the face of heavy rifle fire. Blair's brigades under Cols. Giles A. Smith and T. Kilby Smith made it as far as a ridge 100 yards from Green's Redan, the southern edge of the Stockade Redan, from where they poured heavy fire into the Confederate position, but to no avail. Tuttle's division, waiting its turn to advance, did not have an opportunity to move forward. On Sherman's far right, the division of Brig. Gen. Frederick Steele spent the morning attempting to get into position through a ravine of the Mint Spring Bayou.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: McPherson's corps was assigned to attack the center along the Jackson Road. On their right flank, the brigade of Brig. Gen. Thomas E. G. Ransom advanced to within 100 yards of the Confederate line, but halted to avoid dangerous flanking fire from Green's Redan. On McPherson's left flank, the division of Maj. Gen. John A. Logan was assigned to assault the 3rd Louisiana Redan and the Great Redoubt. The brigade of Brig. Gen. John E. Smith made it as far as the slope of the redan, but huddled there, dodging grenades until dark, when they were recalled. Brig. Gen. John D. Stevenson's brigade advanced in two columns against the redoubt, but their attack also failed when they found their ladders were too short to scale the fortification. Brig. Gen. Isaac F. Quinby's division advanced a few hundred yards, but halted for hours while its generals engaged in confused discussions.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: On the Union left, McClernand's corps moved along the Baldwin Ferry Road and astride the Southern Railroad of Mississippi. The division of Brig. Gen. Eugene A. Carr was assigned to capture the Railroad Redoubt and the 2nd Texas Lunette; the division of Brig. Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus was assigned the Square Fort. Carr's men achieved a small breakthrough at the 2nd Texas Lunette and requested reinforcements.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: By 11 am, it was clear that a breakthrough was not forthcoming and that the advances by Sherman and McPherson were failures. Just then, Grant received a message from McClernand, which stated that he was heavily engaged, the Confederates were being reinforced, and he requested a diversion on his right from McPherson's corps. Grant initially refused the request, telling McClernand to use his own reserve forces for assistance; Grant was mistakenly under the impression that McClernand had been lightly engaged and McPherson heavily, although the reverse was true. McClernand followed up with a message that was partially misleading, implying that he had captured two forts—"The Stars and Stripes are flying over them."—and that another push along the line would achieve victory for the Union Army. In fact, more than a dozen members of the 22nd Iowa Infantry Regiment had secured a tenuous foothold in a portion of the fortification known as the Railroad Redoubt, and forced Confederate defenders back from that point, though the Iowans could not advance further. Although Grant once again demurred, he showed the dispatch to Sherman, who ordered his own corps to advance again. Grant, reconsidering, then ordered McPherson to send Quinby's division to aid McClernand.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Sherman ordered two more assaults. At 2:15 pm, Giles Smith and Ransom moved out and were repulsed immediately. At 3 pm, Tuttle's division suffered so many casualties in their aborted advance that Sherman told Tuttle, "This is murder; order those troops back." By this time, Steele's division had finally maneuvered into position on Sherman's right, and at 4 pm, Steele gave the order to charge against the 26th Louisiana Redoubt. They had no more success than any of Sherman's other assaults.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: In McPherson's sector, Logan's division made another thrust down the Jackson Road at about 2 pm, but met with heavy losses and the attack was called off. McClernand attacked again, reinforced by Quinby's division, but with no success. Union casualties for the day totalled 502 killed, 2,550 wounded, and 147 missing, about evenly divided across the three corps. Confederate casualties were not reported directly, but are estimated to have been under 500. Grant blamed McClernand's misleading dispatches for part of the poor results of the day, storing up another grievance against the political general who had caused him so many aggravations during the campaign.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Historian Shelby Foote wrote that Grant "did not regret having made the assaults; he only regretted that they had failed." Grant reluctantly settled into a siege. On May 25, Lt. Col. John A. Rawlins issued Special Orders No. 140 for Grant: Grant wrote in his memoirs, "I now determined upon a regular siege—to 'out-camp the enemy,' as it were, and to incur no more losses."


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Federal troops began to dig in, constructing elaborate entrenchments which the soldiers of the time referred to as "ditches". These surrounded the city and moved steadily closer to the Confederate fortifications. With their backs against the Mississippi and Union gunboats firing from the river, Confederate soldiers and citizens alike were trapped. Pemberton was determined to hold his few miles of the Mississippi as long as possible, hoping for relief from Johnston or elsewhere.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: A new problem confronted the Confederates. The dead and wounded of Grant's army lay in the heat of Mississippi summer, the odor of the deceased men and horses fouling the air, the wounded crying for medical help and water. Grant first refused a request of truce, thinking it a show of weakness. Finally he relented, and the Confederates held their fire while the Union recovered the wounded and dead on May 25, soldiers from both sides mingling and trading as if no hostilities existed for the moment.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: After this truce, Grant's army began to fill the ring around Vicksburg. It soon became clear that even 50,000 Union soldiers would not be able to effect a complete encirclement of the Confederate defenses. Pemberton's outlook on escape was pessimistic, but there were still roads leading south out of Vicksburg unguarded by Union troops. Grant sought help from Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, the Union general-in-chief. Halleck quickly began to shift Union troops in the West to meet Grant's needs. The first of these reinforcements was a 5,000-man division from the Department of the Missouri under Maj. Gen. Francis J. Herron on June 11. Herron's troops, remnants of the Army of the Frontier, were attached to McPherson's corps and took up position on the far south. Next came a three division detachment from XVI Corps led by Brig. Gen. Cadwallader C. Washburn on June 12, assembled from troops at the nearby posts of Corinth, Memphis, and LaGrange. The final significant group of reinforcements to join was the 8,000-man strong IX Corps from the Department of the Ohio, led by Maj. Gen. John G. Parke, arriving on June 14. With the arrival of Parke, Grant had 77,000 men around Vicksburg.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: In an effort to cut Grant's supply line, Confederates in Louisiana under Major General John G. Walker attacked Milliken's Bend up the Mississippi on June 7. This was largely defended by recently enlisted United States colored troops. Despite having inferior weaponry, they fought bravely and repulsed the Confederates with help from gunboats, although at heavy cost; the defenders lost 652 to the Confederate 185. The loss at Milliken's Bend left the Confederates with no hope for relief other than from the cautious Johnston.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Pemberton was boxed in with plentiful munitions but little food. The poor diet was telling on the Confederate soldiers. By the end of June, half were sick or hospitalized. Scurvy, malaria, dysentery, diarrhea, and other diseases cut their ranks. At least one city resident had to stay up at night to keep starving soldiers out of his vegetable garden. The constant shelling did not bother him as much as the loss of his food. As the siege wore on, fewer and fewer horses, mules, and dogs were seen wandering about Vicksburg. Shoe leather became a last resort of sustenance for many adults.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: During the siege, Union gunboats lobbed over 22,000 shells into the town and army artillery fire was even heavier. As the barrages continued, suitable housing in Vicksburg was reduced to a minimum. A ridge, located between the main town and the rebel defense line, provided lodging for the duration. Over 500 caves, known locally as "bombproofs", were dug into the yellow clay hills of Vicksburg. Whether houses were structurally sound or not, it was deemed safer to occupy these dugouts. People did their best to make them comfortable, with rugs, furniture, and pictures. They tried to time their movements and foraging with the rhythm of the cannonade, sometimes unsuccessfully. Because of the citizens' burrowing, the Union soldiers gave the town the nickname of "Prairie Dog Village". Despite the ferocity of the Union fire, fewer than a dozen civilians are known to have been killed during the siege.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: One of Grant's actions during the siege was to settle a lingering rivalry. On May 30, General McClernand wrote a self-adulatory note to his troops, claiming much of the credit for the soon-to-be victory. Grant had been waiting six months for him to slip, ever since they clashed early in the campaign, around the Battle of Arkansas Post. He had received permission to relieve McClernand in January 1863 but waited for an unequivocal provocation; McClernand was relieved on June 18. Grant so carefully prepared his action that McClernand was left without recourse. McClernand's XIII Corps was turned over to Maj. Gen. Edward Ord, who had recovered from an October 1862 wound sustained at Hatchie's Bridge. In May 1864, McClernand would be given a command in a remote area of Texas.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Another command change occurred on June 22. In addition to Pemberton in Vicksburg, Grant had to be aware of Confederate forces in his rear under the command of Joseph E. Johnston. He stationed one division in the vicinity of the Big Black River Bridge and another reconnoitered as far north as Mechanicsburg; both acted as covering forces. By June 10, the IX Corps, under Maj. Gen. John G. Parke, was transferred to Grant's command. This corps became the nucleus of a special task force whose mission was to prevent Johnston, who was gathering his forces at Canton, from interfering with the siege. Sherman was given command of this task force and Brig. Gen. Frederick Steele replaced him at XV Corps. Johnston eventually began moving to relieve Pemberton and reached the Big Black River on July 1, but he delayed a potentially difficult encounter with Sherman until it was too late for the Vicksburg garrison, and then fell back to Jackson. Sherman would pursue Johnston and recapture Jackson on July 17.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Throughout the siege Union and Confederate forces kept busy in a supporting role on the Louisiana side of the Mississippi River. Lt. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, received a telegraph from Pemberton on May 9 requesting that he move against Grant's communication lines along the Mississippi River. Grant had established important supply depots at Milliken's Bend, Young's Point, and Lake Providence, all within Smith's jurisdiction, but Smith failed to recognize the importance of Pemberton's situation. It was not until June when Smith finally took action on Pemberton's request, directing Maj. Gen. Richard Taylor to "do something" in support of the Vicksburg garrison. Taylor commanded the District of Western Louisiana and developed a three-pronged campaign against Grant's three supply depots. All three of Taylor's assaults were defeated at the Battle of Milliken's Bend, the Battle of Young's Point, and the Battle of Lake Providence.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: In response to the growing Confederate activity in the area, Grant decided to dispatch troops from the Vicksburg trenches across the river. The presence of Maj. Gen. John G. Walker's Confederate division on the Louisiana side was of particular concern; its presence could possibly aid any Confederate attempt to escape from Vicksburg. Therefore, Brig. Gen. Alfred W. Ellet's Mississippi Marine Brigade and Joseph A. Mower's brigade from Sherman's corps were ordered to the vicinity of Milliken's Bend. Mower and Ellet were to cooperate against Walker's division, which was stationed in the vicinity of Richmond, Louisiana. Richmond was also an important supply line providing Vicksburg with food from Louisiana. On June 15, Ellet and Mower defeated Walker and destroyed Richmond.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Ellet's men returned to De Soto Point and constructed an artillery battery targeting an iron foundry recasting spent Union artillery shells. Construction was begun on June 19, which placed a 20-pounder Parrott rifle in a casemate of railroad iron. The targeted foundry was destroyed on June 25 and the next day a second Parrott gun was added to the battery, which continued to harass the defenders until the garrison's surrender.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Additional Confederate activity in Louisiana occurred on June 29 at Goodrich's Landing when they attacked a plantation and an army training center run by former slaves. The Confederates destroyed the plantations and captured over a hundred former slaves before disengaging in the face of Ellet's Marines. Confederate raids such as these were disruptive and caused damage, but they were only minor setbacks and demonstrated that the Confederates could cause only momentary disturbances in the area.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Late in the siege, Union troops tunneled under the 3rd Louisiana Redan and packed the mine with 2,200 pounds of gunpowder. The explosion blew apart the Confederate lines on June 25, while an infantry attack made by troops from Logan's XVII Corps division followed the blast. The 45th Illinois Regiment (known as the "Lead Mine Regiment"), under Col. Jasper A. Maltby, charged into the diameter, deep crater with ease, but were stopped by recovering Confederate infantry. The Union soldiers became pinned down and the defenders rolled artillery shells with short fuses into the pit with deadly results. Union engineers worked to set up a casemate in the crater in order to extricate the infantry, and soon the soldiers fell back to a new defensive line. From the crater left by the explosion, Union miners worked to dig a new mine to the south. On July 1, this mine was detonated but no infantry attack followed. Pioneers worked throughout July 2 and 3 to widen the initial crater to be large enough for an infantry column of four to pass through for any future assault. However, events the following day negated the need for any further assaults.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: On July 3, Pemberton sent a note to Grant regarding the possibility of negotiations for peace. Grant, as he had done at Fort Donelson, first demanded unconditional surrender. He then reconsidered, not wanting to feed 30,000 Confederates in Union prison camps, and offered to parole all prisoners. Considering their destitute and starving state, he never expected them to fight again; he hoped they would carry home the stigma of defeat to the rest of the Confederacy. In any event, shipping that many prisoners north would have occupied his army and taken months. Pemberton officially surrendered his army on July 4. Most of the men who were paroled on July 6 were exchanged and received back into the Confederate Army on August 4, 1863, at Mobile Harbor, Alabama. They were back in Chattanooga, Tennessee, by September and some fought in the Battles for Chattanooga in November and against Sherman's invasion of Georgia in May 1864. The Confederate government protested the validity of the paroles on technical grounds and the issue was referred to Grant who, in April 1864, was general in chief of the army. The dispute effectively ended all further prisoner exchanges during the war except for hardship cases. When the captured 26th, 27th, 29th, and 31st Louisiana Infantry Regiments were exchanged in 1863 and 1864, many of the paroled soldiers failed to report for duty and remained at their homes. Those Louisianans who returned to active duty were never again used in combat.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Surrender was formalized by an old oak tree, "made historical by the event". In his "Personal Memoirs", Grant described the fate of this luckless tree:


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: The surrender was finalized on July 4, Independence Day, a day Pemberton had hoped would bring more sympathetic terms from the United States. Although the Vicksburg campaign continued with some minor actions, the fortress city had fallen and, with the surrender of Port Hudson on July 9, the Mississippi River was firmly in Union hands and the Confederacy split in two. President Lincoln famously announced, "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea."


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Union casualties for the battle and siege of Vicksburg were 4,835; Confederate were 32,697, of whom 29,495 had surrendered. The full campaign, since March 29, claimed 10,142 Union and 9,091 Confederate killed and wounded. In addition to the men under his command, Pemberton turned over to Grant 172 cannons and 50,000 rifles.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Vicksburg was the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River; therefore, capturing it completed the second part of the Northern strategy, the Anaconda Plan. The successful ending of the Vicksburg campaign significantly degraded the ability of the Confederacy to maintain its war effort. This action, combined with the surrender of Port Hudson to Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks on July 9, yielded command of the Mississippi River to the Union forces, who would hold it for the rest of the conflict.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: The Confederate surrender on July 4, 1863, is sometimes considered, when combined with Gen. Robert E. Lee's July 3 defeat at Gettysburg by Maj. Gen. George Meade, the turning point of the war. It cut off the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas from the rest of the Confederate States, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two for the duration of the war. The Union victory also permanently severed communication between the Trans-Mississippi Department and the balance of the Confederacy.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: Folk tradition holds that the Fourth of July (Independence Day) holiday was not celebrated by Vicksburg until World War II. This claim is inaccurate, for large Independence Day celebrations were held as early as 1907.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: The works around Vicksburg are now maintained by the National Park Service as part of Vicksburg National Military Park. The park, located in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Delta, Louisiana (flanking the Mississippi River), also commemorates the greater Vicksburg campaign which led up to the battle and includes reconstructed forts and trenches. The park includes 1,325 historic monuments and markers, of historic trenches and earthworks, a tour road, a walking trail, two antebellum homes, 144 emplaced cannons, the restored gunboat USS "Cairo" (sunk on December 12, 1862, on the Yazoo River), and the Grant's Canal site, where the Union Army attempted to build a canal to let their ships bypass Confederate artillery fire.


title: Siege of Vicksburg

text: The American Battlefield Trust and its partners have acquired and preserved of the Vicksburg battlefield through 2021.


The February 1974 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 28 February 1974. The Labour Party, led by Leader of the Opposition and former Prime Minister Harold Wilson, gained 14 seats (301 total), but was seventeen short of an overall majority. The Conservative Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Edward Heath, lost 28 seats; but achieved a higher share of the vote than Labour. This resulted in a hung parliament, the first since 1929. Heath sought a coalition with the Liberals, but the two parties failed to come to an agreement and then Wilson became Prime Minister for a second time, his first under a minority government. Because Labour was unable to form a majority coalition with another party, Wilson called another early election in September, which was held in October and resulted in a Labour majority. This was also the first general election to be held with the United Kingdom as a member state of the European Communities (EC)—widely known as the "Common Market".


title: February 1974 United Kingdom general election

text: This election saw Northern Ireland diverging heavily from the rest of the United Kingdom, with all twelve candidates elected being from local parties (eleven of them representing unionist parties), following the decision of the Ulster Unionists to withdraw support from the Conservative Party in protest over the Sunningdale Agreement. The Scottish National Party achieved significant success at this election, having increased its share of the popular vote in Scotland from 11% to 22%, and the number of SNP MPs rose from one to 7. Plaid Cymru also succeeded for the first time in getting candidates elected at a general election in Wales (it had previously won a by-election in 1966).


text: Although Heath's incumbent Conservative government polled the most votes by a small margin, the Conservatives were overtaken in terms of seats by Wilson's Labour Party, due to a more efficiently-distributed Labour vote. Ultimately, the decision by the seven Ulster Unionist MPs not to take the Conservative whip proved decisive in giving Labour a slim plurality of seats. The other four unionists elected were hardliners not affiliated with the UUP.


text: Both Labour and Conservative lost a considerable share of the popular vote, largely to the Liberal Party under Jeremy Thorpe's leadership, which polled two-and-a-half times its last share of the vote. However, even with over 6,000,000 votes, only fourteen Liberal MPs were elected. There had been some media projections that the Liberals could take twice as many seats.


text: Since it was not obvious who could command the support of the House, Heath did not resign immediately as Prime Minister. However, he knew that even if he could persuade all eleven of Northern Ireland's unionist MPs to support a Conservative government (at least on confidence matters) over one led by Wilson, he would still need the support of the Liberals to have a workable majority. Heath therefore entered into negotiations with Thorpe to form a coalition government. Thorpe, never enthusiastic about supporting the Conservatives, demanded major electoral reforms in exchange for such an agreement. Unwilling to accept such terms, Heath resigned and Wilson returned for his second stint as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.


text: The election night was covered live on the BBC, and was presented by Alastair Burnet, David Butler, Robert McKenzie and Robin Day.


text: Prominent members of Parliament who retired or were defeated at this election included: Gordon Campbell, Bernadette McAliskey, Enoch Powell, Richard Crossman, Tom Driberg and Patrick Gordon Walker. It was the first of two United Kingdom general elections held that year, the first to take place after the United Kingdom became a member of the European Communities on 1 January 1973 and the first since 1929 not to produce an overall majority in the House of Commons for the poll-topping party. This was also the first year in which two general elections were held in the same year since 1910.


text: On Thursday 7 February, it was announced that Prime Minister Edward Heath had asked the Queen, who was in New Zealand for the 1974 British Commonwealth Games at the time, to dissolve Parliament, in order for a general election to take place on 28 February. Because of the Queen's absence abroad, the dissolution offers a rare example of the dissolution of parliament having to be promulgated by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret as Counsellors of State, on the express instructions of the Queen. The severe economic circumstances in which the election was held prompted both "The Sun" and the "Daily Mirror" to characterise it as a "crisis election."


text: On 10 February, the National Union of Mineworkers, as expected, went on strike; however, it was more of a low-key affair than the high-profile clashes of 1972, with no violence and only six men on each picket line. Jim Prior later wrote that the miners had been "as quiet and well-behaved as mice." The Three-Day Week continued throughout the election; however, Heath did allow the late-night television curfew to be lifted to allow more coverage of the campaign. The low profile of the miners' strike allowed worries over inflation to dominate the election. On 15 February, it was announced that the Retail Price Index showed a 20% increase in prices over the previous year.


text: On 21 February, the Pay Board released a report on miners' pay, which unexpectedly revealed that they were paid less in comparison with other manufacturing workers, contrary to the claims of the National Coal Board. This came as a severe blow to the Conservative position, and led to accusations that the National Coal Board did not understand its own pay system and the strike was unnecessary. Four days later there was further bad news for Heath and his party, with the latest trade figures showing that the current account deficit for the previous month had been £383,000,000 —the worst in recorded history. Heath claimed the figures confirmed "the gravity of the situation" and the need for a new mandate, prompting Roy Jenkins to quip: "He [Heath] presumably thinks a still worse result would have given him a still stronger claim."


text: One of the most unexpected and explosive events of the campaign was when the outspoken Conservative MP Enoch Powell, who had already announced that he could not stand for re-election on the Conservative manifesto, urged people to vote against Heath, because of the latter's policy toward the European Communities. In a speech in Birmingham on 23 February 1974, Powell claimed the main issue in the campaign was whether Britain was to "remain a democratic nation ... or whether it will become one province in a new Europe super-state"; he said it was people's "national duty" to oppose those who had deprived Parliament of "its sole right to make the laws and impose the taxes of the country." This speech prompted "The Sun" to run the headline "Enoch puts the boot in." A few days later he said he hoped for victory by "the party which is committed to a fundamental renegotiation of the Treaty of Brussels and to submitting to the British People ... the outcome of that renegotiation." These were the explicit manifesto promises of the Labour Party.


text: A further unforeseen blow to the Conservative campaign came on 26 February when Campbell Adamson, Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), was reported to have called for the repeal of the Heath Government's Industrial Relations Act, saying that it had "sullied every relationship between employers and unions at national level." Adamson had been closely involved with the Downing Street talks over the mining dispute. Although Heath emphasised that Adamson was voicing a personal opinion and that his views did not express the official position of the CBI, after the election he would acknowledge that this intervention had a negative impact on the Conservative campaign. Labour meanwhile cited Adamson's comments as proving the need "for everything they (had)... been urging on the Government."


text: The party's manifesto, which was largely written by the future Chancellor Nigel Lawson, was entitled "Firm Action for a Fair Britain", and was characterised by what historian Dominic Sandbrook has called "strident rhetoric." It claimed the Labour opposition had been taken over by "a small group of power-hungry trade union leaders", who were "committed to a left-wing programme more dangerous and more extreme than ever before in its history." It went on to assert that a Labour victory would be a "major national disaster." Sandbrook has criticised that Conservative manifesto as "very vague and woolly", and lacking in "detailed policies or [a] sense of direction."


text: Edward Heath played a dominant and crucial role in the campaign. In public he appeared calm and in control; David Watt, in the "Financial Times", called him "statesmanlike" and "relaxed." In his party's final broadcast of the campaign he said: "I'll do all that I can for this country ... We've started a job together. With your will, we shall go on and finish the job."


text: One Conservative party political broadcast attracted controversy for its ferocity. In the film the narrator warned that Labour would confiscate "your bank account, your mortgage and your wage packet", while pictures of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan dissolved into those of Michael Foot and Tony Benn. It went on to allege that Labour would not have to move much further to the left before "you could find yourself not even owning your own home." Wilson was reportedly furious, and Lord Carrington, the Secretary of State for Energy, made a formal apology.


text: The Labour manifesto, "Let us work together", consisted of ten pages only - the shortest since 1955. It had been greatly influenced by the economist Stuart Holland and Shadow Industry Secretary Tony Benn. In it, Labour promised "a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families." It advocated planning agreements with industry and the creation of a National Enterprise Board. This section attracted criticism from some figures within the party. For example, Anthony Crosland privately called the programme "half-baked" and "idiotic." The manifesto also committed the party to renegotiating the terms of Britain's entry into the European Economic Community and to holding a national referendum on the issue.


text: The Labour campaign presented the party's leadership as competent negotiators who would restore peace with the unions. Unlike in previous elections, Wilson took something of a back seat, allowing James Callaghan, Denis Healey and Shirley Williams to play equal, if not greater, roles in the campaign. In their final broadcast of the campaign a series of leading figures claimed Labour could put Britain "on the road to recovery." In the film, Wilson asserted: "Trades unionists are people. Employers are people. We can't go on setting one against the other except at the cost of damage to the nation itself."


text: The Liberal Party had undergone a revival under the leadership of Jeremy Thorpe, winning a string of by-elections in 1972 and 1973. It had begun to appeal to disaffected Conservative voters, and continued to do so throughout the campaign. Thorpe came across as young and charismatic, often attempting to appear above the two-party fray. Their manifesto "You can Change the Face of Britain" promised voting reform and devolution, although Sandbrook has described their economic policy as "impossibly vague."


text: During the election, the Scottish National Party campaigned widely on the political slogan "It's Scotland's oil", where It was argued that the discovery of North Sea oil off the coast of Scotland, and the revenue that it created would not benefit Scotland to any significant degree while Scotland remained part of the United Kingdom.


text: Historian Dominic Sandbrook describes the "level of partisanship" amongst the national newspapers during the election as "unprecedented" in post-war Britain, with most of the media prejudiced in favour of Heath and the Conservatives. The "Daily Mirror" was one of the few national newspapers to support Labour, with many others urging their readers to re-elect Heath. In the right-wing media, there was fierce condemnation of Wilson and his party. "The Sun", which had supported Labour in 1970, claimed a Labour victory would result in "galloping inflation", while an editorial in "The Daily Telegraph" said a Labour government would be "complete ruin public and private", and condemned what it saw as Wilson's "craven subservience to trade union power." The "Evening Standard" published a piece by Kingsley Amis calling Labour politician Tony Benn, who was to be appointed Secretary of State for Industry after the election, "the most dangerous man in Britain", while in the "Daily Express" cartoonist Cummings depicted miners' leader Joe Gormley, Wilson and other Labour figures as French revolutionaries guillotining Heath. "The Guardian", in contrast, chose not to openly support any party. Its columnist Peter Jenkins claimed the last ten years had proved that "neither party" had the ability to deal with the country's problems.


text: It was the first general election in the United Kingdom to be held during an economic crisis since the 1931 general election, which had been held in the depths of the Great Depression.


text: Throughout the campaign 25 of the 26 opinion polls had a Conservative lead, at one point even by 9%. Of the six polls on Election Day (28 February), two had a 2% lead, two a 4% lead, one a 3% lead and one a 5% lead.


text: As the Queen was in New Zealand on 7 February, the Prime Minister notified her of his intentions via telegram rather than by the usual protocol of visiting Buckingham Palace. The key dates were as follows:


text: This election was fought on new constituency boundaries with five more seats added to the 630 used in 1970. This led to many seats changing hands on the new notional boundaries. Notional election results from the 1970 general election were calculated on behalf of the BBC by Michael Steed, for the purposes of comparing constituency results for those of February 1974.


text: For the first time since 1929, the two largest political parties had received less than a combined share of 80% of the vote, and the Liberals had also won more than 10% of the vote.


title: Paul Keating

text: Paul John Keating (born 18 January 1944) is an Australian former politician and unionist who served as the 24th prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He previously served as treasurer of Australia in the Hawke government from 1983 to 1991 and as deputy prime minister of Australia from 1990 to 1991.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating was born in Sydney and left school at the age of 14. He joined the Labor Party at the same age, serving a term as State President of Young Labor and working as a research assistant for a trade union. He was elected to the Australian House of Representatives at the age of 25, winning the division of Blaxland at the 1969 election. Keating briefly served as Minister for Northern Australia from October to November 1975, in the final weeks of the Whitlam government. After the Dismissal removed Labor from power, he held senior portfolios in the Shadow Cabinets of Gough Whitlam and Bill Hayden. During this time he came to be seen as the leader of the Labor Right faction, and developed a reputation as a talented and fierce parliamentary performer.


title: Paul Keating

text: After Labor's landslide victory at the 1983 election, Keating was appointed treasurer by prime minister Bob Hawke. The pair developed a powerful political partnership, overseeing significant reforms intended to liberalise and strengthen the Australian economy. These included the Prices and Incomes Accord, the float of the Australian dollar, the elimination of tariffs, the deregulation of the financial sector, achieving the first federal budget surplus in Australian history, and reform of the taxation system, including the introduction of capital gains tax, fringe benefits tax, and dividend imputation. He also became recognised for his sardonic rhetoric, as a controversial but deeply skilled orator. Keating became deputy prime minister in 1990, but in June 1991 he resigned from the Government to unsuccessfully challenge Hawke for the leadership, believing he had reneged on the Kirribilli Agreement. He mounted a second successful challenge six months later, and became prime minister.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating was appointed prime minister in the aftermath of the early 1990s economic downturn, which he had famously described as "the recession we had to have". This, combined with poor opinion polling, led many to predict Labor was certain to lose the 1993 election, but Keating fought a strong campaign and managed to increase the Government's majority. The Keating government enacted the landmark Native Title Act to enshrine Indigenous land rights, introduced compulsory superannuation and enterprise bargaining, created a national infrastructure development program, privatised Qantas, Commonwealth Serum Laboratories and the Commonwealth Bank, established the APEC leaders' meeting, and promoted republicanism by establishing the Republic Advisory Committee.


title: Paul Keating

text: At the 1996 election, after 13 years in office, Labor suffered a landslide defeat to the Liberal–National Coalition led by John Howard. Keating retired from Parliament shortly after the election, but has since remained active as a political commentator, whilst maintaining a broad series of business interests, including serving on the international board of the China Development Bank.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating held the lowest satisfaction rating of any sitting Prime Minister since Newspoll began polling satisfaction in 1985. Since leaving office, Keating received broad praise from historians and commentators for his role in modernising the Australian economy as treasurer, although ratings of his premiership have been mixed. Keating has been recognised across the political spectrum for his charisma, skills in debating, and his willingness to boldly confront social norms, including his famous Redfern Park Speech on the impact of colonisation in Australia and Aboriginal reconciliation.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating was born at St Margaret's Hospital in Darlinghurst, Sydney, on 18 January 1944. He was the first of four children born to Minnie (née Chapman) and Matthew John Keating. His father worked as a boilermaker for the New South Wales Government Railways. All of Keating's grandparents were born in Australia. On his father's side, he was descended from Irish immigrants born in counties Galway, Roscommon, and Tipperary. On his mother's side, he was of mixed English and Irish descent. His maternal grandfather, Fred Chapman, was the son of two convicts, John Chapman and Sarah Gallagher, both of whom had been transported for theft in the 1830s.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating grew up in Bankstown, a working-class suburb in western Sydney, with the family home from 1942 to 1966 being a modest fibro and brick bungalow at 3 Marshall Street, Bankstown (demolished for flat development in 2014). His siblings include Anne Keating, a company director and businesswoman. Leaving De La Salle College—now known as LaSalle Catholic College—at the age of 14, Keating left high school rather than pursuing higher education, instead working as a pay clerk at the Sydney County Council's electricity distributor. Keating also attended Belmore Technical High School to further his education. He then worked as research assistant for a trade union, having joined the Labor Party as soon as he was eligible. In 1966, he became president of New South Wales Young Labor. During the 1960s, Keating also managed a rock band named The Ramrods.


title: Paul Keating

text: Through his contacts in the unions and Young Labor, then known as Youth Council, Keating met future senior Labor figures such as Laurie Brereton, Graham Richardson and Bob Carr. He also developed a friendship with former New South Wales Premier Jack Lang, who Keating took on as a political mentor. In 1971, he succeeded in having Lang re-admitted to the Labor Party. Keating successfully gained the Labor nomination for the seat of Blaxland in the western suburbs of Sydney, and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1969 when he was just 25 years old.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating was initially more socially conservative; in his maiden speech he declared that the Liberal Government had "boasted about the increasing number of women in the workforce. Rather than something to be proud of, I feel it is something of which we should be ashamed". He later voted against former prime minister John Gorton's motion to decriminalise homosexuality in 1973. According to Tom Uren he was originally a "very narrow-minded young man", who later "matured" and became far less socially conservative.


title: Paul Keating

text: After Labor's victory at the 1972 election, Keating narrowly failed to be elected to serve in the Cabinet, instead being a backbencher for most of the Whitlam Government. He was eventually appointed Minister for Northern Australia in October 1975, but served in the role only until the Government was controversially dismissed by Governor-General John Kerr the following month. In a 2013 interview with Kerry O'Brien, Keating called the dismissal a "coup" and raised the idea to "arrest [Kerr]" and "lock him up", adding that he would not have "[taken] it lying down" if he was prime minister.


title: Paul Keating

text: After Labor's defeat in the 1975 election, Keating was quickly added to the Shadow Cabinet, serving as Shadow Minister for Minerals, Resources and Energy until January 1983. During this time he achieved a reputation as a flamboyant and fierce parliamentary performer, adopting the style of an aggressive debater. In 1981, he was elected president of the New South Wales Labor Party, thus becoming the leader of the influential Labor Right faction. At this time, he initially supported the former Treasurer Bill Hayden for Labor Leader over the former ACTU President Bob Hawke as leadership tensions between the two men began to mount; he later explained that part of his reasoning was that he privately hoped to succeed Hayden himself in the near future. However, by 1982, the members of his faction had swung behind Hawke, and Keating endorsed his challenge. The formal announcement of Keating's support for Hawke was written by a fellow Labor politician, Gareth Evans.


title: Paul Keating

text: Although Hayden survived the challenge, pressure continued to mount on him. In an attempt to shore up his position, Hayden promoted Keating to the role of Shadow Treasurer in January 1983. However this did not prove sufficient and Hayden resigned a month later, after a poor by-election result in the federal electorate of Flinders in Victoria. Hawke was elected unopposed to replace him and Hawke subsequently led Labor to a landslide victory in the 1983 election just six weeks later.


title: Paul Keating

text: Following Labor's victory in the 1983 election, Keating was appointed Treasurer of Australia by Prime Minister Bob Hawke; he succeeded John Howard in the position. He and Hawke were able to use the size of the budget deficit that the Hawke government had inherited from the Fraser government to question the economic credibility of the Liberal-National Coalition over the coming years. According to Hawke, the historically large $9.6 billion budget deficit left by the Coalition "became a stick with which we were justifiably able to beat the Opposition". Although Howard was widely regarded at this time as being "discredited" by the hidden deficit, he had in fact argued unsuccessfully against Fraser that the revised figures should be disclosed before the election.


title: Paul Keating

text: In the ensuing years, Hawke and Keating developed an extremely powerful partnership, which proved to be essential to Labor's success in government; multiple Labor figures in years since have cited the partnership between the two as the party's greatest ever. The two men proved a study in contrasts: Hawke was a Rhodes Scholar; Keating left high school early. Hawke's enthusiasms were cigars, betting and most forms of sport; Keating preferred classical architecture, Mahler symphonies and collecting British Regency and French Empire antiques. Despite not knowing one another before Hawke assumed the leadership in 1983, the two formed a personal as well as political relationship which enabled the Government to pursue a significant number of reforms, although there were occasional points of tension between the two.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating, along with Hawke, oversaw a "National Economic Summit" in their first month in office, with Keating leading several sessions outlining the Government's economic agenda. The Summit, which brought together a significant number of senior business and industrial figures alongside trade union leaders and politicians, led to a unanimous adoption of a national economic strategy, generating sufficient political capital for the Government to begin a wide-ranging programme of economic reform previously resisted by much of the Labor Party.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating used the authority and relative autonomy provided to him by Hawke to become one of the major driving forces behind the various extensive macroeconomic reforms of the Government. In December 1983, Hawke and Keating approved the floating of the Australian dollar, disregarding advice from the Treasury Secretary John Stone to retain the fixed currency framework. The success of the move, which was lauded by economic and media commentators, gave confidence to Keating to pursue even more reforms. Over the Hawke Government's first and second terms, Keating oversaw the gradual elimination of tariffs on imports, the privatisation of several state-owned companies such as Qantas, CSL Limited, and the Commonwealth Bank, the deregulation of significant sections of the banking system (including allowing for numerous foreign-owned banks to begin operating in Australia for the first time) and the granting of autonomy on decision-making to the Reserve Bank of Australia.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating was also instrumental in establishing the Hawke Government's signature industrial relations and wages policy, the Prices and Incomes Accord. This was an agreement directly between the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the Government to guarantee a reduction in demands for wage increases, in exchange for the Government providing a significant increase in social programmes, including the introduction of Medicare and the Family Assistance Scheme; in so doing, the Government was able to reduce inflation and unemployment over the decade. Keating's management of the Accord, and the close working relationship he developed with ACTU Secretary Bill Kelty, became a source of significant political power for Keating, who negotiated multiple versions of the Accord with Kelty throughout the Hawke Government. Through the power given to him, Keating was often able to bypass the Cabinet altogether, notably in exercising monetary policy, and he was regularly referred to as "the most powerful Treasurer in modern times".


title: Paul Keating

text: In the wake of the raft of macroeconomic reforms introduced by Keating throughout the first term of the Hawke Government in particular, in 1984 he was awarded the Euromoney Finance Minister of the Year, an award which became colloquially known in Australia as the "World's Greatest Treasurer", becoming the first Australian Treasurer to be presented with the award.


title: Paul Keating

text: Throughout the second and third terms of the Hawke Government, Keating led a significant overhaul of the long-stagnant Australian taxation system. In 1985, he became a passionate advocate within the Cabinet for the introduction of a broad-based consumption tax, similar in nature to the goods and services tax that was later introduced by the Howard government, as a means of addressing Australia's chronic balance of payments issue. In the build-up to the 1984 election, Hawke promised a policy paper on taxation reform to be discussed with all stakeholders at a "National Taxation Summit". Three options – A, B and C – were presented in the paper, with Keating and his Treasury colleagues fiercely advocating for C, which included a consumption tax of 15% on goods and services along with reductions in personal and company income tax, a fringe benefits tax and a capital gains tax. Although Keating was able to win the support of a reluctant Cabinet, Hawke believed that the opposition from the public, the ACTU, and the business community would be too great. He therefore decided to abandon any plans for a consumption tax, although the remainder of the reforms were adopted in the tax reform package. The loss of the consumption tax was seen a defeat for Keating; he later joked about it at a press conference, saying, "It's a bit like "Ben Hur". We've crossed the line with one wheel off, but we have crossed the line."


title: Paul Keating

text: Whilst the remainder of the package represented the biggest overhaul of the Australian taxation system for decades, Keating continued to agitate for further changes to address the balance of payments problems faced by Australia. On 14 May 1986, frustrated at the slow pace of dealing with the issue, Keating caused considerable public comment and a degree of controversy when he declared on a radio programme that if Australia did not address the problem, it risked degenerating to the status of a "banana republic". Although the remark was quickly disowned by Hawke in public, the Government increased efforts to deal with the growing balance of payments crisis. With no consumption tax to generate a significant increase in incomings, Keating and his ministerial colleagues led a process to significantly reduce Government outlays instead, resulting in some criticism from the grassroots of the Labor Party, who opposed cuts to spending. Despite the criticism, the Government was able to produce a national budget surplus for the years 1988, 1989 and 1990, with the surplus of 1988 proving to be the largest budget surplus in Australian history.


title: Paul Keating

text: During the campaign for the 1987 election, Keating was credited as dealing a "fatal" blow to the Liberal-National Coalition's hopes for victory, after giving a press conference in which he exposed a significant accounting error in the costings the Liberal Party had released to demonstrate how its economic policies would be paid for. Then-Opposition Leader John Howard accepted the error, and subsequent opinion polling reported that the mistake greatly contributed to Labor's vote in what proved to be a landslide victory.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating's later tenure as treasurer was heavily criticised by some for consistently high interest rates, which Keating argued was necessary to reduce economic growth gradually so that demand for imports did not grow out of control. Throughout the 1980s, both the global and Australian economies grew quickly, and by the late 1980s, inflation had grown to around 9%. By 1988, the Reserve Bank of Australia began tightening monetary policy, and household interest rates peaked at 18%. It is often said that the bank was too slow in easing monetary policy, and that this ultimately led to a recession. In private, Keating had argued for rates to rise earlier than they did, and fall sooner, although his view was at odds with the Reserve Bank and his Treasury colleagues. Publicly, Hawke and Keating had said there would be no recession – or that there would be a "soft landing" – but this changed when Keating announced the country was indeed in recession in 1990, several months after the Hawke Government had won an unprecedented fourth consecutive term in office. Announcing the recession, Keating memorably stated that the recession was a "recession Australia had to have". The remark was referred to by political journalist Paul Kelly as "perhaps the most stupid remark of Keating's career, and it nearly cost him the Prime Ministership." Kelly did also concede that, "...however, it is largely true that the boom begat the recession."


title: Paul Keating

text: The economic reform package throughout the 1980s has been claimed by numerous economic commentators and journalists to have been the basis for an unprecedentedly long period of economic growth, with Australia's gross domestic product increasing unbroken every year for 30 years, and the end of chronic inflation and balance of payments difficulties, along with the increasingly globalised domestic economy, enabling long periods of stability and growth.


title: Paul Keating

text: At the end of 1988, Keating, who had long believed that he would succeed Hawke as prime minister, began to put pressure on Hawke to retire in the new year. Hawke rejected this advice, but reached a secret agreement with Keating that he would remain as leader through to the 1990 election, and that he would resign in Keating's favour shortly after the election, which he convinced Keating he could win. Hawke subsequently won that election, albeit narrowly, and appointed Keating his deputy prime minister to replace the retiring Lionel Bowen. However, by the end of 1990, frustrated at the lack of any indication from Hawke as to when he might retire, Keating delivered a provocative speech questioning the direction of the government. As a result, Hawke told Keating he would renege on the deal on the basis that Keating had been publicly disloyal.


title: Paul Keating

text: Although tensions between the two remained private for some time, Keating eventually resigned from the Cabinet in June 1991 and challenged for the leadership. Hawke won the ballot by 66 votes to 44, and in a press statement afterwards Keating declared that he had fired his "one shot" as regards the leadership. Publicly, at least, this seemed to spell the end of his leadership ambitions. Having failed to defeat Hawke, Keating realised that events would have to move very much in his favour for a second challenge to be even possible, and he strongly considered retiring from politics altogether. However, Hawke's leadership was regarded by many as being "wounded" as a result of losing his long-term political partner and the growing confidence of the Liberal-National Coalition under the new leadership of John Hewson. After Hawke was forced to sack John Kerin, the man appointed to replace Keating as treasurer, for a public gaffe in attempting to combat the Coalition's new 'Fightback!' policy, Keating took the opportunity to challenge a second time in December 1991, this time emerging victorious by 56 votes to 51. Keating paid tribute to Hawke's nine years as prime minister, and stated that he would provide a robust challenge to Hewson.


title: Paul Keating

text: On becoming prime minister, Keating thought of becoming treasurer again, noting that state premiers had often served as their own treasurers, but decided against it.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating entered office with an extensive legislative agenda, including pursuing reconciliation with Australia's Indigenous population, deepening Australia's economic and cultural ties with Asia, and making Australia a republic. The addressing of these issues came to be known as Keating's "big picture".


title: Paul Keating

text: Shortly after Keating became prime minister, the High Court of Australia handed down a judgment in a long-running case on Indigenous land rights; the judgement would come to be known as "Mabo", and declared that a right to native title did exist in Australia, overturning terra nullius, but not clarifying exactly who had the right to access the title. Keating led the Government's response to the ruling, beginning a high-profile public campaign on raising awareness of the issue, and advocating repeatedly in favour of the judgment and for an expansion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land rights. On 10 December 1992, Keating delivered a major address which came to be known as the Redfern Park Speech on Aboriginal reconciliation, a speech which has since regularly been cited as among the greatest in Australian political history, in which he explicitly noted the responsibility of settler Australians for destroying much of Indigenous society.


title: Paul Keating

text: This work culminated in the passage of the Native Title Act in 1993, which "provide(d) a national system for the recognition and protection of native title and for its co-existence with the national land management system". As well as creating the legal field of native title, the Act established an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, who was required to prepare an annual report to the Attorney-General on the operation of the Native Title Act and its effect on the exercise and enjoyment of human rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and to report, when requested by the attorney-general, on any other matter relating to the rights of Indigenous people under the Act.


title: Paul Keating

text: Elsewhere in domestic policy, Keating established and promoted the first Commonwealth cultural policy, known as 'Creative Nation'. The policy allocated AU$250 million over four years to promote the cultural and creative arts sectors in Australia. Keating had frequently espoused the benefits of the arts in public, and used the policy as an opportunity to develop the Australian cultural sector. During the Keating government, mandatory detention for asylum seekers was also introduced for the first time.


title: Paul Keating

text: Arguably Keating's most far-reaching achievement as prime minister was the full introduction of the National Superannuation Scheme, implemented to address Australia's long-term problem of chronically low national savings. This initiative built on policies that Keating had pursued whilst treasurer, and was aimed at ensuring that most Australians would have enough money to retire. In 1992, the compulsory employer contribution scheme became a part of a wider reform package addressing this retirement income dilemma. It had been demonstrated that Australia, along with many other Western nations, would experience a major demographic shift in the coming decades, due to ageing population, and it was claimed that this would result in increased pension payments that would place an unaffordable strain on the Australian economy.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating's solution was a "three pillars" approach to retirement income, requiring compulsory employer contributions to superannuation funds, permitting further contributions to superannuation funds and other investments, and introducing, where this was insufficient, a safety net consisting of a means-tested government-funded age pension. The compulsory employer contributions were branded "Superannuation Guarantee" (SG) contributions. As a result of this policy, along with the gradual increases in the minimum contribution amount, Australia grew to become the fourth largest holder of pension fund assets in the world, with a balance of AU$3.3 trillion in superannuation assets at the end of the June 2022 quarter.


title: Paul Keating

text: In the aftermath of the 1990 recession, Keating appointed his close ally John Dawkins as treasurer, and together the two developed an economic package to counter the Liberal-National Coalition's 'Fightback!' proposals; this package came to be known as 'One Nation', and involved using funding from the budget surplus to produce new welfare-to-work programmes, as well as introducing a new degree of competition within the telecommunications and communications industries and creating the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA). 'One Nation' also proposed a series of further tax cuts for middle-income workers coming in two tranches, in 1993 and 1995, although these would later be deferred to 1995 and 1998, a move which cost the Government considerable political support among the public. A further major economic policy development was the introduction of an enterprise bargaining scheme as part of the final stage of the Prices and Incomes Accord, intended to allow for greater flexibility and economies of scale within industrial wage arbitration, although much of this was curtailed by the Howard Government after 1996.


title: Paul Keating

text: Throughout his time as prime minister, Keating took a number of steps to strengthen and develop bilateral links with Australia's closest neighbours; he frequently said that there was no country in the world that was more important to Australia than Indonesia, and undertook his first overseas visit to the country, becoming the first Australian prime minister to do so. Keating made a conscious effort to develop a personal relationship with Indonesian President Suharto, and to include Indonesia in multilateral forums attended by Australia. Keating's friendship with Suharto was criticised by human rights activists supportive of East Timorese independence, and by Nobel Peace Prize winner José Ramos-Horta. The Keating Government's cooperation with the Indonesian military, and the signing of the Timor Gap Treaty, were also strongly criticised by these same groups. It was alleged by some that Keating was overlooking alleged human rights abuses by the Indonesian government as part of his effort to dramatically increase Australia's cultural, diplomatic and economic ties with Asia.


title: Paul Keating

text: Following the creation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Forum by Bob Hawke, Keating developed the idea further, winning the support in 1993 of recently elected US President Bill Clinton and Chinese Premier Li Peng to expand APEC to a full Leaders' Meeting. This led to APEC becoming one of the most significant high-level international summits, and at the 1994 APEC Leaders' Meeting, hosted by Indonesia, members agreed to the Keating Government's proposals for what became known as the Bogor Declaration, which set targets for a significant increase in free trade and investment between industrialised APEC countries by 2010 and between developing APEC countries by 2020. In December 1993, Keating became involved in a diplomatic incident with Malaysia when he described Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad as "recalcitrant". The incident occurred after Mahathir refused to attend the 1993 APEC summit. Keating said, ""APEC is bigger than all of us – Australia, the U.S. and Malaysia, and Dr. Mahathir and any other recalcitrants."" The translation of the word "recalcitrant" into Malaysian rendered the word a more egregious insult, and Mahathir demanded an apology from Keating, threatening to reduce diplomatic ties and trade drastically with Australia, which became an enormous concern to Australian exporters. Some Malaysian officials talked of launching a "Buy Australian Last" campaign; Keating subsequently apologised to Mahathir over the remark.


title: Paul Keating

text: As prime minister, Keating maintained his aggressive debating style. When asked by Opposition Leader John Hewson why he would not call an early election, Keating replied, "because I want to do you slowly." He referred to the Liberal Party as "a motley, dishonest crew", and the National Party as "dummies and dimwits; desperadoes". During an opposition debate that sought to censure Keating, he described being attacked by Peter Costello as "like being flogged with warm lettuce". Despite this renewed attack on the Opposition, and a busy legislative agenda, many commentators predicted that the 1993 election was "unwinnable" for Labor.


title: Paul Keating

text: During the campaign, Keating focused a great amount of effort on attacking the Coalition's proposed goods and services tax (GST), arguing that it would prove "a dead weight" on the economy, and stating that "every time you put your hand in your pocket, Dr. Hewson's will be in there with you". He was helped by Hewson struggling towards the end of the campaign to explain exactly which products would have the GST levied on them, and which would not. Having begun the campaign far behind the Coalition in opinion polls, on 13 March Keating led Labor to an unexpected and record-breaking fifth consecutive election victory, picking up a two-seat swing. The speech Keating delivered at the victory celebration has been described as one of the great Labor speeches. Opening with "This is a victory for the true believers; the men and women of Australia who, in difficult times, have kept the faith", the speech has been described as providing a source of inspiration for Labor Party faithful to the present day.


title: Paul Keating

text: Like Hawke before him, Keating was able to benefit from disunity in the Liberal Party. Fourteen months after the March 1993 election, John Hewson was replaced as Liberal Leader by Alexander Downer, whose leadership was quickly marred by gaffes and controversies within months. Keating routinely succeeded in outwitting Downer within Parliament, and in early 1995, Downer resigned to be replaced by John Howard, who had previously led the Liberals from 1985 to 1989. Howard was able to give the Coalition renewed momentum after Labor lost the seat of Canberra in a by-election. In contrast to Hewson, Howard adopted a "small target" campaign strategy for the 1996 election, publicly committing to keep numerous Labor reforms such as Medicare, and defusing the republic issue by promising to hold a constitutional convention. This combined with a narrative of "time for a change" led to a heavy defeat for the Keating Government on 2 March 1996, suffering a five percent two party preferred swing and losing 29 seats, making it the second-worst defeat of a sitting government in Australian history. Keating announced he would retire as Labor Leader and from Parliament, and tendered his resignation as prime minister on 11 March, 13 years to the day after Bob Hawke had first taken office.


title: Paul Keating

text: After leaving Parliament in 1996, Keating moved to the affluent eastern Sydney suburb of Woollahra. He accepted appointment as a director for various companies, and also became a senior adviser to Lazard, an investment banking firm. Keating was also appointed to the advisory council to the Chinese Government Development Bank. He was also appointed a visiting professor of public policy at the University of New South Wales and was awarded honorary doctorates in law from Keio University in Tokyo (1995), the National University of Singapore (1999), the University of New South Wales (2003) and Macquarie University (2012). In 1997, Keating declined appointment in the Australia Day Honours as a Companion of the Order of Australia, an honour which has been offered to all former prime ministers since the modern Australian Honours System was introduced in 1975. On his refusal, Keating expressed that he had long believed honours should be reserved for those whose work in the community went unrecognised and that having been prime minister was sufficient public recognition.


title: Paul Keating

text: In 2000, he published his first book since leaving office, "Engagement: Australia Faces the Asia-Pacific", which focused on foreign policy during his time as prime minister. In 2002, Keating's former speechwriter and adviser, Don Watson, published "". The book first drew criticism from Keating's by then-estranged wife, Annita Keating, who said that it understated her contribution, a complaint Watson rejected. Keating himself was so unhappy with the book that it brought the two men's friendship to an abrupt end.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating initially avoided public political comment during the Howard Government, although made occasional speeches criticising his successor's social policies. Ahead of the 2007 election, Keating joined former Labor Prime Ministers Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke to campaign against Howard, describing Howard as a "desiccated coconut" who was "Araldited to the seat", as an "...old antediluvian 19th century person who wanted to stomp forever...on ordinary people's rights to organise themselves at work...he's a pre-Copernican obscurantist". He also described Howard's deputy, Peter Costello, as being "all tip and no iceberg" when referring to an alleged pact made by Howard to hand the leadership over to Costello after two terms.


title: Paul Keating

text: In February 2008, after Labor's victory in the 2007 election, Keating joined former prime ministers Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke in Parliament House to witness new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd deliver the National Apology to the Stolen Generations. In August 2008, he spoke at the book launch of "Unfinished Business: Paul Keating's Interrupted Revolution", authored by economist David Love. Among the topics discussed during the launch were the need to increase compulsory superannuation contributions, as well as to restore incentives for people to receive their superannuation payments in annuities.


title: Paul Keating

text: In 2013, Keating took part in a series of four-hour-long interviews with Kerry O'Brien which were broadcast on the ABC in November of that year. The series covered Keating's early life, his entry into Parliament, his years as treasurer and prime minister, and canvassing his academic, musical and artistic interests, economic and cultural vision for Australia, and commitment to Australia's integration into Asia. O'Brien used these conversations as the basis for a 2014 book "Keating: The Interviews". Keating repeatedly declared he would not write a memoir, so his cooperation with O'Brien was perceived as the closest he would come to producing an autobiography. In 2016, Troy Bramston, a journalist for "The Australian" and a political historian, wrote an unauthorised biography that Keating cooperated with titled "Paul Keating: The Big-Picture Leader". Bramston was given full access to Keating's personal papers, was granted a series of interviews with Keating and also interviewed more than 100 other people. It was described as the "authoritative" and "definitive" Keating biography written by a "first class" political historian.


title: Paul Keating

text: During the 2015 New South Wales state election, Keating gave his support for the privatistion stance of the Liberal government and slammed the labor party on its Anti privatisation postion.


title: Paul Keating

text: In 2019, during campaigning for that year's federal election, Keating spoke out against the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation by calling them "nutters." His remarks attracted media criticism, and Labor Leader Bill Shorten distanced himself from Keating's views. Keating later issued a joint statement with Bob Hawke endorsing Labor's economic plan as part of the election campaign, and condemning the Liberal Party for "completely [giving] up the economic reform agenda". They stated that "Shorten's Labor is the only party of government focused on the need to modernise the economy to deal with the major challenge of our time: human induced climate change"; it was the first joint press statement released by the two since 1991. After Hawke's death in the same month, Keating gave an address at Hawke's state memorial service at Sydney Opera House on 14 June, where he reflected on the "great friendship and partnership" the two had enjoyed.


title: Paul Keating

text: In September 2021, following the announcement of the AUKUS trilateral military alliance between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, Keating criticised the alliance, saying that "Australia turns its back on the 21st century, the century of Asia, for the jaded and faded Anglosphere" and the deal would be "locking the country and its military forces into the force structure of the United States by acquiring US submarines". Keating went on to criticize Labor's opposition foreign affairs spokesperson Penny Wong, accusing the Labor opposition of being complicit with the Liberal government in "false representation of China’s foreign policy". His comments were criticised by Labor MPs Anthony Byrne and Peter Khalil. In January 2022, Keating accused British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss of making "demented" comments about Chinese military aggression in the Pacific, saying that "Britain suffers delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation."


title: Paul Keating

text: In 1976, Keating married Annita van Iersel, a Dutch-born flight attendant for Alitalia. They had four children, who spent some of their teenage years in The Lodge, the prime minister's official residence in Canberra. The couple separated in November 1998. While they did not formally divorce until 2008, Annita had resumed her maiden name long before then. Before his marriage to van Iersel, Keating had in 1972 announced his engagement to fashion consultant Kristine Kennedy, but they did not marry. Since 1998, Keating's partner has been the actress Julieanne Newbould. Keating's daughter, Katherine Keating, is a former adviser to former New South Wales Minister Craig Knowles as well as former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr.


title: Paul Keating

text: In the early 1970s, Keating moved from the family home in Bankstown when he purchased a new brick-veneer house at 12 Gerard Avenue, Condell Park, two doors up from his parents' new home at No. 8 Gerard Avenue. This became the family home after his marriage in 1976 until 1983, when the Keatings sold the property for $123,000 and moved to a one-storey rental house in the Canberra suburb of Red Hill to be closer to work.


title: Paul Keating

text: Keating's interests include the music of Gustav Mahler and collecting French antique clocks. He currently resides in Potts Point, in inner-city Sydney, and has a holiday home on the Hawkesbury River.


title: Paul Keating

text: In 2005, "Keating!", a musical based on Keating's life and career, premiered at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It went on to run until 2010, winning a number of awards and being broadcast on ABC2.


title: Nude (art)

text: The nude, as a form of visual art that focuses on the unclothed human figure, is an enduring tradition in Western art. It was a preoccupation of Ancient Greek art, and after a semi-dormant period in the Middle Ages returned to a central position with the Renaissance. Unclothed figures often also play a part in other types of art, such as history painting, including allegorical and religious art, portraiture, or the decorative arts. From prehistory to the earliest civilizations, nude female figures are generally understood to be symbols of fertility or well-being.


title: Nude (art)

text: In India, the Khajuraho Group of Monuments built between 950 and 1050 CE are known for their erotic sculptures, which comprise about 10% of the temple decorations. Japanese prints are one of the few non-western traditions that can be called nudes, but the activity of communal bathing in Japan is portrayed as just another social activity, without the significance placed upon the lack of clothing that exists in the West. Through each era, the nude has reflected changes in cultural attitudes regarding sexuality, gender roles, and social structure.


title: Nude (art)

text: One often cited book on the nude in art history is "The Nude: a Study in Ideal Form" by Lord Kenneth Clark, first published in 1956. The introductory chapter makes (though does not originate) the often-quoted distinction between the naked body and the nude. Clark states that to be naked is to be deprived of clothes, and implies embarrassment and shame, while a nude, as a work of art, has no such connotations.


title: Nude (art)

text: One of the defining characteristics of the modern era in art was the blurring of the line between the naked and the nude. This likely first occurred with the painting "The Nude Maja" (1797) by Goya, which in 1815 drew the attention of the Spanish Inquisition. The shocking elements were that it showed a particular model in a contemporary setting, with pubic hair rather than the smooth perfection of goddesses and nymphs, who returned the gaze of the viewer rather than looking away. Some of the same characteristics were shocking almost 70 years later when Manet exhibited his "Olympia", not because of religious issues, but because of its modernity. Rather than being a timeless Odalisque that could be safely viewed with detachment, Manet's image was assumed to be of a prostitute of that time, perhaps referencing the male viewers' own sexual practices.


title: Nude (art)

text: The meaning of any image of the unclothed human body depends upon its being placed in a cultural context. In Western culture, the contexts generally recognized are "art", "pornography", and "information". Viewers easily identify some images as belonging to one category, while other images are ambiguous. The 21st century may have created a fourth category, the commodified nude, which intentionally uses ambiguity to attract attention for commercial purposes.


title: Nude (art)

text: With regard to the distinction between art and pornography, Kenneth Clark noted that sexuality was part of the attraction to the nude as a subject of art, stating "no nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling, even though it be only the faintest shadow—and if it does not do so it is bad art and false morals". According to Clark, the explicit temple sculptures of tenth-century India "are great works of art because their eroticism is part of their whole philosophy". Great art can contain significant sexual content without being obscene.


title: Nude (art)

text: However, in the United States nudity in art has sometimes been a controversial subject when public funding and display in certain venues brings the work to the attention of the general public. Puritan history continues to impact the selection of artwork shown in museums and galleries. At the same time that any nude may be suspect in the view of many patrons and the public, art critics may reject work that is not cutting edge. Relatively tame nudes tend to be shown in museums, while works with shock value are shown in commercial galleries. The art world has devalued simple beauty and pleasure, although these values are present in art from the past and in some contemporary works.


title: Nude (art)

text: When school groups visit museums, there are inevitable questions that teachers or tour leaders must be prepared to answer. The basic advice is to give matter-of-fact answers emphasizing the differences between art and other images, the universality of the human body, and the values and emotions expressed in the works.


title: Nude (art)

text: Art historian and author Frances Borzello writes that contemporary artists are no longer interested in the ideals and traditions of the past, but confront the viewer with all the sexuality, discomfort and anxiety that the unclothed body may express, perhaps eliminating the distinction between the naked and the nude. Performance art takes the final step by presenting actual naked bodies as a work of art.


title: Nude (art)

text: The nude dates to the beginning of art with the female figures called Venus figurines from the Late Stone Age. In early historical times similar images represented fertility deities. When surveying the literature on the nude in art, there are differences between defining nakedness as the complete absence of clothing versus other states of undress. In early Christian art, particularly in references to images of Jesus, partial dress (a loincloth) was described as nakedness.


title: Nude (art)

text: Nude images in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt reflect the attitudes toward nudity in these societies. At the time, being naked in social situations was a source of great embarrassment for anyone with higher social status this was not due to the connection between nudity and sexual impropriety, but rather it being indicative of low status or disgrace. Non-sexual, or functional nudity was common in early civilizations due to the climate. Children were generally naked until puberty, and public baths were attended nude by mixed gender groups. Those with low status not only slaves might be naked or, when clothed, would disrobe when necessary for strenuous work. Dancers, musicians, and acrobats would be nude while performing. Many nude images depicted these activities. Other nude images were symbolic, idealized images of warriors and goddesses; while gods where shown dressed to indicate their status. The figure depicted in the Burney Relief could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Mesopotamian goddess of sexual love and war. However, her bird-feet and accompanying owls have suggested to some a connection with Lilitu (called Lilith in the Bible), though seemingly not the usual demonic Lilitu.


title: Nude (art)

text: Nudity in Greek life was the exception in the ancient world. What had begun as a male initiation rite in the eighth century BCE became a "costume" in the Classical period. Complete nudity separated the civilized Greeks from the "barbarians" including Hebrews, Etruscans, and Gauls.


title: Nude (art)

text: The earliest Greek sculpture, from the early Bronze Age Cycladic civilization consists mainly of stylized male figures who are presumably nude. This is certainly the case for the kouros, a large standing figure of a male nude that was the mainstay of Archaic Greek sculpture. These first realistic sculptures of nude males depict nude youths who stand rigidly posed with one foot forward. By the 5th century BCE, Greek sculptors' mastery of anatomy resulted in greater naturalness and more varied poses. An important innovation was contrapposto—the asymmetrical posture of a figure standing with one leg bearing the body's weight and the other relaxed. An early example of this is Polykleitos' sculpture "Doryphoros" (c. 440 BCE).


title: Nude (art)

text: The Greek goddesses were initially sculpted with drapery rather than nude. The first free-standing, life-sized sculpture of an entirely nude woman was the "Aphrodite of Cnidus" created c. 360–340 BCE by Praxiteles. The female nude became much more common in the later Hellenistic period. In the convention of heroic nudity, gods and heroes were shown nude, while ordinary mortals were less likely to be so, though athletes and warriors in combat were often depicted nude. The nudes of Greco-Roman art are conceptually perfected ideal persons, each one a vision of health, youth, geometric clarity, and organic equilibrium. Kenneth Clark considered idealization the hallmark of true nudes, as opposed to more descriptive and less artful figures that he considered merely naked. His emphasis on idealization points up an essential issue: seductive and appealing as nudes in art may be, they are meant to stir the mind as well as the passions.


title: Nude (art)

text: Non-Western traditions of depicting nudes come from India and Japan, but the nude does not form an important aspect of Chinese art. Temple sculptures and cave paintings, some very explicit, are part of the Hindu tradition of the value of sexuality, and as in many warm climates partial or complete nudity was common in everyday life. Japan had a tradition of mixed communal bathing that existed until recently, and was often portrayed in woodcut prints.


title: Nude (art)

text: In the early twentieth century, artists in the Arab world used nudity in works that addressed their emergence from colonialism into a modern world.


title: Nude (art)

text: Christian attitudes cast doubt on the value of the human body, and the Christian emphasis on chastity and celibacy further discouraged depictions of nakedness, even in the few surviving Early Medieval survivals of secular art. Completely unclothed figures are rare in medieval art, the notable exceptions being Adam and Eve as recorded in the Book of Genesis and the damned in "Last Judgement" scenes anticipating the Sistine Chapel renderings. With these exceptions, the ideal forms of Greco-Roman nudes became largely lost, transformed into symbols of shame and sin, weakness and defenselessness. This was true not only in Western Europe, but also in Byzantine art. Increasingly, Christ was shown largely naked in scenes of his Passion, especially the Crucifixion, and even when glorified in heaven, to allow him to display the wounds his sufferings had involved. The Nursing Madonna and naked "Penitent Mary Magdalene", as well as the infant Jesus, whose penis was sometimes emphasized for theological reasons, are other exceptions with elements of nudity in medieval religious art.


title: Nude (art)

text: By the late medieval period female nudes intended to be attractive edged back into art, especially in the relatively private medium of the illuminated manuscript, and in classical contexts such as the Signs of the Zodiac and illustrations to Ovid. The shape of the female "Gothic nude" was very different from the classical ideal, with a long body shaped by gentle curves, a narrow chest and high waist, small round breasts, and a prominent bulge at the stomach. Male nudes tended to be slim and slight in figure, probably drawing on apprentices used as models, but were increasingly accurately observed.


title: Nude (art)

text: During the Renaissance, interest in the nude body in art was being rekindled after a thousand years. Toward the end of Greco-Roman antiquity, Christian doctrines of celibacy, chastity, and the devaluation of the flesh led to the declining interest of nudes for patrons, and thus for artists. Since the end of the ancient classical period, the unclothed body was only depicted in rare instances like renderings of Adam and Eve. Now, with the rise of Renaissance humanism, Renaissance artists were relishing opportunities to depict the unclothed body.


title: Nude (art)

text: The reinvigoration of classical culture in the Renaissance restored the nude to art. Donatello made two statues of the Biblical hero David, a symbol for the Republic of Florence: his first (in marble, 1408–1409) shows a clothed figure, but his second, probably of the 1440s, is the first freestanding statue of a nude since antiquity, several decades before Michelangelo's massive "David" (1501–1504). Nudes in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling reestablished a tradition of male nudes in depictions of Biblical stories; the subject of the martyrdom of the near-naked Saint Sebastian had already become highly popular. The monumental female nude returned to Western art in 1486 with "The Birth of Venus" by Sandro Botticelli for the Medici family, who also owned the classical Venus de' Medici, whose pose Botticelli adapted.


title: Nude (art)

text: Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506) is considered by art historians to have been a pivotal figure in the resurgence of nudes in art because of his love of the ancient classical world and how he incorporated classical principles of form into his creations.


title: Nude (art)

text: He is not the first to use classical influences in his work. However, few painters before him did this to the conspicuous degree and quality to which he did. He is known as a master of form, and his nudes are noteworthy because his style is influenced by his study of ancient classical sculpture and his knowledge of ancient classical Greek and Roman culture.


title: Nude (art)

text: The drawing of "St. James Led to His Execution" demonstrates that, early on, Mantegna did anatomical nude sketches in preparation for the Ovetari Chapel frescoes. This is the earliest known drawing by the artist.


title: Nude (art)

text: The "Dresden Venus" of Giorgione (c. 1510), also drawing on classical models, showed a reclining female nude in a landscape, beginning a long line of famous paintings including the "Venus of Urbino" (Titian, 1538), and the "Rokeby Venus" (Diego Velázquez, c. 1650). Although they reflect the proportions of ancient statuary, such figures as Titian's "Venus and the Lute Player" and "Venus of Urbino" highlight the sexuality of the female body rather than its ideal geometry. These works inspired countless reclining female nudes for centuries afterwards. In addition to adult male and female figures, the classical depiction of Eros became the model for the naked Christ child.


title: Nude (art)

text: Raphael in his later years is usually credited as the first artist to consistently use female models for the drawings of female figures, rather than studio apprentices or other boys with breasts added, who were previously used. Michelangelo's suspiciously boyish "Study of a Kneeling Nude Girl for The Entombment" (Louvre, c. 1500), which is usually said to be the first nude female figure study, predates this and is an example of how even figures who would be shown clothed in the final work were often worked out in nude studies, so that the form under the clothing was understood. The nude figure drawing or figure study of a live model rapidly became an important part of artistic practice and training, and remained so until the 20th century.


title: Nude (art)

text: In Baroque art, the continuing fascination with classical antiquity influenced artists to renew and expand their approach to the nude, but with more naturalistic, less idealized depictions, perhaps more frequently working from live models. Both genders are represented; the male in the form of heroes such as Hercules and Samson, and female in the form of Venus and the Three Graces. Peter Paul Rubens, who with evident delight painted women of generous figure and radiant flesh, gave his name to the adjective Rubenesque. While adopting the conventions of mythological and Biblical stories, Rembrandt's nudes were less idealized, and painted from life. In the later Baroque or Rococo period, a more decorative and playful style emerged, exemplified by François Boucher's "Venus Consoling Love", likely commissioned by Madame Pompadour.


title: Nude (art)

text: Goya's "Nude Maja" represent a break with the classical, showing a particular woman of his time, with pubic hair and a look directed at the viewer, rather than an allusion to nymphs or goddesses.


title: Nude (art)

text: In the 19th century the Orientalism movement added another reclining female nude to the possible subjects of European paintings, the odalisque, a slave or harem girl. One of the most famous was "The Grande Odalisque" painted by Ingres in 1814. The annual glut of paintings of idealized nude women in the Paris Salon was satirized by Honoré Daumier in an 1864 lithograph with the caption "This year Venuses again... always Venuses!... as if there really were women built like that!" While Europe accepted the nude in art, America was restrictive of sexuality, which sometimes included criticism or censorship of painting, even those that depicted classical or biblical subjects.


title: Nude (art)

text: In the later nineteenth century, academic painters continued with classical themes, but were challenged by the Impressionists. While the composition is compared to Titian and Giogione, Édouard Manet shocked the public of his time by painting nude women in contemporary situation in his "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe" (1863); and although the pose of his "Olympia" (1865) is said to derive from the Venus of Urbino by Titian, the public saw a prostitute. Gustave Courbet similarly earned criticism for portraying in his "Woman with a Parrot" a naked prostitute without vestige of goddess or nymph.


title: Nude (art)

text: Edgar Degas painted many nudes of women in ordinary circumstances, such as taking a bath. Auguste Rodin challenged classical canons of idealization in his expressively distorted Adam. With the invention of photography, artists began using the new medium as a source for paintings, Eugène Delacroix being one of the first.